By now you know that Apple has agreed to pay $3 billion to buy Beats. The company’s main tangible businesses are its end of high end speakers and music gear and a streaming music service. Its main intangible asset is something Apple finds itself in need of: coolness.

Even though one of Beats’ founders, Jimmy Iovine, is of my generation and home town (the REAL pre-shined up Brooklyn), its other founder, Dr. Dre is straight out of Compton: a well-known rapper, record label owner (Death Row Records) and producer. It also boasts Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails as its Chief Creative Officer (CCO). Honestly, I never thought I would string those particular words together to form a sentence. Ever.

But beyond the culture shock of Nine Inch Nails and CCO in a single sentence, the part of this deal that has me a bit gobsmacked is the price. Beats got into the streaming music business in July 2012, when it acquired MOG for between $10 and $16 million, but didn’t launch its new service until this past January. Since most analysts seem to think that streaming service is the core value brought by Beats, we have to agree that was quite a good investment. It took Donald Sterling forty years and some very obnoxious behavior to make that kind of money on his Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.

But snarkiness aside, this deal is telling us a few things, and it’s important for retailers to take note.

The rate of social and technological change continues to escalate

It was only seven years ago that Apple introduced the iPhone. Completely transforming the way we communicate, shop and take photographs was good enough for a while, but by September 2013, Samsung was mocking iPhone users as old and out-of-date. That’s fast. Financial Analysts are clamoring for something NEW from Apple. Beats is part of that solution.

Wearable tech is the next big thing

There’s no escaping it. Bose headphones may be the status symbol of business folk on airplanes, but the young’uns are wearing Beats. And the Beats brand is going to move way past headphones into apparel and footwear. While my preference would be to have my clothes change color every half hour or so, sort of like a 21^st century mood ring, I suspect wearable tech will be way cooler and useful than that. Fitbit was only the beginning. If you’ve ever used the device, you know it’s basically a glorified pedometer. Not so helpful if your exercise of choice is swimming or weight lifting. I see tech embedded in all our exercise equipment, chips monitoring various vital signs. Even us older folk will gain opportunity from these embedded technologies. And they are going to look good. Circling back a few months, I think that’s the answer to the question “Why would Apple hire Angela Arendt away from Burberry? ” Because it’s all going to converge. Fashion is fashionable tech.

What about the store? What can retailers use? Respondents to our annual store benchmark survey (resulting report due out in about two weeks) see an opportunity coming. Thirty-one percent highlighted in-store technology as a top-three way to react quickly to changes in the business environment, up from 15 percent last year. I’m going to go out on a limb here to say that in-store tracking is not going to be the solution. And it’s not going to be mobile payments either. It’s going to be a combination of things:

• Self-directed solution seeking by shoppers. In other words, they have to be driving the questions and in-store employees may be required to deliver the answers
• Digital touch points anywhere and everywhere that provide a consistent customer experience
• More innovative products that turn them on. Food is a necessity of life. Fashion is fun. Fashion can be the cool new device, or it can be a cool new outfit. Ultimately, it will be a combination of both.

Tim Cook is a smart guy. He ‘smelled’ the death of Apple cool coming, and has started taking steps to change the game. He may not be Steve Jobs, but those guys come around once every hundred years or so. Instead, he’s being like an orchestral conductor, bringing together the best people, products and solutions he can find. That’s probably the most important trait most CEOs can hope to have.

The future is about more than “phablets. ” That’s in-the-box thinking. What’s out of the box? Listen for the Beats.