Seriously, What Is Apple Doing with Beats Headphones? | Opinion

Beats Studio Headphones Credit: Tharnapoom Voranavin / Shutterstock
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Beats is a great brand. Since Apple acquired it in 2014, the company has launched many excellent products, but today I am going to focus on two main product lines – Studio and Solo headphones.

In October 2016, Apple released the Beats Solo3 for $299. These were great on-ear headphones that featured the Apple W1 chip – the same one that’s in the original AirPods.

A year later, in October 2017, the Beats Studio3 were released. A pair of over-ear headphones with “Pure Active Noise Cancellation” technology, improved drivers, up to 40 hours of battery life without ANC, and better ventilation systems to make the ear cups cooler.

At that time they were amazing headphones, I bought them and could not be happier with my purchase. Then, in October 2019, Apple announced the Beats Solo Pro, which at $299 was a more than decent upgrade from the Solo3. Much better build quality, Active Noise Cancellation, reasonable improvements in sound quality, etc. I actually thought about buying them, but on-ear headphones are not for me.

Since that release, Beats has done some things that I really do not understand. For example, you can still buy the Solo3 on Apple’s website, which is extremely strange since these are headphones from 2016. But then it got even worse.

What’s Going on with Beats?

Just a few weeks ago, Apple decided to discontinue certain Beats products: The Beats EP, the PowerBeats, and the Beats Solo Pro.

To this day, it’s still possible to buy the Beats Solo3 directly from Apple, even though the Solo Pro, which was actually an upgrade from the Solo3, has been discontinued.

You can still buy the Beats Pro for $399. I don’t even know when these were announced, even though I spent almost half an hour researching. But I guarantee you they are more than five years old.

The Beats Studio3 are still listed for the same $349 price they were back in 2017. That is absolute bull.

In summary, the most recent pair of over-ear Beats headphones you can buy directly from Apple are the Beats Studio3, which date back to 2017 and are listed for the same $349 price as when they were released.

The second youngest pair are the Solo3. They were released back in 2016 and cost $199. And finally, a pair of headphones for $399 that were released sometime between 2010 and 2015.

They do not even try to compete with Bose or Sony. Actually, that’s kind of sad.

Apple makes amazing products. Love it or hate it, the iPhone 13 Pro Max is the best smartphone ever released. The iPad Pro is the best tablet in the world, the Apple Watch is the best smartwatch on the market, and the new MacBook Pros are the best laptops in the world at this price point. The AirPods Max are the best wireless over-ear headphones ever.

Apple dominates the world with its products, but the company does a poor job with Beats.

To verify this, I personally purchased a brand new pair of Beats Studio3 directly from the Apple Store. And compared to other products I have used, including my AirPods Pro, they are junk. Needless to say, I returned them.

It’s really frustrating to see what Apple has done to Beats.

They have taken the most valuable music brand in the world and turned it into a second-tier brand with a few good earbuds and outdated headphones.

I want Apple to do with Beats what they did with AirPods.

If “AirPods” were a business, they would have made more money in 2019 than Twitter, Snapchat, Shopify, and Spotify combined. Beats could do that too, but Apple just decided against it. Let’s hope the top brass at Apple change their minds.

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