Apple and Beats Scrapped Sonos-Like Speakers After the Acquisition

According to a new report from Variety, Beats was working on a Sonos-like speaker prior to being acquired by Apple. The speaker was reportedly being designed to be a Wi-Fi connected device that could play music from services like Pandora and Spotify.

The news comes days after we learned that the new Apple Music streaming service will not be compatible with Sonos speakers. The product was reportedly scheduled for a late 2014 launch, however, it was scrapped after Apple acquired Beats.

The speakers would have incorporated Bluetooth alongside Wi-Fi and NFC to make music playback as seamless as possible when moving around the house. The report notes that the larger version speaker would have been priced at $750.

Beats was looking to build the speaker technology from scratch, but ran into many problems along the way. The company reportedly had to switch chipset manufacturers, which delayed the project multiple times. When Apple bought Beats and they saw the issues, the company decided to stop the project.

The report also notes that the project may not be killed completely. Apple may have just put the project on the back shelf for a while. It is still unclear whether or not Apple will continue the project in the future.