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Comment by artmageddon | Hacker News Reader

$160 for the AirPods? My goodness those are expensive.

Yea but can you really put a price on courage.

Burn!!

I'm really curious about these. I wear hearing aids and these things seem damn close in a lot of respects, except about $5000 cheaper. The hearing aid industry has seen a lot of pressure from consumer electronics (which is great) and I hope this only increases that pressure.

I could totally envision v2 of these having better battery life and being able to "enhance" hearing the same way a hearing aid does. Also, more people using these will hopefully reduce the stigma some see with wearing hearing aids.

They seem incredibly easy to lose.

You are supposed to use it with the case. Still easy to lose but slightly harder.

I listen to music most while on the bike, even in-ear earbuds just randomly fall out of my ears very often. I can't imagine finding one of these if they were to fall out of my ear during fall.

I've been using these for the past year while riding and they've worked well for me: https://www.amazon.com/SBW-Bluetooth-Sweatproof-Wireless-Mic...

Riding a bicycle with ear buds is really dangerous to yourself and others (Lack of awareness). It's illegal in a lot of places too.

Get one of these instead: https://www.amazon.com/Aftershokz-Wireless-Stereo-Headphones...

Plenty of places have adequate bicycle infrastructure.

My town is very bike friendly, and my 4 mile commute to work is 90% dedicated bike roads, but I still wouldn't bike without the ability to adequately hear things around me. Every once in awhile I come upon a cyclist with headphones or ear buds, riding in the center of the lane, and when they fail to hear my call to them that I'm on their left, I pass them in the available space and they almost always end up getting spooked. Same thing with runners and headphones.

Lack of awareness? How about having a radio in the car or, worse, (hands free) calling? Or even having excited conversations with three others in the car, that surely gets your attentiveness down way more than music on a bike.

All the more reason a bike rider should be aware of their surroundings.

Someone else being inattentive doesn't dismiss you from your responsibility.

It's not about attentiveness. Car radios, speakerphones and conversations don't block out ambient noise the way ear buds tend to do.

I mean, it's great for sound quality but downright dangerous when paying attention to your environment is critical.

How is this product any different than earbuds?

It allows you to hear things around you. It's similar to holding a speaker aside your ear (but not blocking it). You hear the music, but still hear other things too. I use it while cycling to listen to audio books. Works fantastic and I lose no situational awareness.

Especially if it falls out of your ear. I've always had trouble getting the EarPods to stay in my ear while running. I had to loop the wire above and around my ear; I can't do that with the AirPods.

They are not for running. That was addressed as Beats plans to have the fitness models.

I can see this getting very annoying regardless, though I trust Apple has thought this through.

I don't trust Apple. Although I'm an Android user bemused that they actually removed the headphone port - hardly their target customer.

Apple has a fairly good track record when it comes to predicting the death of old standards.

I have the same problem and use the loop method as well. I have tried quite a few headsets and like them the best though. I think the real reason why they fall out is the weight of the wire lightly tugging the bottom of the ear bud. I'm hoping the lack of wires will solve that issue...

here comes "find my airpods" app :)

(In-store purchases) :-)

I'm sure some accessory makers will start selling lanyards and whatnot that can be attached to the earphones so they are harder to lose.

I recently paid $350+ for Bose wireless noise cancelling headphones, the problem with over the ear headphones is that I can't wear them for a long time while I work for example, my head become hot and I want to hear what is around. I like the weight of the regular iphone headphones, I can wear them indefinitely, I am pretty sure case will be the same with AirPods, so I think the price is justified.

I got the in-ear Bose noise earphones for that reason -- I didn't think I could wear headphones all day without my ears and head getting hot. The earphones are great, really makes it possible to work at home with toddlers screaming downstairs.

If you want a really comfortable set of headphones (not earbuds) that sound good and don't block your hearing, consider the Sennheiser HD 558.

They're circumaural, so they sit comfortably on the sides of your head rather than mashing your pinnae flat, and their velour pads are nicely breathable; they also mass only a quarter kilogram (260g), and they're an open-back design so that ambient noise is merely reduced rather than totally occluded. (Also, unlike closed-back and especially noise-canceling headphones, they do not produce a constant pressure on your eardrums, which has been suggested to cause hearing loss and certainly plays a role in listening fatigue.) Their reproduction is quite good as well, with a surprisingly flat frequency response for the price range; if that suits you, you're good to go, and if you prefer otherwise, they won't interfere with you EQing your music to your heart's content.

Depending on where you find them, they run anywhere from $100 (Amazon Prime) to $180 (MSRP), so they're considerably less expensive than your QC15s, too. I really can't recommend them favorably enough.

I have the HD 598s and I can wear them all day.

I do the same with my 558s, and not all that uncommonly also wear them to bed, because while I may want to fall asleep to Beethoven, I doubt my neighbors do.

I've been told that from an audio standpoint, the only difference between the 558s and the 598s is the bit of foam stuck to the inside of each can on the former. Supposedly removing this foam improves audio quality, although having done this with my home pair but not my work pair, I can't say I have noticed any difference other than perhaps that ambient sound is a little easier to hear without it. I also haven't noticed any difference between my 558s and a pair of 598s I once had the opportunity to try, thanks to a former manager who had a real thing about one-upmanship. So I'm not sure quite what you get for the extra $50 other than style. (Though the 598s are very stylish!)

One thing to note about open circumaural headphones is that everyone around you can almost certainly hear what you're listening to. I work in an open office and like to listen to rather offensive comedy podcasts, so they're a no-go for me.

But I will say that Sennheiser is one of my favorite companies. I've purchased 5 different items from them over the past 7 years or so (HD 555, RS 180, MM 550-X, CS 686G, and the GAME ONE headset) and they all still work to this day with fantastic audio quality. I broke the MM 550-X, out of warranty and totally my own fault, and they still replaced them with a brand new set.

> noise-canceling headphones, they do not produce a constant pressure on your eardrums, which has been suggested to cause hearing loss and certainly plays a role in listening fatigue.

Are you saying that the feeling of pressure will stretch the eardrum or something?

I think that or something like it would have to be the mechanism. I don't really know a lot about research in that area, but I know I'm not the only one who finds that closed-back headphones produce earache after a few hours, and noise-canceling ones in less time than that.

Did you get over the ear (couldn't tell by your post).

The QC20 have been amazing, and have longer than apple's 5 hours battery life. The wireless QC20 will be out soon, and they're rated at 10 hours I think (maybe 8, can't find the article now).

I don't suspect they'll be able to do wireless active noise cancelling, so the argument for the lightning port supporting active noise cancelling functionality is weird... do you want people to go wireless, or not? My first reaction is that that was a poor justification.

I absolutely love my Quiet Comfort 20's from Bose too. Really help me focus and have the world around me disappear.

right on. it's the closest thing i cam find to portable deafness-on-demand.

i use mine with whitenoise (grey or brown noise, usually) most of the day, and it helps me get in 'the zone' more than anything else.

Buy a better set of headphones (i'm not a Bose fan). I used to have problems with my ears sweating, or my head hurting after wearing a pair of closed headphones. About 20 years ago I sprung for a pair of HD545, which were light, open, and the foam/felt surfaces never resulted in discomfort. I could wear those headphones for 12 hours straight.

I've since moved on to other headphones, but I always consider if the headphone is to tight, heavy, or the ear cushions are cheap pleather that makes my head sweat.

Open back headphones are the solution to your ears getting hot.

It was a big discovery for me, as 16 hour days in the lab with studio headphones once resulted in a blocked ear canal, from ear wax melting & reflowing! Weird & gross, I know.

Honest question: why would you buy noise cancelling headphones for situations when you want to hear what is around? Did you buy them for other use cases and also decide to use them at work?

Noise cancelling works very good when you don't listen to music, like when I need to concentrate at work but still want to hear relatively loud noises around me (like toddler calling door bell).

It's in the exact same price range as comparable wireless earbuds, like the Jaybird X2

You're just comparing them to shitty wired $5 chinese earbuds from Amazon in your head. $160 isn't even expensive for earbuds in general, more like lower mid-range.

I don't want a Jaybird so that's not a winning argument for why I would want these.

I'm comparing them to my $90 noise cancelling over ear headphones that, while yes no exactly top tier, don't require their own charging infrastructure and have much better audio quality than stock apple.

I may as well have an entirely separate MP3 player that costs me a good bit less than $160 than deal with this BS.

Just because you personally don't like wireless headphone doesn't mean Apple's overpricing theirs.

Most pure wireless headphones cost more than $150. Are you the target audience? Probably not, but for people who are looking for that type of solution Apple's pricing is very reasonable.

Maybe he's suggesting that headphones are headphones and $150 is too much for what is probably a pretty mediocre pair in terms of audio quality and ease of use.

But the Jaybird are attached to each other so you don't loose them that easily and they work on any phone. Do the Apple wireless AirPods work on any phone? or only devices that pay the W1 licensing fee?

No one knows yet.

I'm guessing they're using standard bluetooth if paired with something standard, but use something Apple-proprietary when pairing and listening when possible. (NFC-like operation and their own audio codecs on top of bluetooth)

The only other company putting up a serious effort in the same niche is aiming at $150 (and releasing a month later than the AirPods) [1], so there's probably some lower bound here set by the complications of the hardware/R&D to seamlessly connect two separate earbuds through your head and to the phone.

[1]: http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/5/12798640/bragi-wireless-hea...

There's also these for around $200 from Samsung, though supposedly battery life is poor.

http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-iconx/

It's a very reasonable price point and completely in line with the competition like Jaybird, Beats or similar. I was in the market for good wireless earbud-style headphones recently to use in the gym and all of the decent options were between $120 and $200.

I ended up going for the Jaybird X2 which is about $150.

those went on sale recently and are in the $80 range now. I picked them up, they're great.

Any good pair of wireless earbuds is around that price point.

did not see any mention of if they will have lossless audio or not (important if Apple really wants to have their technology replace wired for also higher end headphones)

Also no mention of standby time that I could hear, only 5 hours listening, but no idea if just having them on (in case of infrequent phone calls) would use up the battery as fast or not

Their product page mentions "high-quality AAC audio", so I'm assuming all audio output is converted (if necessary) to AAC. http://www.apple.com/airpods/

I had no idea they were that expensive. Regular old Bluetooth looks like a bargain now.

Funny enough, I thought the exact opposite. I predicted they would be $200 at the absolute minimum.

Too early to say that. Depends solely on the sound quality.

I disagree because to the layman that can easily listen to anything on a 25$ pair of earphones that's a lot. And here we are talking about at least 80% of the population.

As a side note, they're noise-canceling and also work as a (non-bluetooth) headset. I was expecting them to find a solution when you lose them, which is the first gripe people will have with them. Even if it's something along the lines of "come to the store, you'll get new ones for free, but we'll deactivate the old ones".

The Airpods aren't actually noise cancelling. A pity, I was watching out for that. The noise-cancelling they do is for the microphones, which is what you expect for any headset device.

I currently have a pair of Bose QC20 (their in-ear noise-cancelling earbuds). I'm pretty happy with them, but they were really expensive at $250. If Apple's were noise-cancelling and able to compete with Bose's tech (they're rated the best [1]), they'd be a deal.

But as it is, they're not.

Maybe a firmware update, maybe they're negotiating tech/patents with Bose, maybe the next iteration...

[1] http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-noise-cancelling-in-ea...

I'd personally settle for an in-ear[1] version of AirPods. I'm not sold on noise cancelling, but I do need something to keep the music in and background noise out, and rubber-tipped in-ears do that quite well. Honestly, I'm confused as to why Apple makes earbuds without rubber tips at all, let alone at a $160 price point.

I've tried using EarPods on a plane before (where my ancient Sennheiser earbuds get 95% of their use) and I couldn't find a comfortable volume setting -- loud enough to hear clearly over the engines is painful (and probably just audible to the person sitting next to me).

The AirPods sound like a great idea on paper -- very small size, charging case, potentially less flakey than a typical Bluetooth device -- but since they're nothing more than wireless EarPods, I can't think of a use for them myself.

[1] http://www.apple.com/shop/product/ME186LL/A

> they're noise-canceling

Where'd you get that from? That would be awesome if true.

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