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Comment by dingo_bat | Hacker News Reader

This is just google trying to be apple, except with shitty products. The $160 airpods actually bring something new and worthwhile to the market. This $160 "wireless" wired earbud brings nothing except inconvenience.

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I'm not sure if they're really "shitty". I think their phones do offer up some unique features. Updates to Android are really nice and all the special sauce Google adds to the phones are pretty compelling.

I think what is shitty is their retail game. They're not even close to competing with Apple on this one. I've also heard a lot of conflicting stories about their support. That would be my biggest concern buying a phone or product from them. (I do have the nexus 6p but thankfully never had to contact support.)

Google's translate in real time, while apple's were a copy-cat of countless other wireless headphones. I'd argue the opposite of your claim. (Apple did make them smaller than usual though, which is new I suppose).

Googles don't translate anything though - all they bring to the party is a button that works with Google's translation software on your phone. Previous HN threads included responses from googles who worked on the feature that confirm this.

Also, which earbuds do you think the AirPods are copy-cats of? The only real wire-free buds out when they were announced were the original Bragi ones which were priced over $100 higher, had lower battery life, and were larger.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15404918

There were several different wireless earbuds before AirPods including Earin, Bragi, HearNotes and many more you've never heard of but they're all inferior to AirPods.

Apple is never the first or second or even third entrant into a new market, but when they do enter they're usually the best by a significant margin.

I seem to remember FreeWavz & HearNotes before Apple's "AirPods"

You mean the FreeWavz that still aren't shipping or the HearNotes which ripped off all their Kickstarter backers before getting sued into oblivion?

Earin actually shipped and so did Bragi.

Earin: no microphone. Bragi did ship first but with lots of flaws.

By what mechanism does Apples headphones translate speech?

Neither product translates anything. They're both heavy on marketing (Apple's proprietary bluetooth chip, Google's on-phone-but-locked-to-one-BT-headset translation capability) and both are incremental improvements on existing tech.

The tit-for-tat here is getting silly. If you have a Pixel, buy Google's if you have an iPhone buy Apple's. If you have neither buy a few pair for $3 and laugh at the fools wearing the $160 ones.

That being said, I've used the Apple ones and actually feel like they're a reasonable value at the price. The ease of pairing them (open the box with an iPhone nearby) will spoil you. They also are findable with the "Find my iPhone" app, based on their last known position which is a critical feature for such an easy to lose item.

Haven't tried the Google ones, but do think real time translation is a "magical" feature that Jobs would have loved -- assuming it's easy to use and works well. I'm the type to work my ass off learning a new language when traveling, so it does make me feel like people are cheating. But that's a feeling that we should all be getting used with tech advancements.

You don't need a Pixel to use these headphones, though, do you? I would think any Android phone lets you do the real-time translation with them.

I don't believe so, but that isn't their point. The point being that Google is tying the translation feature into these headphones to upsell them, even though it could be done without headphones at all.

Yeah I used Google Translate that way in Japan earlier this summer, it was life-saving. I do see the point of convenience the earbuds bring to it, though, not having to hand the phone forth and back.

I haven't owned any other Bluetooth headphones that can charge as fast as the AirPods, sense when they are in your ear and pause your music if you take one out, or are as small and light as the AirPods. What headphones did Apple copy?

Being better doesn't make them less of a copy. Fast charging was a thing before Apple put it in AirPods. Motorola did the pausing trick long before Apple and I believe Bose or Sony did it too.

Managing to best everyone else at their best feature is what the AirPods do but nothing they do is innovative.

The very definition of the word "innovative" is "featuring new methods, both advanced and original." If Apple has been able to best everyone at their best feature, then, by definition, AirPods are innovative since they do things that nobody else has ever been able to do before, right?

> "featuring new methods, both advanced and original."

When you Google the word "innovative" that's almost the definition that comes up, only slightly different punctuation. Google says "featuring new methods; advanced and original."

In any case it's stating that to be innovative the method must be new, advanced, AND original. If it's not all three, then it's not innovative.

I'd be very interested in an objective comparison between AirPods and every other true wireless earbud that existed at the time. I have no doubt the AirPods would win on nearly any measure.

While there's plenty of examples of tech companies constantly copying each other instead of genuinely innovating, I think "smart headphones" are a very Google-y idea even if Apple did it first. Fits right in with the original vision of Glass.

Also, it's an example of a fairly obvious technology just waiting for the tech to make it possible, as depicted several years ago in the movie Her.

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