2 Mimi Music
It’s fair to say that Apple loves
music. From its wireless AirPods to Apple Music, plus a $3 billion takeover of Beats, Apple is heavily invested.
But there’s one problem it can’t easily solve – everyone’s hearing is different. So imagine if there was a way to guarantee you heard music in a way that best suited your ears. That’s the pitch from Mimi Hearing Technologies, a startup that claims it can “transform sound just for your ears” with its Mimi Music app.
Here’s why Apple should buy it. Mimi Music conducts a quick ear test to create an ‘earprint’ of your hearing. It then uses that to tweak your music playback so that it’s best suited to your own hearing.
If Apple bought this firm it could integrate its clever software into the AirPods or Apple Music (or both). Upon setting up your AirPods for the first time, you could take a quick test much like the genre-selection screen when you first launch Apple Music. You’d then have perfect, customised sound on your AirPods, seamlessly set up with minimal effort. The AirPods would have the best sound on the market because each pair would be tailored to each user. It all sounds very Apple.
Healthy hearing
There are implications beyond music for the app, too – its creators are also interested in health. Before Mimi Music, they launched the Mimi Hearing Test, which was designed to test your hearing ability for issues. Both apps are medically certified. Recently published patents show that Apple is looking to build health-tracking features into its AirPods, so acquiring Mimi Hearing Technologies would give it access to technology backed by 12 years of research and testing on millions of ears. It’s not just a moonshot, it has plenty of history and backing.
Buying this company would be a fairly straightforward affair for Apple – it’s small and relatively new, but has exciting software on its hands that could really improve Apple’s own products.