What you need to know
- Apple reportedly hired Scott Croyle to oversee Beats hardware development.
- The designer previously ran the design team for HTC.
The Jony Ive of HTC is at Apple to take Beats into the future.
As reported by 9to5Mac, Apple has hired Scott Croyle, who previously led the design team at HTC, to lead the company's Beats design team. Croyle is apparently the company's first in-house designer to oversee Beats product design.
Scott Croyle became a director at Apple last year after a decade of designing Android hardware. Croyle led HTC's design team at its peak with hits like the HTC One M7 and M8.Croyle joined Apple last year specifically to oversee Beats product design, 9to5Mac has learned. And while Beats has remained an Apple-owned brand that shares audio technology with AirPods, design firm Ammunition has continued to create the look of Beats hardware products and company identity.Our understanding is the relationship between Beats and Ammunition isn't changing. What's new is that Apple has selected the Android design veteran as the point person between Beats and Ammunition. It's hard to imagine that the influence of a designer of Croyle's caliber won't see its way into future Beats products.
According to the report, new Beats products are currently in the pipeline. While headphones are an obvious expectation, the company may unveil new speaker products.
So when can we expect to see Scott Croyle's touch on Beats hardware take shape if we haven't already? A source with knowledge of Beats design work tells us that the team has been actively studying speakers from other brands that are available today, and headphones are a focus, naturally.We're also told new products from Beats are currently in the pipeline. Hopefully this means more new headphone designs and the first speaker update since the 2015 Beats Pill+ are on the horizon.
There were rumors for a while that Apple may kill Beats altogether and roll the team into its AirPods and HomePod products. However, Beats has always been its own brand and created products that, while integrated with Apple's other hardware, also differentiated themselves from Apple's own audio products.
It sounds like Beats is healthy and, hopefully, we'll get to see what Croyle and team have been up to soon.
Bottom line: Though the sound quality leaves much to be desired, these $50 headphones give you all the convenience of Apple headphones that are $200 more expensive.
