Apple buys Beats, will the white earbuds become red?

Whenever any big company buys another big company, it’s news, and this week that news goes to Apple, who has spent $3 billion to buy Beats by Dre.

Hip-hop’s Dr. Dre has practically kickstarted the whole concept behind celebrity headphones, breathing life into a product range that is now occupied by the likes of Ludacris, 50 Cent, Quincy Jones, One Direction, DJ Tiesto, Tim McGraw, Daft Punk, Kiss, Earth Wind and Fire, and a whole bunch of others not immediately connected to Dre’s Beats brand, which itself includes Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, and Lady Gaga.

But the Beats by Dre brand is a little bigger than just headphones alone, with audio engineering factored into the picture, as well. You can find the Beats Audio expertise used in last year’s HTC One, and many of HP’s computers, as well as an all-you-can-eat music service in America run by the brand.

With all of that, Beats has amassed a reasonably large slice of the audio industry around the world, and in the space of around five years, so it comes as no surprise that Apple has taken an interest.

In fact, Apple’s interest is so big that the company that created the music gadget sensation that is the iPod has decided to buy Beats.

“Music is such an important part of Apple’s DNA and always will be,” said Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services at Apple.

“The addition of Beats will make our music lineup even better, from free streaming with iTunes Radio to a world-class subscription service in Beats, and of course buying music from the iTunes Store as customers have loved to do for years.”

The move will cost Apple around $3 billion USD, and will no doubt help Apple have a renewed push in the audio in its devices.

We’re not sure it needs it, mind you, as Apple’s audio has always been one of the better aspects of its devices, but we’re really curious as to what Beats will bring.

For instance, will we see Beats branded earbuds or tweaked headphones make their way out from Apple?

One wonders if there will now be a “Beats Audio” mode on Apple’s iPhone and iPad, a setting which could fiddle with the equaliser and make the audio sound “the way the artist intended,” a statement which has long been a general message of the Beats Audio products.

Time will tell for any of these, and we suspect only Apple and Beats knows what will happen, but don’t be surprised if the next iPhone suddenly starts featuring that Beats logo somewhere on its body or in its software. We sure won’t.