The new Beats Pill: exclusive interview with Apple’s Oliver Schusser

Oliver Schusser, now 20 years into his Apple career, has travelled over from his base in Cupertino, California to London to discuss the relaunch of the company’s iconic portable speaker, the Beats Pill. It now comes with an elevated 'Ingress Protection' rating of IP67 for water- and dust-resistance, and a battery life that’s doubled from 12 to 24 hours. 'But most important was the sound performance,' says Jeff Bruksch (Head of Product Marketing, Beats), sitting alongside the German exec in Apple’s sprawling, super-luxe new UK offices within Battersea Power Station.

'With [preceding model] Pill+ we had dual woofers and dual tweeters, both circular shaped,' continues Bruksch, here to talk spec and tech while the boss gives more of a C-suite overview. 'We completely redesigned and reimagined that, with a single racetrack woofer [and] single tweeter that are much more competent and capable of louder sound, bigger sound, lower distortion. The single woofer itself displaces 1.9 times more air than the two woofers combined in the Pill+. They have stronger neodymium magnets. They give 20 per cent stronger motor force. Together that just gives us a lot more potential on the low end for better bass reproduction, cleaner bass reproduction.'

All of which comes ballyhooed by a flashy, larky new commercial, The Predicament, in which basketball legend LeBron James’ house party wakes up the neighbours by blasting Lil Wayne’s Grammy-winning 2008 banger ‘A Milli’ through one of Beats' lozenge-shaped speakers. The kicker: said neighbour is Lil Wayne. A champagne problem to promote a rebooted speaker that’s cheaper, lighter, louder and liveried in three ‘event’ colours: Matte Black, Statement Red and, oh yes, Champagne Gold.

But as befits Schusser’s wide-ranging role at Apple, where his beat is more than just Beats (his full job title is Apple VP of Apple Music, Apple TV+, Sports and Beats), this ardent Bayern Munich fan first wants to talk football.

'I just spent quite a bit of time in the city centre of Munich,' he says, a trip to the homeland that coincided with Germany inflicting a brutal defeat on Scotland in the opening match of the Euros. 'And that day, your fans were just really nice, wonderful fun,' he adds, offering this Scotsman a consolation goal I’ll gladly accept in lieu of any actual goals scored by our own players in the tournament.

'Then I was in Stuttgart when Germany played Spain. I know we’re not here to talk about football but I've never been sadder,' Schusser says ruefully of his country’s defeat in the quarter-finals. '[But] you can’t argue with the Spanish team.'

Well, quite.

Oliver Schusser on the Beats Pill and Apple's music strategy

Wallpaper*: On a happier note, this is the return of the Pill, ‘back and better than ever’ in your words. How and why was the Pill retired in 2021?

Oliver Schusser: We needed to do a lot of work. We look at Beats as a premium product company. We're in the headphone space. Our aspirations are to make the best headphones with the best technology. We needed to completely redesign and reimagine our entire headphone portfolio.

We decided to focus on that first before we were going to get to the Pill. Because we wanted to do something special with the Pill and completely re-architect and reimagine it. It wasn't a case [of] let's swap out one or two things. We really wanted a complete refresh… This is a completely new product inside, and outside as well.

W*: It's ten per cent lighter, and more portable. How did you get it so small without sacrificing sound quality?

OS: It really was about efficiency – efficiency of the acoustic components, efficiency of the structure. And [there’s] a lot more diligence around the design, manufacturing and implementation of all the components.

One of the things I want to make sure is understood is: we see ourselves as a premium brand. Obviously we're part of Apple and we have really incredible engineers working on these products. So we are obsessed about weight; making it as light as possible; making it as small as possible; making the battery life [longer] – 24-hour battery is incredible.

These are things that we pushed really hard for. Because we see ourselves on the premium side of the spectrum in the market. Even though our target audience tends to be a little younger, and people take the Pill on the beach and on the basketball court, these are high-quality products.

W*: You cast two megastars of sport and music in the new advertising spot for the Pill. What made LeBron James and Lil Wayne a good fit for this promotional campaign?

OS: First of all, we love both of them. They're both iconic. And they represent what Beats is all about, which is that synergy between sports and music. We have always worked in both of these worlds.

W*: We're now exactly ten years on from Apple buying Beats from Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine in a landmark deal reportedly worth $3 billion. What did Dre and Jimmy do that was so game-changing in the world of headphones?

OS: They built high-quality products and made them look really cool…. through music, artists and sports. I give them a lot of credit. And by the way, they built really iconic designs… Even though we're completely reimagining the products, and redesigning them inside, we're still relatively true to the original iconic designs, if you look at the Studio over-ear headphone. I go back to [that]: they created a really iconic brand and design form factor that, ten years later, is still as relevant and as cool as it used to be.

W*: Equally they, separately and together, brought with them unimpeachable kudos and credibility in the music world.

OS: Absolutely. Both of them, their roots are in high-quality music and sound. Both of them are obsessed like studio engineers [for whom] it's all about the sound. They created a team and a culture that really focused on making sure that they sound better than anything else.

That's really important. I go back to what I said about the premium segment... the focus is on making sure the new Solo 4 [headphone] sounds incredible. We have a dedicated studio set-up in Culver City, where we're based in LA. [For] the team [that] sits there, it's all about the sound. [With regards to that] there's no one better in the world than Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, who spent most of their lives in recording studios and [focused on] actually setting the bar as high as possible.

W*: In that ten-year period, what for you have been the key moments for Beats, in terms of developments, launches and partnerships?

OS: The last few years, we have been launching more products than in Beats history within the shortest amount of time. Beats obviously was born within the over-ear segment [of the headphone market]. But with the Beats Studio Buds, we went aggressively into the in-ear market. That's been a huge success out of the gate. And we've now upgraded the product, with a better version. Beats Fit Pro is an incredible product for athletes because they have the wingtip so they stay in your ear.

So just the pace of innovation in the last few years has been incredible. It's a combination of upgrading some of our iconic products, whether it's Studio or Solo [headphones], or now the Pill, or launching new products [such as] Beats Solo Buds, which is really an engineering wonder – incredible technology packed into the smallest headphone we've ever made for just £79.

W*: As the man who, when you were based in the UK, gave London the iTunes Festival, then the Apple Music Festival, could there be similar Beats live activity? For example: Beats by Beats – the Electronic Music Festival. You can have that idea for free.

OS: Ha ha! There could! And I would never rule anything out. We had a good run with the festival, 2007 to 2016. We then said we'd pause it. Ever since we've actually done a number of things. On Apple Music now we have a live series called Apple Music Live where, almost on a monthly basis, we have some of the big superstars in the world. These are not in one place. They're all over the world where we record them. They're mostly bespoke shows, all exclusive as a benefit to our subscribers. And we're always looking at new ideas and new ways.

I don't know whether we do our own festival. But we want to be where music is and culture is. That's definitely our place.

W*: You were able to get Elton John to perform in North London’s 1,500-capacity The Roundhouse in 2016. Apple’s ability to bring huge artists into smaller spaces is unparalleled. I think you should flex that muscle, because curation of live activity is invaluable to fans.

OS: Well, if you remember why we did the festival [it was] as the world was becoming more digital. As a company, we have music in our DNA. We're music fans. We wanted to make iTunes – and the same is [subsequently] true for Apple Music – a place made by fans, for fans. We wanted to be more than a spreadsheet of songs where you click, [pay] 79p, and it's in your library.

We wanted it to be alive. We wanted to show our curation. We wanted to have a discussion about taste, new music and everything. That was one of the reasons why we created the festival: to be a place that people can touch and feel [and have] this discussion and dialogue about – ‘Oh, they picked this artist over that artist...' That worked incredibly well.

And we're still trying to do that. We've got radio stations with 24/7 radio with Zane Lowe, Dotty and other [DJs]. We're still trying to do all sorts of versions of that. We think it's incredibly important [to remember that] music is about taste. It's about curation. It's about dialogue. We had a campaign a couple of months ago about the best 100 Albums of All Time. It had the same purpose: people aren't talking about albums anymore. People aren't really talking about music anymore the way they used to.

Which is really sad. If I went to a dinner party at Jeff's, I would look at his CD collection or vinyl collection and be like: 'Oh, wow, this guy likes Pink Floyd!' Then we would talk about that and be like: 'Oh my God, you have really old music tastes!' Stuff like that. So that was the origin of the festival idea.

W*: In a previous interview, in summer 2019, I asked you: ‘Where do you want to see, or want Apple Music to be, in five years?’ You replied: ‘We want to be the best in what we do. And that means, obviously, we'll continue to invest in the product and make sure we're innovative and provide our customers with the best experience. We want to invest in our editorial and content, in our relationships with the industry – and, again, whether that's the songwriters, or music publishers, or the labels, or artists or anyone in the creative process. But that's really what we're trying to do. We just want to be the best at what we do.’

Handily, here we are again, exactly five years on. How satisfied are you with your progress in that time in those areas?

OS: Very. We are very clearly positioned as the quality service. We don't have a free offer [unlike Spotify’s advertising-supported tier]. We don't give anything away. Everything is made by music fans and curated by experts. We are focused on music while other people are running away from music into podcasts and audiobooks. Our service is clearly dedicated to music.

With spatial audio, we've completely revolutionised the listening experience. [Historically] we went from mono to stereo and then, for decades, there was nothing else. Then we completely invented a new standard [where] now 90 per cent of our subscribers are listening to music in spatial audio. Which is great.

And little things, like the lyrics, for example, [which] you find on Apple Music, which are incredibly popular. We have a team of people that are actually transcribing the lyrics because we don't want them to be crowd-sourced from the internet. We want to make sure they're as pristine as possible. We've got motion artwork and song credits. We really try to make Apple Music a high quality place for music fans.

And while most others in the marketplace have sort of stopped innovating, we've been really pushing hard, whether it's Apple Music Sing, which is a great singalong feature, like karaoke. Or Classical, which is an audience that had completely been neglected. We're trying to make Apple Music the best place for people to listen to music. I'm super happy with that.

And by the way, we're very committed to continuing to do that. We want to use our relationship with artists, and we want to use technology to continue to push the envelope, and make Apple Music the premium place it is.

W*: You can be an advocate for artists, even more effectively then labels can…

OS: That's right. Ever since […] the company [started], we've always been about the creators, whether it's an artist, songwriter, sound engineers, anyone involved... And you can see that. If you speak to an artist today [about] how they make their music, they use mostly our tools, whether it's Voice Memos, whether it's Logic [Pro], or GarageBand, or the iPad. That's a joy.

W*: Finally, Oliver, Beats has also just launched a Solo 4 headphone in collaboration with Minecraft, a special edition that unlocks gameplay within the hugely popular computer game. What's next for the brand?

OS: We will continue to make the best products in the market, and innovate. We have a number of surprises coming. So I can't wait to actually sit with you again over the next few months, quarters and years.

Beats Pill is available to order for £149.99 from Apple.com