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.
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...
The software UI (especially as described by that spokesman) is somewhat obvious. That said, the hardware UI of the iPod (click-wheel) was miles ahead of what Creative and others were offering (D-pads).
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.
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.
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...
The sales explosion really happened when they released it for Windows. All of a sudden a HUGE market was there and it snapped them up as fast as they could.
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.
EDIT: Ah, throwanem (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13170546) points out the crucial difference between headphones and earbuds. For me, earbuds are undesireable, so I didn't realise that the form factor was meant to be a selling point.
Until, of course, they start to produce some of the same little pops and interruptions I always get from Bluetooth earphones when I'm walking. I don't seem to get quite as many with the AirPods, but the skips and interruptions, when they happen, make me wish for something wired.
Did they stay connected?
Mostly, but I still heard audio pops from time to time. Not as many as I usually get with Bluetooth headphones, but they were still there.
If AirPods have this issue, they're clearly inferior to 8-year old tech.
(NOTE: I have had skips when leaving my phone and walking into another room, or stuff like that, but that's just because I walked out of range).
AirPods look to be perfectly fine (and extremely expensive for what they bring) if your usage of them is while sitting at your desk.