Apple launched the new version of the much-beloved Beats Pill just a few weeks ago. After the product was discontinued back in 2022 and hope was lost that the company would bring the product back, Beats went ahead and released what is arguably the best portable speaker on the market.
While that was great and I am about ready to sell my Sonos Roam to pick up the new Beats Pill instead, a lot of us wondered why — especially if Apple was planning to release a new model anyway — it discontinued the Beats Pill+ back in 2022? Well, it looks like we finally have an answer.
In an interview with Wallpaper, Oliver Schusser, a Vice-President at Apple, talked about why the company decided to shut down the Beats Pill lineup altogether before resurrecting it a couple of years later.
Beats is playing the long game
When asked why the company retired the Beats Pill line if they were going to bring it back anyway, Schusser said that it actually had more to do with the headphone lineup than the speakers. The executive said that the company’s first focus was to re-invent the Beats headphone lineup, so the speaker was going to have to wait.
According to Schusser, “We decided to focus on that first before we were going to get to the Pill. Because we wanted to do something special with the Pill and completely re-architect and reimagine it. It wasn’t a case [of] let’s swap out one or two things. We really wanted a complete refresh… This is a completely new product inside, and outside as well.”
This definitely comes through in the product that the company released. The new Beats Pill gets a boost in sound quality and is lighter, and smaller, packs a USB-C port, gets up to 24 hours of battery life, and has the quick pairing you would expect with your iPhone.
The new Beats Pill is available now for $149. I’m definitely picking one up. Goodbye, Sonos Roam.
