Hasta La Gadget!

 A well-placed source has confirmed rumors that Apple’s acquisition of Beats “is happening” but was close to falling apart multiple times. The source said with “70% certainty” that Apple’s planned multi-billion-dollar acquisition of headphone maker Beats will go through. But Apple isn’t buying Beats for the technology; it’s buying the… Read More

After a year of hype, Beats Music is finally here, and if it has a definitive pitch, the company’s frenetic, towheaded CEO Ian Rogers served it to me over blaring punk music in a Lower East Side bar last week. "I’ve got [legendary producer] Jimmy Iovine calling me on the weekend and saying, "What the hell is this playlist?"

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One more time. Even if you wear earplugs, turn off the radio and stay away from noisy clubs, you know Daft Punk’s song ‘One More Time’. It’s one of those songs that seems to be inserted into the memory of every human who has existed since the year 2000. Here, EDM producer Sadowick Production reveals how Daft Punk made the song from a sample the French duo says they didn’t use. It’s quite shocking how easy it was to recreate.

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HTC and Beats have had a pretty long relationship together, with Beats earphones being bundled together with some HTC devices, and their software preinstalled in HTC phones to provide a better audio experience. However it seems that the relationship could soon be coming to an end, which we’re guessing could partly be due to HTC’s financial troubles, and the fact that Beats and HP have been enjoying a similar collaboration as well.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, they are claiming that Beats is looking to buy back HTC’s share in their company. The report states, “The moves come as the founders of Beats Electronics LLC—music mogul Jimmy Iovine and American hip-hop producer and artist Andre Young, better known as Dr. Dre—are broadening the company’s business from headphones to include speakers, audio systems in cars and consumer electronics and a soon-to-be-launched online streaming music service.”

If anything you might recall back in 2012 that the HTC and Beats brand could be parting ways, and while this was a rumor that was denied by HTC back then, assuming this report is true, it looks like things are coming round full circle! Until then do take it with a grain of salt.

Beats Rumored To Buy Back HTC’s Stake In Their Company original content from Ubergizmo.

Whether you like the company or not, people are snapping up Beats Electronics’ wares left and right. It’s no surprise then that Beats is looking to branch out into some new frontiers, and it may not want to do it without getting rid of some old baggage first. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Beats is considering buying out Taiwanese gadget maker HTC’s remaining stake in the company and is also trying to lock down a new investor to help fund its expansion into consumer electronics and auto tech.

At this point, there’s no word on how much such a deal would cost, or if HTC is even willing to sell. To really get a feel for the situation though, we need to do a little rewinding.

This whole sordid situation started back in August 2011 when HTC revealed that it acquired a majority stake (about 50.1%, to be specific) in Beats Audio, a deal that cost the Taiwanese company just north of $300 million. It wasn’t long until the first Beats Audio-powered smartphones started rolling off of HTC’s production lines, and since then just about every one of the company’s notable smartphones bore that familiar red logo somewhere on its body.

Of course, that relationship wasn’t without its rough patches. Between the moment HTC finalized its deal with Beats Audio and today, the company has been absolutely battered — sales revenue is down, profits are down, and more than a few pundits have already written the company off (or are close to doing it). The situation grew so grim that HTC found itself selling nearly half of its stake back to Beats Audio in mid-2012, which reportedly resulted in a net loss of about $4.8 million for the Taiwanese gadget maker.

What’s still unclear at this point is what this turn of events could mean for Beats Audio in smartphones going forward. If Beats indeed buys out HTC’s stake, it’s not inconceivable that other smartphone manufacturers could swoop in and license whatever Beats Audio assets the company originally made available to HTC. And for all we know, HTC may be one of them — it could just decide to fold Beats Audio into its phones like nothing ever happened, albeit without most favored nation status. It’s near-impossible to make a call there without a closer understanding of the agreement the two companies forged, but I wouldn’t expect the Beats Audio brand to remain dormant in the mobile space for very long (if at all).

But Beats’ bid for another investor comes at a pretty peculiar time. There’s little doubt that HTC wanted to lock up a partnership with Beats because of the marketing clout the brand would bring its mobile gadgets, and now Beats is looking for a way out just as HTC is trying to tap into another vein of star power to revitalizing its anemic marketing efforts. For better or worse, the company is spending nearly a billion dollars on a massive marketing push that will apparently see Hollywood hotshot Robert Downey Jr. spout nonsensical interpretations of the company’s name. I may be veering slightly into the realm of the hyperbolic, but HTC really can’t afford for this kooky new approach not to work. Couple that with the fact that a Beats buyback would be yet another sizable signifier of lost faith in HTC and things are starting to look seriously dire.

I’ve reached out to HTC for a comment on all this, but it’s pretty late and the company hasn’t yet responded at time of writing — I’ll update the post with a response if/when I get one.