AirPods are now available
apple.com
apple.com
"AirPods introduce an effortless wireless listening experience packed with high-quality audio and long battery life. These magical wireless headphones use advanced technology to reinvent how we listen to music, make phone calls, enjoy TV shows and movies, play games and interact with Siri, providing a wireless audio experience not possible before."
Magical. Reinvent. Not possible before.
None of these words applies.
As much as I've also become an apple hater recently because of what they've done to iOS10 and the new macbook pro, I think criticizing a marketing copy for being a marketing copy is not fair.
...though I cringe to think of the pressure at this time of year to release a product whose quality is not yet vetted by early adopters.
I guess people don't like changes to the things they've grown accustomed to.
In fact, it is MORE of a fad these days to be an Apple hater than an Apple fanboy. Why do you have to be a follower and hate on Apple? Try thinking for yourself.
Wait... Honest question: How?
Does it switch based on which input source is currently playing audio? What if more than one is playing at a time?
[1]: https://www.plantronics.com/us/product/voyager-legend-uc
[Of course, I say this as someone who has been happily using wireless Jaybird earbuds with a variety of iOS and macOS devices for the past three years without many complaints. I won't be buying the AirPods since pairing problems have not been an issue for me.]
https://www.bose.com/en_us/support/article/pairing-a-bluetoo...
"Touch the devices and they will pair".
That's what makes the pairing more than just NFC (you're right, that's been around for years).
In the same fashion, I was in a company whose motto was "Be the change you seek", which is really entrepreneur-minded and active. They changed their motto to "Advance humanity". Most employees said "It's ok, it's the kind of marketing bullshit that no-one even listens to". It wasn't about building something awesome together. The motto was here, hanging in the hall, just saying "We're strongly delusional, we all speak bullshit now, and we know you won't even debate about it because no-one believes it anyway! Look at us, we're kings of the universe!"
As you say, it is insulting to the audience.
"Our vision is to create technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere — every person, every organization, and every community around the globe. This motivates us — inspires us — to do what we do. To make what we make. To invent, and to reinvent. To engineer experiences that amaze. We won’t stop pushing ahead, because you won’t stop pushing ahead. You’re reinventing how you work. How you play. How you live. With our technology, you’ll reinvent your world."
Seventy-seven words…to say what? How does this pablum tell an engineer, a sales person, or an accountant what the company is about, what it does, why and how?
I found this “vision statement” on HP’s website.
I recently purchased a Bose QuietComfort 35 and I've noticed that the lack of chords + noise cancellation have made it so that I wear the headphones for the entirety of the day. The lack of fatigue while wearing the head phones is a big deal. Additionally, the lack of wires has changed my behavior in ways I did not expect pre-purchase. For example, I no longer need to take off my headphones to go to the bathroom. Or when I leave the desk to grab something, etc.
These AirPods seem like they could make this behavior even more extreme. I can imagine just keeping them on all day without taking them off. That would be enough of a behavioral change personally to warrant the superfluous marketing copy of "Magical" and "Not Possible Before".
Beyond that, if people really start walking around with AirPods in their ear all day, it could more of a fashion symbol success (new age earrings basically) than what Apple envisioned with the Watch.
But, at the price they're going for, I doubt this will happen, but you can see where the marketing enthusiasm is coming from.
I usually use earphones, with the wire tucked under my shirt(it's not noise cancelling), and connected to my phone - that way the cable doesn't get stuck with things.
The cable is also long enough use the phone for surfing too.
And they're on me all day long, either in ear or on the shirt. And i prefer that arrangement to my long lasting(13 hours) bluetooth earphones.
The biggest public facing change at Apple since the death of Steve Jobs is their move to terrible marketing copy and ads.
Under Jobs, that quote would be reduced to just a few words, whereas now it is a slog to get through. I've tried re-reading it a few times and still haven't made it to the end.
If they can make wireless not-be-shitty, that will count for 'magical' and 'not possible before' afaiconcerned.
Except, Apple laptops are plagued with "wifi broken after sleep", so I have no hope that they can.
Reinvent - well it certainly seems like a reinvention of the wireless headphone. What else would it be?
Not possible before - without W1 it wasn't possible to jump between audio coming from multiple sources transparently
Not possible before - without W1 it wasn't possible to jump between audio coming from multiple sources transparently
Uhh, I have a desk-based headset that can switch audio streams automatically.
In any case, this: http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/7/12829190/apple-w1-chip-ipho... seems to suggest that it's a refinement on Bluetooth with the NFC pairing that, well, already exists in numerous products out there.
Nice refinements? Sure. But it also likes to compare itself against a Bluetooth world that frankly, hasn't existed in several years... "poor audio quality that skips and cuts out", and "pairing that is constantly problematic, where users don't know whether they will re-pair the next time" (https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/12/apple-w1-chip-how-it-works/ )
That's every day for me! What earbuds, stereo or mono, are you using that never have this problem?
I would argue it's a reimplementation of Kanoa's reinvention of the wireless headphone, similar to Bragi, Earin, Nextear, Freewavz, and samsung Iconx.
I would even trace this earbud revolution back to the Moto Hint (2014)
This one is literally true though. They had a semi-custom chip designed to implement features/performance that don't exist with Bluetooth 4 yet.
I think Bluetooth 5 will catch up. In fact, I'm betting that what they have is basically a radio chip designed for Bluetooth 5 (it's basically just Bluetooth LE with higher bandwidth and range) with some extra features for their pairing tech, but since the spec wasn't finalized, and they couldn't wait, they just rolled it out as proprietary tech.
Idiots, if it were Microsoft writing things on The Verge, it would be ok.
Maybe you're not primitive enough to understand the page as-is.
Do we still have to use ears?
Not to be cynical, but to re-calibrate my barometer. The only person I know who uses it is my partner's nine year old daughter, and even then not often.
I don't like the errors voice messaging causes (you can tell when someone's sending texts with it), so I never use that.
It's OK for setting alarms or timers but I've only done that a couple times because I always forget about it and do it manually instead, or (for timers) my phone's farther away than a microwave or something.
Tried using it to record notes by voice once. It was entirely terrible at that task.
My phone would be at most 1% worse if Siri were simply gone.
Also, FWIW, I've gotten pretty good at discreetly talking to my wrist in public. In any moderately loud area I don't think anyone even notices me doing it.
I also occasionally use it when I wake up in the middle of the night and don't want to abuse myself with a bright phone display in order to find out what time it is - I don't keep a clock on my bed table, but my phone always charges there. "Hey Siri, what time is it?" is handy in that circumstance, unless the "Hey Siri" part decides not to trigger, which happens often enough that I don't really find it reliable. (I think that must be because a half-asleep voice sounds different; this isn't a problem I generally have at other times, even when using a $15 Bluetooth earbud which can't possibly have a very high-quality microphone.)
"Set an timer for 5 minutes" is very handy.
"Open auto lock settings" etc gets you to nested prefs screens quickly.
"Remind me to..." for adding things to my OmniFocus inbox.
If they add positioning, this product becomes Magic Leap without the visuals. I don't think they see this as a music device, they see it as a new platform for audio. Interesting things start happening when people start leaving one or both in their ears all day. Arrival times in your ear at the bus stop. Ask Siri for a price check while at the store, etc.
A cable to your phone makes the earbuds hard to forget. This makes it easy, but the design details have to be right for you to truly forget they are in.
I know "forget they're in" doesn't sound like a groundbreaking feature, because it's not connected to any obvious technical challenge, but I think if they succeed at that it would in fact put these in a new category.
Positional audio would seal the deal. You can walk around your kitchen and it would feel like your invisible conversation partner was in the room with you.
They don't dangle from a cable when falling like normal headphones or Bluetooth headphones that have a cable between each earpiece. Since it's also so comfortable, the user might not even notice they lost an earpiece immediately if they are not listening to anything. (which will specially happen if the user has incentives to use it day long).
And more annoyingly, you will most likely lose just one of the pair. Will you be able to buy just one eapiece and pair it alongside the old pairless earpiece? I don't think so...
edit: fixed wording as eric_h pointed out
>But what about the possibility of losing the earpieces?
10-15 years ago people the argument could have been made about cell phones, "why carry a phone you're bound to leave at a restaurant or on a train..."
If the AirPods or wireless mini computers in your ears become so integrated into our day to day lives one falling out will become obvious pretty quick. And the price will drop, maybe not for the Apple versions, but what about Google Now in $40 wireless earbuds in two or three years?
I don't want more batteries and dongles to carry around. A phone and a headphone are already cumbersome in my pocket.
Eventually we will have batteries powerful enough to eliminate the need for that dental floss thing, and the industry will finally standardize induction charging making charging the earpieces anywhere a reality.. but until then, apple is just ahead of the time.
But in a bad sense. Instead, they could just have made a product that is more realistic with the technology we have.
Could. But it wasn't because they were big and exciting so you would look pretty stupid saying that.
Losing those cigarette buts though is not a big problem. I have some Plactronics for some years now and there is a reason why they still hang at your neck.
But I guess, people who jump on that right now will have no problem spending that money again and again and...
My particular form of obsessive-compulsive behavior revolves around finding and losing things. One of my big life lessons is that things don't get lost when you have a place for them — the keys go here, the wallet goes here, the phone goes here, they never get lost.
If the Airpods never needed to be charged, or could charge wirelessly by being dropped on a magnetic pad or something, I fully expect that they would get lost all the time. But the tic-tac case is an integral accessory — when you're wearing Airpods, the case is in your pocket, and when you're not wearing Airpods, the the Airpods are in the case.
(I was sad when Apple stopped including docks with iPhones, those solved a problem that most people don't realize they have)
I think the number of people who lose these things will be surprisingly low.
Also, I imagine you mean "likely lose just one of the pair", as losing one pair means losing both of them (not intended as a dig, just helping to clarify; your intentions seemed clear)
I don't think I'm alone in that though, which is great for Apple: if they're working better than expected, then consumers will love it. Expectations are everything.
Is it possible Apple could implement some sort of loss alert mechanism for this?
Ideally each earpiece would have a low-power heartbeat even when in your pocket to continually verify they haven't been lost.
(Apple has already said there will be a way to replace a lost single unit.)
That said, you're spot on with your forecasts of how great this could be, the AR of audio is potentially awesome.
You really think that Apple removed the headphone jack to make a bit more cash? Seriously? Hand-on-heart honestly, you think that's why? Come on.
I think it's because they love cool new things. Thank fk they do because, frankly, nobody else seems to be doing anything interesting. I know, I know, they're not perfect. AirPods are late. They're expensive. I know.
But I guarantee you that, come 2020, you will be hard pushed to find a set of wired headphones that resemble those we wear today. I would bet my current net worth on it†. The time has come to do new things with headphones. You want to call them "magical"? Maybe not. But a tiny thing that sits in my ear, Star Trek style, that I can tap and talk to Siri, that detects when I'm talking, that mutes itself, that swaps between paired devices seamlessly, that charges in a little tic-tac case, that's cool. That's what the world wants. It's certainly what I want.
But hey, I guess we can just assume they're trying to scrape a few more dollars out of everyone. Yep, that's probably what this is about.
(†Not currently all that much, but hey.)
Yes.
And honestly, if you think a big company like Apple does anything without the motivation of making money, then frankly you're being starry-eyed and naive.
Maybe if they were a little start-up or something, sure, I could buy that argument. But yes, I entirely, whole-heartedly believe that Apple is doing this for money. If not, why not release the air pods first, then release a few generations of iPhones with audio jacks? It's not like having that little hole in the bottom of a phone would stop Apple from generating more "magical" technology.
I don't doubt Apple thinks that air pods are cool, but come on, seriously.
But I guarantee you that, come 2020, you will be hard pushed to find a set of wired headphones that resemble those we wear today.
I'm biased. When I want to put on earphones, I want to hear, not be heard. That's the primary function. Not to be some bizarre com. THESE Airbuds are totally useless to me, even if I have a device that supports them. Can I take them running, or cycling? That's a good majority of my "not sleeping, not working" time. I don't need another attempt at augmented reality, I need to remember I used to go to places to talk to people, not manipulate a screen, or talk to a computer assistant.
I remember when Bluetooth headsets came out. They were decidedly not cool. Like, "look at the crazy person talking to themself while walking" not cool.
(†Not currently all that much, but hey.)
Siri sucks. Once you've spoken to Google via "Ok Google" you quickly realize how bad Siri is.
The world doesn't need Airpods. I get that you want them, but the overwhelming majority in the _world_ can not afford Airpod. I would bet that sales of Airpods will be as transparent as the iWatch... as in completely opaque.
I'm positive most people will still be using cheap wired headphones 3 years from now. If you're willing to lay money on it, I'll take any bet you offer.
And Siri will just open the Wikipedia entry for "price" :)
Jokes aside, Siri has fallen really, really far behind Google Now. It's jokingly bad at even the most mundane tasks.
The best thing about Google Assistant (not Google Now) is the context sensitivity. You can ask "how tall is Tom Cruise", get an answer and then ask "how old is he" and Assistant will pick up who you're talking about. Siri will just get completely baffled.
Unless the came up with better design there is no way I am forgetting I am wearing apple earbuds.
Edit: I should add that with in-ear headphones, I was always able to get a good fit by using the one-step smaller rubber ends for the left ear and the default one for the right ear. Never had a problem that way. Still, I prefer over the ear these days, and they also double as earmuffs in the winter time!
You wear them, they ache until your ears adjust, then it's second nature.
Assuming you wear them more than 10 minutes at a time.
I can't be the only one who used those garbage earbuds included with the game boy for years afterwards.
Where is the augmented reality device they're going to be targeting with this?
If anything you'll see them take on something like google cardboard or oculus directly before they do something really left field with headphones. But even that is a couple years away.
[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vue/vue-your-everyday-s...
[2] http://www.macrumors.com/2016/11/16/apple-augmented-reality-...
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-14/apple-sai...
Just look at any product in their history - they took music players that were fine but bulky and time-consuming to use and turned them into a single intuitive device that could fit in your pocket, carry your entire library, and sync to the computer without any user intervention. I know a lot of tech people are annoyed with iTunes and want to be able to manually drag and drop the files that they want, but, for the non-tech user, iTunes (which already had all their music organized) would just let them sync their music by plugging in without any intervention at all. Apple may have made an assumption for the masses by assuming everyone's music was organized on the computer they were syncing from (and in iTunes, no less), but, when it worked, it was amazing from an experience standpoint.
That's what these headphones are. Just think about the list of things that suck about headphones in a perfect world - cables and wires suck on anything, wireless is more convenient in every case, pairing bluetooth headphones sucks when they get disconnected, the batteries on wireless headphones suck. These are their answer to those complaints - headphones that last much longer than others with a charger that is also a case that syncs to all your devices and intelligently plays wherever from whatever device you're using. Whether they succeed is another story, but the explanation for this product is there.
Nobody listens to music 24/7 ...
(This is a rhetorical question. You don't have to answer, because the answer is self-evident.)
This product category is not worth the hassle for the average user. Very few people will buy a second pair of wireless earbuds. Not enough to warrant building all the features you mention.
1. I would hate to talk to a person with those things in their ears.
2. I use my bluetooth headphones the same way I use my wired headphones.
3. I don't feel comfortable talking out loud to nobody in public. It doesn't feel right to talk the phone, I will probably never talk to the air. I'm not a self conscious person, but I care if people think I'm crazy.
I think we're already past the point of that being a barrier.
These things are probably the (nearish) future. I thought the Moto Hint was great a year or so ago and with Apple stepping into the market it should encourage the competition.
I don't have a problem with a cable. I actually don't understand why people would want to replace a cheap, robust, simple technology like a cable with non-replaceable batteries and signal-degrading wireless.
Also I don't need my phone to talk at me all day.
But, "courage".
These are light weight, designed for comfort.
I am sceptical
I feel like a lot of this mess with needing a different dongle and special wire for each product would have been less of a big deal if everything they did just moved to USB C all at the same time. Now if you want to charge your air pods with a macbook pro you need a cable to go from usb C to thunderbolt (not included) or an adapter to use the previous-gen-usb to lightening cable it does come with.
It feels to me like the different product development teams at Apple didn't communicate with each other at all w.r.t. what ports to use.
All of Apple's "accessories" (things that will request charge from a host over their cable: phones, tablets, keyboards and touchpads, and now headphones) have a Lightning port.
All of Apple's "computers" (things that won't: computers that are wired for power, and devices that are wired for power like the Apple TV) have, or will have, USB-C ports.
The vague middle case is laptops, like the new MBP: they do charge over their USB-C cables. But they'll only do this from a wall-socket power adapter; they won't attempt to drain the battery of a peer device they're connected to.
Besides that HCI hint of charging semantics, though, Lightning is just physically different in a few important ways that Apple relies on: for one, the connectors are solid metal, so an upward-pointed male connector can be used as a freestanding dock. That's not true of USB-C. Apple isn't going to converge them.
Because there are about half a billion potential customers out there who already have phones that charge via lightning?
There was the dock connector -> lightning connector switch.
There's the ADB -> USB switch back in the day.
And now there headphone jack -> wireless thing switch.
Apple cares not one whit for obsoleting the stuff you have.
I don't doubt that one day iPhones may use USB-C or whatever replaces it, but the lightning port is going to be around for a long time - it was designed to last at least a decade, and I don't doubt that it will.
I'm not saying these will have the impact of an iPod, but I am entertained by the amount of naysaying here.
For one thing, how often have you fiddled with the knots in your headphone cord? It's frustrating enough to prevent me from using them in situations where I otherwise would.
The point is that, at the time, the iPod was a niche product, with several huge flaws. Subsequent iterations of the iPod fixed those flaws, but that doesn't mean you should have bought a v1 iPod. It made much more sense to wait.
Exactly the same logic applies to the Airpods. Suggesting that people can't criticise them because at some point in the future the product line will become successful is asinine.
OK, how about "The only problem is that you have to install something. See, it's not the same as USB drive.", the top comment in response to the Dropbox announcement on HN, 9 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
It's a cliche because we techies are particularly bad at recognizing the mass-market appeal of products. What seems easy to us can be an unsurmountable hurdle for the target market, and what we may perceive as an unnecessary flourish can turn out to be an essential quality-of-life feature. It's a cliche because we keep doing it.
My point is that this initial criticism of the iPod was not wrong. It was a flawed device. It was eventually improved into a successful device, but using that logic to shut down any criticism of future products is just silly.
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-settles-with-creative-for-10...
Apple seems to be good at figuring out which drawbacks are deal breakers and which ones are not.
"Apple’s total iPod sales climb past 10 million, with 8.2 million units sold in 2004 alone" [0]
[0] http://www.macworld.com/article/1053499/home-tech/ipodtimeli...
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/28/ipod-sales_n_468000...
[2] http://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/01/29/apple-stops-divulgin...
So other than some non-sequitur facts, what's so interesting? CmdrTaco's take is the classic example of tech spec-naysaying by pundits completely misreading demand in the market. Meanwhile, AceJohnny says that it may very well apply here, which remains to be seen.
On the other hand, this is a silent failure mode in a good sense: if you lose them, then you'll know instantly (because of no music), so at least have a chance of looking for them nearby.
Knots occur in headphone cables because of how people wrap or store them. If you take each end of the cable and fold it in half a few times (I do it 3 times) then you're far less likely to get any tangles than if you wrap them around your fingers in a continuous loop.
AirPods look to be perfectly fine (and extremely expensive for what they bring) if your usage of them is while sitting at your desk.
They're amazingly comfortable, the noise cancelling is best-of-breed, the battery lasts AGES (far beyond the rated 20 hour (!!!) life), the sound quality is epic, they play plenty loud, handle bluetooth handoff better than anything I've used.. I just can't stop talking about them.
It seems like just a year or so ago bluetooth was still an impossible-to-pair never-works-right pile of crap, and now it's turned a corner. I've always got my FitBit, Apple Watch, and often my headphones paired to my phone. Everything just works. I can be on a call on my headphones, hop in the car, and the call seamlessly transfers to the audio system in the car (2016 VW Golf).
My phone and laptop both play sound through the headphones just fine, it keeps both paired at the same time.
And they don't even support whatever high-resolution codec Apple uses (aptx or the other one, I can't remember). But the sound quality has to be heard to be believed, the noise cancelling makes tiny details in the music way more audible than ever before.
I'm not in the market for AirPods, but I'm a total believer in wireless headphones now.
The built in mic is terrible to the point I couldn't use it for video conferencing. Had to switch to the mic on my MBP to be intelligible.
I haven't figured out if I like the noise cancellation or not. It leaks voices a lot, and when it's quiet there's a very faint constant background noise. Feels like I just replaced one noise with another. It also gives an illusion of a change in pressure in your ears when you put them on, but maybe that's something you get used to.
Sound quality is ok at low volume but it's very uninteresting overall. Maybe I've been spoiled by my other headphones.
Also, my head is really big, and they aren't really comfortable for me longer than and hour or two.
I'll agree that the bluetooth handoff implementation works great though.
Overall, if they were < $200 I'd kept them around, but $330 is just to pricey for what you get.
I'll be keeping a close eye on this space in the future though. I'm expecting some great innovation in the coming years.
My 'main' headphones are Audiotechnica M50s which are, of course, cheaper, but damn well should be without noise cancelling or BT. I use them with an external DAC+headphone amp, but I prefer the QC35 at all volumes (short of ear-splitt, which the Bose won't do-- but at least they don't clip, ever!)
I sorta agree on noise cancelling tech. Of course voices leak, that's normal. But I, too, sometimes wonder if I'm just replacing one set of sounds with another. Where I really like them is in addition to music. Just by itself, meh.
https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-airpods/preview/
Regarding specs:
+ Bluetooth
+ No cables
+ 5 hours battery life
+ Charging case with total 24 hours battery life
+ Automatically turn off when removing from your ears
+ Key synchronization via iCloud (makes pairing process simpler - and could make sharing process simpler as well - but is Apple-only)
+ Peripheral to Apple Watch
+ Including microphones and double-tap to activate Siri (no direct volume shortcut)
So you can't actually use these on your [non macOS] laptop? Wow, requiring two pairs of headphones certainly is a huge dis-qualifier.
Sound quality is often much much better too.
The main reason earphones fall out of your ears is the wires. Most existing wireless earphones have some sort of wire attached to them. They're called "wireless" but that's technically not true because they do have wires, and these wires are what pulls the earphones out of your ear. It's physics.
(They're silicone EarPod covers with little hooks that keep them perfectly placed in your ears.)
As the owner of an iPhone 7, I have encountered some frustration from not being able to charge and listen to headphones at the same time. I realized that if lightning cables were USB, I could just use some sort of hub.
But it seems that Apple has declined to offer a splitter, leading to many shoddy attempts for sale on Amazon, most with fewer than three star average ratings.
Viewed as an independent gizmo, these are a great idea and will appeal to some people. But viewed as an alternative to the convenience of the 1/8th inch jack on the back of the phone, a lot is left to be desired.
The picture of the futuristic woman wearing them evokes the single-ear bluetooth headset, only worn over both ears.
$150 doesn't seem so bad to me but: - Not in ear - No lanyard
Check out "earhoox" (or, if you prefer a non-branded item, just search for "earpod covers" on Amazon, etc.).
I have no connection with that particular (or any) brand, but I did the thing I tend to do which is spend $50 buying every single model of silicone earpod cover on Amazon, try them out, and figure out which is best. Earhoox won.
Solved the problem perfectly, and I actually enjoy wearing my earpods now.
On a lighter note, I live in Canada so for 6 months of the year, my toque holds the Apple earbuds in my ears.
the apple headphones and the bose qc20 are the only two in-ear headphones that I can comfortably wear
I like the idea of AirPods. Unfortunately, my main concern though is that I will use them two or three times during rush hours in London, bump into a couple people on the tube and they'll be gone.
5 hours and then I have charge them? That won't even last me a work-day.
Count me out.
For someone who listens to mainly podcasts, I found them to be really really convenient. And the wire between the two pods makes it seem a bit harder to lose compared to AirPods.
Wireless headphones are about as stupid as wireless Internet.
Just like wired Internet, wired headphones will continue to have a place for people who need certain capabilities or ruggedness or etc., but for most people, wireless headphones are the way to go. Let me walk you through some of the advantages:
1. Working out. Wired headphones constantly get caught on things and sometimes get violently ripped from your ears. 2. Related to point one, any activity or job where you could risk a loose wire being caught is perfect for wireless headphones. It very well may be significantly safer. 3. Wireless headphones have bigger range than wires. You don't have to place your phone in your pants pockets, for instance, to use wireless headphones. You could even have your phone in your bag, and everything will still work. Much of women's fashion either has no pockets or pockets of little value. This is a major reason women carry around purses. But you can't use headphones with a phone in your purse, hence why women are often physically carrying their phones in your hands. With wireless headphones, they can keep their phone in their purse or jacket and still listen to music or respond to calls. 5. Or if you are doing something around the house, you don't always have to have your headphones on you at all times. This could be particularly useful if you are doing something like washing a car where you might get your pants wet and don't want to have your phone on you. 6. With this new class of wireless earbuds that are small and lightweight, you could keep one of two of them in much of your day to answer phone calls or ask Siri or Google questions.
Now, in the gym, I can throw my phone in my gym bag and not worry about it while working out. I'll never go back to wired.
Your risk of losing your headphones is really that high?
2) I don't lose things.
This is like a guy leaving a negative review of feminine hygiene products. When a product designed for people with different needs and desires than yours, it’s not necessarily “stupid.”
So IOW, you just don't like wireless headphones, whether Apple makes them or not. Thanks for sharing.
It's a pet peeve of mine. Wireless is a good thing.
I don't need more than 2 hours tops when running, so the 5+ hour battery life is great.
I never had any problems with the current earphones slipping out of my ears while running - rain, wind, or shine. Airpods seem to follow a similar model, so I don't anticipate issues there either.
Right now I have some cheap headphones I bought at Ross and even if they're wireless, the little rubber headband is uncomfortable when I'm bench pressing.
These things are going to be magic!!!
Still 1) is a good question. I thought they came with a tiny casket, so they wouldn't fall out of your pocket like that. Still subtle when you remove them from your skull.
Please someone tell em if this is not the case. I really want it to not be true.
Granted, now you have to cary a hard plastic case in your pocket.
I cannot overstate how angry this makes me. It's a very uncomfortable feeling. It can literally ruin an hour. I'd rather be randomly slapped by a stranger.
On the other hand, Panasonic makes simply the most comfortable earbuds I've ever worn, even for 8+ hour sessions, for $10: http://a.co/4ztIdDw
I almost always have both my Macbook Pro an iPhone connected. The switch from listening to music from the laptop to the iPhone (such as when I leave the office and get on the bus) is seamless. Simply stop playing music on the laptop and start playing music on the phone. I highly recommend them.
[1] http://www.sonymobile.com/global-en/products/accessories/ste...
So yes, not quite yet, but also not necessarily a full month away.
https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/headphones/earphones/qui...
We're slowly moving into that future tech world that we saw in movies and dreamt up when we were kids. These are wireless earbuds. My first pair of wireless headphones used IR, took two AA batteries, were huge, heavy, and sounded horrible once you started losing sight of the transmitter!
Sure, it's a small step in mass-market technology, but that's the only way tech moves forward for most of the world. It's never really existed before, it's something new!
Some of us find advancements in tech exciting, whether it's some incremental advancement in AI, or an incremental advancement for silly earbuds.
If you think in terms of small increments, you'll never see, or be impressed with, the big changes that are happening around you.
"AirPods will be shipping in limited quantities at launch and customers are encouraged to check online for updates on availability and estimated delivery dates."
That's like "We look like fools. At least get -something- out there".
The sound is good (at least as good as I've ever heard from earbuds), they're cheap, but most importantly, they TWIST into your ears instead of simply pressing.
This emulates what you'll find in really high end, custom-fit earplugs.
They absolutely will not fall out unless you PULL them out.
While these are expensive and may not be popular among the slashdot/hn crowd, Apple knows which way the wind blows.
It is the same with "Air", "Pod", iSomething", and "Pro". Meaningless buzzwords. Then again, every company has their set ("Surface", "ThinkPad", "Yoga", "Zen"). Trust me, it has nothing to do with real yoga or zen. I'll refrain to make a comment on "Pro".
Just ignore the buzzwords, insofar that they don't tell you anything about the quality of the product and instead look at price/feature/quality comparisons and make up your own mind.
2 beautiful or delightful in such a way as to seem removed from everyday life: it was a magical evening of pure nostalgia.
I've been thinking about this for a while now. Whenever I'm asked for directions or something on the train/commute to and from work I wish I could just take my headphones out and they'd be smart enough to instantly pause and rewind the podcast/audiobook a second or two.
http://4dpavshx5ly3quwy2v9yv83i.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-c...
Seriously, I have very little to add to this. It's overly expensive wireless earbuds to go alongside a failure of 3.5mm jack.
:)
Also, will Apple include these within iPhone box to replace the clunky new lightning things?
Hell, I know I ended up picking up a Jabra Halo Smart because I got so annoyed having to deal with the stupid dongle to use my $10 pair of Sony AS200's and the cheap Chinese Kinivo bluetooth headphones I had had substantially worse audio quality than even these cheap wired ones.
I thought about the AirPods, but I'd lose them in a heartbeat. I'm constantly forgetting where the hell I put my headphones as is, at least my Halo Smart is big enough that I can find it easily - if I lost one of the little AirPod's I would end up tearing my house apart looking for the dumb thing.
Since no one has production units in hand, you'll have to take Apple's word for it: "a charging case that holds multiple additional charges for more than 24 hours of listening time.(3) Need a quick charge? Just 15 minutes in the case gives you 3 hours of listening time.(4)"
Also, will Apple include these within iPhone box to replace the clunky new lightning things?
A rhetorical question, I assume.
Most of the reviews of the preproduction units said Apple's 5 hour claim was about right. That's about 1-2 hours more than I get from my current earbuds, and they can't charge one-at-a-time or give me 3 hours of use in a 15 minute charge.
I imagine it won't happen because in some ways it's kind of backwards, but I hate running with my phone, especially because I have a huge 6+.
It seems like a simple thing to just want to be able to take some of my music/podcasts with me running, but it's not realistic unless I own a separate iPod shuffle that I then have to deal with. Adding a small amount of memory to AirPods would make this possible and relatively seamless.
I sync a playlist of my music from my 6S onto my Apple Watch rev. 1 and use a pair of beats solo 3. Works daaaaandy.
The Apple Watch is far, far too goddamn expensive, though. Let's get it down to at least $199, guys, and don't force us to pair an iPhone with it. It's what the iPod Nano turned into. Why is it so much more expensive?
If people could just buy an Apple Watch, it could convince them to buy further into the Apple ecosystem, in the same way as the iPod did (but obviously not to such a scale).
DHH from 37Signals mentioned on Twitter recently that he has two iPhones - 6+ and a 6. Larger one for around the house, in bed, etc and the other when out and about. It struck me as an almost affordable luxury for some people, if you can endure any syncing hassles.
*beginning next week.....
>you can listen for 5 hours on a single charge
You could buy a DS for that much right? That's about how much the ps2 slim costed back in the day.
Curious. Will there be third-party headphones that work here?
The fancypants features like iCloud sync and inserted ear detection though, I suspect that'll take some manufacturers some reverse engineering or exchanges of money for details.
3rd party headphones have always worked with the iPhone - what exactly are you asking?
Seems Apple is just always ahead of the crowd in getting rid of things.
I still have a $25 pair of Sony earbuds I bought in an airport store years ago. They are comfortable, sound great and have the mic support. Sure, they have the cord which is annoying, but I've tried Shure, Bose and a lot other wired & bluetooth earbuds and none of them sound as good as the Sony pair I have.
It's too bad Apple didn't include some kind of silicone adapter for comfort because if they did, I would consider the AirPods. But again, they're just uncomfortable.
Oh, and my wife likes her Apple headphones because they let a lot of outside sounds in. That's another reason I don't like the Apple headphones and I have a pair of Beats for noise canceling when I want it. I didn't see anywhere that the AirPods had noise canceling, so you're probably going to hear a lot of background noise when using them.
Furthermore, why isn't there a better way of attaching these to your ear? I hate shoving a piece of dirty plastic into the innermost part of my ear. It'd be much nicer to have something with that shark-fin rubber piece[1] or the over-ear clip[2].
1 - http://shop.nordstrom.com/s/bose-soundsport-in-ear-headphone...
2 - http://store.nike.com/us/en_us/pd/powerbeats3-wireless-beats...