Apple Hired Veteran HTC Designer to Lead Beats Product Design

While Apple’s quickly growing catalog of audio offerings gave rise to rumours of the Beats by Dre brand being killed off last year, the tech giant was actually working behind the scenes to bring aboard renowned Android hardware designer Scott Croyle to lead the design efforts at its audio products subsidiary — reports 9to5Mac.

Apple acquired Beats Electronics back in 2014, and has religiously invested in its hardware division since then. That is precisely why it makes no sense for the company to discontinue the Beats brand, despite now making products that compete in the same market.

Knowing the iPhone maker, it will use this opportunity to claim an even larger chunk of the consumer audio products business by using both of its brands to target different segments and price points within the same market.

Apple was quick to put last year’s rumours of Beats’ demise to rest, launching new, more budget-oriented Beats products with the same proprietary wireless chips its own AirPods line features soon after.

Apple hired Scott Croyle as a director last year, specifically to lead the hardware design efforts at Beats Electronics. Before joining Apple, Croyle designed Android hardware for a decade, captaining HTC’s design team at its height with products like the HTC One M7 and M8.

Ever since Apple acquired Beats, design firm Ammunition has been in charge of hardware design and brand identity. This arrangement will continue to stand, with Croyle acting as the nexus between Beats and Ammunition and spearheading design efforts on Apple’s behalf.

After a couple of relatively slow years, it looks like the Beats brand is gearing up to launch a number of new products. Rumours claim Beats might be working on new speaker products.

If we haven’t seen it already, we are all but guaranteed to see Croyle’s influence on the design of Beats hardware with upcoming products.

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