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But that’s the thing. A lot of people are willing to compromise just for the wirelessness.

People apart from tech-people or audiophiles don’t really care about the points you listed or if they do, the convenience that comes from the wirelessness is more important.

Being wireless counts for so much for me. For myself and many other people, the experience of wireless headphones is hands-down superior to wired headphones. I would never go back to wired ones.

Wires are a pain. They get tangled, they mean your phone and headphones need to always be close (which adds a certain amount of friction, once you get used to the alternative), but most importantly (for me) they get caught on things all the time.

Hi! I’m Johnny Average Consumer. Nice to meet you.

> Ok, 3.5" headphones are objectively: cheaper,

I don’t care. I’ll pay for convenience. This phone was a thousand dollars!

> simpler mechanically,

Why would I know or care?

> more reliable,

You may have a point here, but the convenience of wireless overrides this for me.

> easier to use,

What about that horrible wire? It gets tangled in my pocket and I rip my headphones out when I run.

> easier to connect to different devices,

I only have one device.

> never run out of battery or require charging,

I charge my AirPods Pro every few days. This is a non-issue.

> you can't lose 1/3 of them,

But I mangle the wire on my old headphones all the time, so this feels like a fair trade-off.

> and oh, yeah, they tend to sound better at the same price point.

I’m neither an audiophile nor particularly price conscious.

> A set of Shure SE315s will blow AirPods Pro out of the water on sound quality and noise isolation.

I’ve never heard of those and wouldn’t know where to buy them.

> Yes, wireless headphones are wireless. That's all though.

This is such a naive statement. I’m sorry, but it totally ignores everything that Average Consumer wants.

> None of this makes AirPods Pro a platform.

Not yet.

> They're neat wireless headphones. Among the best wireless headphones probably. But that's still all they are.

Once you’ve tried a pair of truly great wireless headphones you’ll never go back.

Yours, Average Consumer

> Hi! I’m Johnny Average Consumer. > This phone was a thousand dollars!

It's not accurate to describe the average consumer as being in the thousand dollar phone market. They are premium products, and not one that the average consumer can afford. That's one reason why Apple's phone global market share wavers around 10-15%.

Anyone buying AirPods has already bought an iPhone (a thousand dollar phone), so I think you can replace ‘Johnny Average Consumer’ with ‘Billy iPhone Consumer’ and the rest of their points still hold

And seeing that the Apple Watch is already generating more revenue than the iPods at peak, there are lot of people with a $350 Watch, a $600+ iPhone and AirPods.

> Anyone buying AirPods has already bought an iPhone (a thousand dollar phone)

Not everyone buying an iPhone today is buying a current, model (carriers are selling back to the iPhone 8), even if they are the base iPhone 11 is about $700 not $1000, and even flagship models are often bought on promotion with steep discounts (AT&T has one with, in the right circumstances, a $700 discount on the 11 Max Pro, bringing it to around $400 on the promo.)

> I only have one device.

I'm happy I can easily use my headphones with a 9mm plug on my crappy work laptop as well

Surely your laptop has Bluetooth?

Hi! I’m Bonnie Average Consumer. Nice to meet you.

> Ok, 3.5" headphones are objectively: cheaper,

Perfect, I have no money.

> simpler mechanically,

That's nice I guess

> more reliable,

Neat

> easier to use,

Oh yeah I can just plug it in, easy.

> easier to connect to different devices,

Yeah I can just plug it into those, lots of stuff has that sound hole.

> never run out of battery or require charging,

that's true, plus I couldn't use them while they're charging, so if I forget it's a big issue.

> you can't lose 1/3 of them,

That is something that could happen.

> and oh, yeah, they tend to sound better at the same price point.

I'm no audiophile so I'd probably spend less to still get a decent pair.

> A set of Shure SE315s will blow AirPods Pro out of the water on sound quality and noise isolation.

$300 is pricey for mini-speakers

> Yes, wireless headphones are wireless. That's all though.

They play noises too I've heard.

> None of this makes AirPods Pro a platform.

Okay.

> They're neat wireless headphones. Among the best wireless headphones probably. But that's still all they are.

Okay.

I guess my point is we can make up any kind of person, call them and average consume and present them with thoughts and opinions that match our own.

Your comment was nothing but dismissal under the name of 'an average consumer'

Yours, Average Consumer

Wow, it's almost like there are millions of different people with a wide range of preferences and wealth! Maybe there is room in the market for this product after all. Maybe that explains how it has already sold in the tens of millions.

It's funny because I own both AirPods and 315s. I always have thought "Why did I pay so much for the 315s when I can get a crappy ol pair of wired headphones for $20 that work well enough." There wasn't a fantastic bluetooth connected option, I have owned 6-10 bluetooth wireless solutions, but nothing matched airpods.

> Wow, it's almost like there are millions of different people with a wide range of preferences and wealth!

Isn't it also almost like discussing the average consumers is a way to consciously limit the scope of the discussion so that it isn't about some <1% of the world's population?

> I don’t care. I’ll pay for convenience. This phone was a thousand dollars!

Did you mean for "Average Consumer" just to be your name? Because an average consumer certainly did not pay $1000 for their phone. Already here you represent an outlier.

> What about that horrible wire? It gets tangled in my pocket and I rip my headphones out when I run.

About 20% of Americans engage in activities like running or jogging. Again, you're an outlier.

> I only have one device.

https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/solutions/service-provider/v...

I can't say for sure that you're an outlier hear because these figures represent a mean and not a median. I'm taking "the average consumer" to mean "the median consumer" because "the mean consumer" doesn't exist.

> I charge my AirPods Pro every few days. This is a non-issue.

https://www.ifpi.org/downloads/Music-Listening-2019.pdf

Again, I'm not sure that you are an outlier here because of averages vs medians.

If you spend 18 hours per week just listening to music, If even half of that is spent listening to music from your only device, you'll be charging your airpods at least twice a week.

If airpods are additionally used for calls, some two hours a day, you'll have to charge them even more often.

If AirPods are an ubiquitous platform for augmented hearing, "adding context" to what you hear, you'll be charging them at least twice a day.

> Did you mean for "Average Consumer" just to be your name? Because an average consumer certainly did not pay $1000 for their phone.

I should have made it clear that I am in Australia. AU$1k ≈ US$700.

That's closer to what my peers are spending. They are outliers, though, living in a developed country, working well-paying jobs, almost all tech nerds. I have a hard time imagining that the world wide average or even a national average for Australia is anywhere near that. That said, I haven't found any non-paywalled comprehensive survey data on the subject so I'll leave it at that.

This seems promising, in case anyone has an account: https://www.statista.com/statistics/283334/average-smartphon...

> Hi! I’m Johnny Average Consumer.

> I don’t care. I’ll pay for convenience. This phone was a thousand dollars!

The average US smartphone consumer is paying like $500 (substantially less anywhere outside of North America) and saying their limit is substantially less than even that, if you look at both actual average price data and surveys of what consumers say they are willing to pay, so (1) not buying a $1000 phone, (2) not aware of how much they are actually paying for a phone, and (3) not as willing to pay extra for convenience as you suggest.

I agree they aren't a platform (yet?). I just don't understand why you're conflating this with an assertion that AirPods can't possibly offer any additional utility over a basic set of wireless headphones. I for one don't want to know what Shure offers or deal with adding microphones or whatever. I don't care about that. I just want to pay someone a sum of money I am okay with paying for a product that will do what I want. I don't even care if it doesn't sound quite as good as the best possible offering; for me part of the utility is not needing to think about all this stuff. (That doesn't mean I would blindly buy anything Apple makes or whatever my friends tell me, but in this case I felt pretty confident I'd be happy with my choice and I was.)

I'm glad you're happy with your setup and choices. It wouldn't work for me but it does for you. That's all that should matter to you.

> more reliable

Not sure about that part - especially for bigger (over-ear) headphones. My last 2 pairs of wired sets all died because the cable or connector inside the headphones got loose due to mechanical stress. Resoldering was not an option since it was not possible to open the case in a non destructive fashion.

At least that failure-mode does not exist in bluetooth headphones. And so far I had not an issue with my pair (but it's only a year old). But long term the battery might certainly become a potential issue.

Marshall headphones have a 9mm jack on the headphones themselves to solve that problem.

Airpods just magically stop working.

I used to review consumer electronics as a side gig, and one year Shure was nice enough to send me one of every in-ear headset they made. This was around 2005 or so. The gear was excellent, fantastic sound quality, but they all broke. Even the $700 pair. The cable got pinched or something. Shure replaced them (even though at this point they were out of warranty), and the replacement pair broke a year later. Wires suck.

>never run out of battery or require charging

On this point, wireless headphones are massively superior. You only need to plug in wireless headphones when you’re not using them. You need to plug in wired headphones all the time when using them. This enables things like “using two hands to carry an object across a room, without wearing a pocket, while listening to headphones”. This is a huge practical upgrade that most people find impossible to give up once habituated.

Headphones, no matter how high cost they were in the first place, always end up with a wire failure on the connecting part after a few years. I have come to hate them with passion for this single reason.

Anything with an MMCX connector allows you to swap out the cable. Generally any expensive headphones have MMCX connectors.

  > easier to connect to different devices

Nope. With wired headphones you need to disconnect the wire from the one device and put it into another. You don't have to do that with AirPods.

Right unless you want to plug it into the IFE on your plane?

>Yes, wireless headphones are wireless. That's all though.

And that's exactly what makes them easier to use and better sounding if you don't sit still.

Wires get caught in clothes and tend to pull on the earbuds. They scrape and bang against clothes, chin, neck and chest, making a lot of noise in the process.

Does that mean I'm going to pay hundereds for headphones or believe in Excalibur - sorry AirPods - as a platform any time soon? Unlikely. I guess I'll just continue to put up with the occasional bluetooth pairing issues.

> A set of Shure SE315s will blow AirPods Pro out of the water on sound quality

The internet really needs to get off it’s high horse about this. The fact is 99% of people can’t tell the difference.

Just like 99% of people don’t care about the headphone jack being removed. This is evident by the market mocking Apple and then following Apple when they realised that it’s true.

Rather than not being able to tell the difference, most consumers don't care about the difference. Everyone has their own acceptable level of sound quality, even enthusiasts. That being said the airpod pros' fidelity are known to be quite good in audiophile circles.

> Rather than not being able to tell the difference, most consumers don't care about the difference.

This is very true too. I agree.

Almost everyone comments about how much better then AirPods Pro are than their old Airpods, though

> The fact is 99% of people can’t tell the difference.

No, they absolutely can, they just don't think the difference is worth the cost. That's not the same thing.

> Just like 99% of people don’t care about the headphone jack being removed.

[citation needed]

Regardless of where this debate ends up, AirPods are estimated to have sold 60M units in 2019 [0].

This means AirPods as a stand-alone business is somewhere between a $5B-$15B/year.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-airpods-pro-production...

For another point of reference, that’s larger than the iPod revenue when it peaked in 2007.

So the entire narrative that Apple hasn’t released a successful product since Cook took over is provably false. Both the Watch and AirPods lines are larger than the iPods ever were.

http://www.asymco.com/2019/12/12/ipods-pro/

Yes I realize that the $4 billion quoted in the article was for the Christmas quarter.

Wired headphones wouldn’t work too well when I just have my cellular watch at the gym....

But even back in the iPod days, I hated wired headphones when I was running or doing anything at the gym.

And how are they “easier to use”? I open the case, they pair to either my iPad or iPhone without a manual pairing process. I put one in my ear, it changes the sound to be monaural from stereo. I also don’t have to go through an unpairing process for it to connect seamlessly to my watch, iPad, iPhone, or AppleTV.

Different use cases.

Shure SE315s headphones are for audiophiles. I have 3 pairs of the cheaper model. I love them.

AirPods are for on-the-go. Since getting a dog, I've become addicted to podcasts. AirPods are fantastic.

I only picked the 315s since they're give or take the same price point as AirPods Pro and have infinitely better sound quality because they only do one thing.

> Ok, 3.5" headphones are objectively: cheaper, simpler mechanically, more reliable, easier to use, easier to connect to different devices, never run out of battery or require charging, you can't lose 1/3 of them, and oh, yeah, they tend to sound better at the same price point.

The utility value of AirPods or similar products is way higher. They are easier to use because they don’t need plugged in. They provide a superior user experience because you’re not tethered. They are easier to every-day-carry and thus always available.

There will always be exceptions: audiophiles, etc. For most of us, it’s no contest.

Another disadvantage of AirPods (and most other wireless headphones): they're terrible for the environment. Builtin batteries which will wear out, glued shut so no way to replace the batteries, tied to a stack of radio/protocol/codecs which will be obsolete sooner or later.

They are throw-away products. Just look at all the original 1st gen AirPods which now see their batteries failing - each one by itself is small, but given the sales numbers it's huge mountains of electronics trash.

For the price of AirPods you can get a good pair of wired headphones which can last 20+ years. Replace tips or ear cushions as needed, on good headphones they are easily replaceable. No batteries or protocols or codecs to ever worry about.