Beats Nearly Launched A Sonos-like Speaker Until Apple Killed It

One of the nifty features of WiFi-enabled speakers like Sonos is that you don’t need to connect it to a computer in order to enjoy music streaming services like Pandora or Spotify. That being said it seems that Beats had something similar planned, according to a report from Variety, at least until Apple came along and killed it.

The report claims that prior to Apple’s acquisition of the company, Beats was planning a Sonos-like speaker that would connect to the internet and play music directly from music streaming services, presumably with Beats Music being one of them. However instead of merely copying what Sonos has done, Beats was planning to take it to the next level.

Instead of relying just on WiFi to allow the speakers to work, the company was planning on adding Bluetooth and NFC connectivity as well. The idea was to create a seamless handover experience, like listening to music on your phone until you walk through the door, tap on your speakers, and begin playing it from there.

However once Apple came along, the project was shelved. Now according to Variety’s sources, there are some who believe that the project has been killed off for good. However there are others who tell Variety that the project has merely been put on hold, indicating that perhaps sometime down the road Apple could revisit it again.

It is unclear why Apple decided to kill/pause the project. Perhaps they saw it as a conflict of interest to its AirPlay protocol, or maybe they decided that after the failed iPod HiFi back in 2006 that maybe creating their own brand of speakers wasn’t the best idea, but either way would these Beats speakers be something you might have been interested in?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Audio, Rumors
Tags: beats, sonos, Speakers