Hopefully the delay is a chance for the product designers to go back to the drawing board.
I simply cannot fathom why anyone would want to own a pair.
I simply cannot fathom why anyone would want to own a pair.
You don't remember how iconic the white earbuds have been as a status symbol?
It's fine, and even expected, to say, "This product doesn't fit my use-case." But to be unable to fathom why any person on the earth would want to buy the product... that takes a total disconnection from headphones as a category of device, and I'm not willing to believe that's true.
Seems that the fact there's no cord to pull on them, and all of the mass is inside your ear makes them pretty stable.
I honestly cannot. They're impressive solutions to problems Apple have created for themselves.
Personally, I don't use the built-in microphones in headphones. If I'm speaking to someone, I either hold the phone to my ear, or use speaker phone.
Taking two seconds to plug my wired headphones into my device is a pretty "seamless pairing experience", and I can use them with whatever device I please, unlike the AirPods.
My wired headphones don't need to be "aware" of each other, because they are connected to each other.
I spend about ten seconds each day ensuring my headphone cable isn't tangled.
> You don't remember how iconic the white earbuds have been as a status symbol?
Where I'm from, white earbuds have only ever been: a) an invitation to thieves looking to steal the device they're connected to; b) a sign that someone doesn't care about audio quality.
> [...] that takes a total disconnection from headphones as a category of device, and I'm not willing to believe that's true.
On the contrary, I think the problem is that I would actually consider a headphone purchase, rather than blindly buying something like the AirPods.
The advanced noise cancelling, pairing, and synchronization tech are solutions to problems that don't exist (or are less pronounced, in the foremost case) with wired headphones.
The others are certainly wireless problems, but some people prefer wireless for a variety of reasons. Lots of manufacturers sell wireless headphones. To say that Apple created those problems makes no sense.
a) Placing the microphone further from a person's mouth, or at least, removing the option for people to hold a wired microphone close to their mouth;
b) Significantly reducing the distance between microphone and speaker.
I don't think the distance between the speaker and microphone matters. Canceling out the noise you're emitting isn't hard with modern signal processing.
“It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.” — Steve Jobs
It's often used due to mental laziness or lack of empathy. I personally don't want a pair either, but I can certainly imagine why it appeals to people.
I've racked my brains and I simply cannot understand why anyone would prefer these to existing wired or wireless headphones.
"I simply cannot understand why anyone would prefer these to existing wireless headphones."
I've had plenty of frustrations trying to get bluetooth headsets to pair with a single device, let alone multiple devices, so anything that makes that easier is valuable to me.
How valuable is another question: another $10, another $50, another $100? That's pricing for the market to decide. I can recognise the technical improvement, which just leaves the question of the monetary value of that improvement.
Personally, I am more of an in-ear earphones user, so I am more drawn to e.g. Bragi earphones, but even then I am missing the option of custom in-ear moulds, so I am sticking with shure audio drivers + Westone bluetooth cable. I do welcome Apple entrance because I could see how they might be able to push development of the sector and some advances.
Compared to the Klipsch earphones, the AirPods:
1) Are more than twice as expensive ($159 vs. $69)
2) Have significantly worse sound quality
3) Look ugly as sin; wired earphones like the Klipsch ones look just fine, and come in colors other than white
4) Require regular charging (only 5 hours of listening time); wired earphones require no charging at all
5) Are considerably easier to lose or misplace (either one or both)
6) Will have a finite life, as the battery wears out; standard wired earphones will last forever if you look after them
7) Are only compatible with current generation Apple devices; standard wired earphones have universal compatibility
8) Will likely be depreciated within a couple of generations of Apple products; wired earphones will endure
Different strokes....
1) Are more than twice as expensive
2) Have significantly worse sound quality
3) Look ugly as sin; wired telephones look just fine
4) Require regular charging; wired telephones require no charging at all
5) Are considerably easier to lose or misplace
6) Will have a finite life, as the battery wears out; standard wired telephones will last forever if you look after them
7) Are only compatible with current generation cellular networks; standard wired telephones have universal compatibility
8) Will likely be depreciated within a couple of generations; wired telephones will endure
- Great, deep bass response (when you position them to create a good seal between your ears and the outside world).
- Reasonably detailed mids.
- Somewhat diminished but still relatively detailed highs.
- Comfortable for wearing for long periods of time.
- Isolation isn't too strong, even with a good seal (helpful for maintaining situational awareness).
My only complaint is that between different pairs, the ability to get a comfortable seal can be inconsistent. However, I wouldn't consider them high end, and while their lack of noise isolation can be a downside at times, given the cost and the excellent bass and overall clarity, I think they're a great earphones.
If the AirPods have better SQ, that'd be awesome; but if they have the same sound quality but without the wires and with good (and hopefully passthrough when possible) audio compression, I'll be eager to buy a pair. And I think as more and more people wear them, they'll quickly become fashionable to wear.
On a related note, I hope Apple and others are eventually able to move to lossless, even lower latency compression for wireless audio. I absolutely love the lossless compression the AirPort Express provides via AirPlay.
The only thing I don't like is the loss of volume and track controls. I'm hoping a software update will eventually address that.
If you can't fathom why anyone would want them how do you explain the consistently positive reviews?