Apple has issued a rare recall notice on one of its products today: the Beats Pill XL portable Bluetooth speaker sold in Apple Stores and various other retailers. The voluntary recall cites a situation in which the battery can overheat and become a fire hazard. Apple purchased Beats Electronics and Beats Music for some $3 billion in 2014. The current Beats Pill XL hardware has remained the same since Apple purchased the speaker company. Press release below:
To facilitate the voluntary recall, Apple has created a recall program for Beats Pill XL customers to return the Bluetooth speaker to Apple and receive a $325 Apple Store credit or payment. Apple has obviously pulled its supply of $299 Beats Pill XL speakers from its online store with inventory saying unavailable. The smaller $199 and under Beats Pill 2.0 Bluetooth speaker is not included in the recall.
The Beats Pill XL recall isn’t the first bit of trouble that Apple has ran into following its multibillion acquisition last year. Shortly after announcing plans to buy Beats Electronics, Bose filed a lawsuit against the company claiming patent infringement on noise canceling technology. For a short period, Bose headphones and speakers were removed from Apple Stores, although the two companies later settled and saw Bose products return to Apple’s retail channels.
According to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, about 220,000 Beats Pill XL speakers were sold in the US while about 11,000 units were sold in Canada. The CPSC notes that the recall follows “eight reports of incidents of the speakers overheating, including one with a burn to a consumer’s finger and one with damage to a consumer’s desk.”
Important Notice for Beats Pill XL Customers
Voluntary Recall of All Beats Pill XL Speakers
CUPERTINO, California—June 3, 2015—Apple® today announced a voluntary recall of Beats Pill® XL speakers, including a refund for customers. Apple has determined that, in rare cases, the battery in the Beats Pill XL may overheat and pose a fire safety risk. The recall does not affect any other Beats or Apple products.
Because customer safety is the company’s top priority, Apple is asking customers to stop using their Beats Pill XL speakers. Customers who purchased a Beats Pill XL speaker should visit www.apple.com/support/beats-pillxl-recall for details about how to return their product to Apple, and how to receive an Apple Store® credit or electronic payment of $325.
The Beats Pill XL can be identified by the Beats “b” logo on the speaker grille and the words “beats pill XL” on the handle. The product is sold in five colors: black, metallic sky, pink, titanium and white.
The Beats Pill XL was introduced by Beats by Dre in November 2013. Apple acquired Beats in 2014.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.
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That Beats purchase just keeps looking better and better.
The HBO NOW deal was a result of Beats. The upcoming deals for Apple Music and the TV service will also be largely attributed to Beats.
They did t buy beats for its headphones and speakers. This was a talent acquisition, which Apple does with a majority of the companies it acquires.
HBO Now is already heading to Google so hardly a win for Apple at three months exclusivity. Apple Music and TV are unproven and leaks sound as though they offer nothing compelling compared to already established competition. This acquisition was a dud.
Showtime is an exclusive to Apple.
Yeah again for three months….you actually think thats permanent?
They bought Beats because the profits for the headphones gives them the ability to recoup their money faster since Beats Music loses money. The HBO deal isn’t as big of a deal as you think. How many people/revenue did Apple really see over this short exclusive arrangement? It was only a short term advantage, but it’s not a big money maker since the advantage was only a matter of months.
Iovine is an idiot. Dre is useless. Remember, they had to deal with the Bose lawsuit, the Monster lawsuit, now a recall, and they are still bleeding money from the lack of Beats subscription service revenue/lack of profits.
Now they are spending/wasting more money on these idiot DJ’s to curate something that doesn’t really need curation. Can’t people find their own music by conducting searches? Seriously.
Apple, IMO, blew it when they bought Beats and hired Iovine and Dre. And now they are wasting even more money hiring these DJ’s and others.
The problem is that Tim Cook is simply relying on these idiots of the music industry since Tim Cook is essentially clueless about the music industry and who to partner with and who NOT to partner with. I wish they bought Tidal instead and had some intelligent people at Apple to run it. Tidal is Lossless and it sounds better, yes it’s more expensive, but at least they can cater to people that want and will pay more for lossless, because there is a lot of people with nice stereo systems that can afford lossless. Then they could offer Lossy for less money to those that don’t have as much money, so they could cater to several markets, which is what Tidal is doing. As far as the interface. Tidal is getting better. Who knows what Beats is going to look like. Now, as far as iTunes app, it sucks. It needs work and so far, whomever is in charge of iTunes app needs to go and they need to get new people that really understand the features they need to add, and how to make it a truly great media server software app that will cater to the average casual listener to those that have huge collections of high res files that will run it on a dedicated music server. Right now, iTunes is real weak in catering to the dedicated music server crowd since they have to purchase 3rd party apps that make it too kludgy.
Bottom line, the Beats acquisition has been riddled with issues and this is just one more they have to deal with.
Another super-long and super-obsessed diatribe from Rich ‘Stan’ Davis about his overall disdain for Tim Cook and hip hop. I’m just surprised you didn’t mention your love affair (Drake) by name in this article, like you did four times in previous posts.
Shut your computer off and go up for air. You’re amazingly obsessed with Tim Cook and Drake to the point where others said, correctly, that you’re creepy. Apple is doing just fine if you haven’t noticed; however, I’m sure all of your emails and letters to CEO Cook and your multi page posts here are being taken under consideration and they’ll hire you in no time. That way you can be closer to Timmy.
I liked my Pill XL and I hate to return it. Best sounding compact speaker I’ve heard and had lots of nicely polished touches. I liked the style too. Compact and easy to carry out to the back yard or beach. I hope Apple resolves the problem and puts them back on the market.