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Comment by minimaxir | Hacker News Reader

From the financial statements, revenue from Wearables, Home, and Accessories was up 30% vs the last year. There wasn't a huge release this quarter (aside from the AirPods refresh which was at the edge of the March 30th cutoff), so I wonder why it went up so much.

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Watch and AirPods are early in the S curve of adoption and have clear product market fit and no viable competitors. It's clearly inflecting higher.

AirPods have plenty of viable competitors. They also sound bad, and aren't water-resistant to speak of. Their main competitive advantage is they come in Apple white and are conspicuous enough that people see them.

Add in that they were near the end of the release cycle and it's definitely weird how much they went up.

I think this is a totally naive viewpoint. Despite the memes, Airpods aren't just a mere status symbol (and as status symbols they are very poor ones, which I think is the whole joke about airpods => rich). What makes them incredible is their seamlessness. They do have occasional bluetooth fuckery but they felt like the first wireless earbuds that just worked^TM.

This is a very common take from people who have never used Bluetooth headphones before. I've had several sets of Bluetooth headphones and earbuds in the past, and they've been the same type of "just works" experience for me. Except better sound quality, and frequently water resistant.

If you like the AirPods then that's great for you, but stop pretending they're some fantastic innovation over what came before, or that they've kept up with what's come out since.

It's not about fantastic technical advancements, so much as packaging new tech such that it could fit seamlessly in 100 million lives. That second part might not seem like a technical challenge, but it often is, in ways you might not immediately appreciate.

I was shocked by how much the Airpods cost, and yet still ended up buying a pair. Have been absolutely delighted. I guess I wasn't alone!

I still don't understand the appeal, nor how they suddenly became a meme in 2018, two years after they were released!

I own multiple pairs of wireless headphones but the fear of losing 1 headphone in the Airpod pair terrifies me.

You can buy individual pod and case replacements. It's still quite expensive, around $50-60 I believe, but it's not like you're just out $160 if you lose one piece.

What I love about the airpods is that the enclosure is so small and well-shaped that I can have it in my front pocket at all times without even noticing it's there. That also means I always put the pods back in the enclosure after use and have not yet lost a pod. Haven't noticed any battery degradation after a year of use.

you sound like the type of person who would never lose an AirPod haha. I lose all sorts of things, but I have found it pretty easy to keep track of my AirPods.

Keep them in your ears or in the case and the probability that you'll lose them will be pretty close to zero.

Unless they fall out of your ears, which has happened to me when jogging a few times.

I think this largely depends on ear shape, so those with "funny" ears have a hard time I guess :/

That's why I went with the Bose SoundSports. The two ears are tethered to each other, can be clipped to the shirt collar, and securely fit against the concha. I don't see being sweaty and bouncing around on rocky trails leading to anything good with those fancy airpods.

The AirPods are the one thing I actually lose (and I've lost a number of times). But I always manage to find them eventually.

The fact that I can't send a sound to them (somehow) when the case is closed is moderately insane. All it can tell me is that they were somewhere near my house when I last used them. That doesn't help me understand where they went to after I put them back in the case and misplaced the case.

Put them in an tpu AirPod case and attach a tile.

This is also my only major complaint (I otherwise love them enough to have upgraded to the new ones when they were released). I would love for the case to be able to beep when pinged by Find My iPhone. Presumably there's cost involved in adding Bluetooth to the case, or adding some kind of communication from the pods to the case, but if it's in the < $50 range I'd probably be ok with it.

They aren't really that much more expensive when compared to other wireless headphones with similar features[1]. You can find < $50 wireless headphones but none with microphone and feature sets approaching the Air Pods.

1 - https://express.google.com/u/0/product/17354370042975848293_...

I'm seeing them more and more often these days on joggers and other people walking around.

I've still never seen a single pair in person, despite living in a major city some of the year (London).

I don't think they've really taken off in Europe.

I've seen AirPods all over London, if you are looking for contrary anecdata. Not as many as the US, but plenty.

There are airpods all over London (and all over France and even on my smaller side of EU).

What ?!

I've been seeing so many recently in public transport, worn by the sort of people I wouldn't expect to be Apple customers, that I distinctly remember wondering a couple of days ago whether cheaper knock-offs had been released in the Android world.

They're virtually everywhere in NYC. I'd say maybe one out of every 6 or 8 people have them in their ears during midtown rush-hour commutes.

Apple has been allowing their partners to aggressively price the "old" Apple Watch (Series 3), starting as low as under $200. This picked up a lot in 2019.

This has effectively allowed them to enter a new lower segment of the market while the series 4 continues to chomp away at the higher end consumer.

The "official" price of the Series 3 is $279. Or at least the price Apple pins its value at.

Series 3 and Series 4 watches are also the most visually distinct due to the S4's significantly larger screen. S0-S3 are all identical, aside from the red dot on the side of the LTE S3 and minor (1-2mm) changes in dimensions.

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