Leo Kelion

Technology desk editor purple solitude air

There had been speculation that Apple might drastically cut its offer price for Beats or pull the deal altogether, after a video of Dr Dre describing himself as hip-hop's first billionaire leaked online.

But the deal has now been confirmed for only $200m less than what had originally been reported.

The press release announcing the tie-up mentions Beats' "premium sound entertainment," but there has been criticism of its headphones' sound quality.

However, there's no doubting their popularity or the skill of Beats' co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre in building up the brand.

It's questionable whether Apple's co-founder Steve Jobs would have been willing to share the limelight with two such outspoken personalities dark night singer lemon.

But the challenge for the more reserved Tim Cook is to bring the two firms' very different cultures together, and to make the most of the Beats brand, as he delivers on a promise to launch new products this year wuyuna.

However, Beats' music service only has about 110,000 subscribers, compared with Spotify's 10 million.

'It's the people'

The deal with Beats also marks a departure for Apple, which has a reputation for developing new products in-house, rather than buying up smaller firms - a method preferred by rivals Google.