Beats to build own smartphone, targets iTunes with home-grown app and has a TV in the pipeline?

Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre’s company, Beats, has penciled in plans for the future which will include a HTC-constructed smartphone. Since Beats is huge on music, they also want to come up with an iTunes killer, although it would be interesting to see just how that effort will pan out considering the Zune’s demise. As for the HTC-manufactured smartphone, you will not be able to find any HTC branding at all on the Android-powered device (but of course), where it will run on a custom user interface that was specially concocted for the Beats smartphone.

Not only that, Beats also looks towards the future by working on a TV launch, although the extremely low margins in the TV market would mean Beats will not embark on this adventure alone, but rather, hooking up with a manufacturer like Samsung in order to roll out a “TV with Beats connect.” The whole idea of entering the TV business was inspired by what Apple offered via their Apple TV, AirPlay and iTunes family, by extending your entertainment experience from a phone to a TV to a tablet and to a notebook.

As for the purported iTunes killer, it has been given the code name “Daisy”, but the battle against iTunes is definitely going to be a tough nut to crack, so something as soft as Daisy might not just have the fight in it to last in the long term. We would love to be wrong on this count though.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: beats, HTC