If the Apple acquisition of Beats Electronics actually moves forward, co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine could see their grand introductions as Apple executives at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in early June. That’s at least according to Billboard, which has a great track record in covering the music industry…
Multiple reports have indicated that Dr. Dre and Iovine will take senior executive positions at the Cupertino-company, with this most recent report indicating that Iovine will take control of Apple’s music and relationship label strategies.
WWDC is typically a developer conference, and Apple does not seem poised to be announcing any new Beats/Music related products, so it’s unclear why Dr. Dre and Iovine would show up on the Moscone West stage. Perhaps just to introduce the company and talk a little about Apple’s new plans for music? While that seems far from certain, we could expect Apple to talk about a redesigned version of its Mac operating system and a new version of iOS with health tracking functionality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaxZ8XsN0xo
If Dr. Dre appeared during the WWDC keynote, this would be his second appearance at an Apple event. A decade ago, Dr. Dre video chatted live with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs about the iPod, iTunes, and the music industry.
The Apple-Beats deal is expected to be announced with a price-tag of $3.2 billion later this week, and the deal could take up to a couple months to officially close. While some industry watchers have been surprised about the potential Apple-Beats tie-up, several reports have profiled Iovine as potentially beneficial for Apple’s music ambitions and as someone who was a confidant of Steve Jobs.
WWDC takes place in San Francisco during the first week of June, with a keynote address expected to take place on Monday, June 2nd.
