Apple Reportedly Nearing Beats Acquisition ⇥ 9to5mac.com

9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman reiterates a paywalled Financial Times report:

According to the Financial Times, Apple is in late-stage talks with Beats to acquire the music streaming and headphone maker for a deal worth $3.2 billion. The deal could be announced as soon as next week, according to the report. The report adds the senior management from Beats will report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Beats headphone brand has been marketed by artist Dr. Dre for several years, and the company most recently launched a cross-platform streaming music service that has seem some success.

Three observations and a question:

1. Beats strikes me as the most Apple-y streaming music service. It has a definite angle and focus, and isn’t simply an enormous library of music. They’re also a streaming service without a free tier.
2. The report, according to Gurman, claims that Apple is looking at acquiring all of Beats, not just the Beats Music service — that would, apparently, include the headphone business.
3. Apple rarely acquires large, established businesses or services. (Remember the “is Apple going to acquire Twitter?” speculation?) While this wouldn’t be a first, it would be an anomaly.
4. Will Dr. Dre be an Apple employee? Because that would be fucking amazing.

Update: This is now being corroborated by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. Could just be one loudmouthed source, though.