Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?
kevinrooke.com
kevinrooke.com
> Assuming an even split of sales between Gen 1, Gen 2, and AirPods Pro, Airpods revenue was $12 billion in 2019
This itself is a terrible assumption. AirPods Pro launched in November 2019, so had just 2 months of sales. Even otherwise, there is never an even split between the lower and higher priced versions of any product, especially when the higher one costs nearly double.
Another source (https://hypebeast.com/2019/12/apple-airpods-stats-third-larg...) estimates the sales at $6 billion, half of what the parent article says.
Not only were they unofficial, the guess work was wrong. And even the facts were wrong. What annoys me is the blog is actually for investment. ( With Email Newsletter suggesting sign up for insight )
>Since 2017, Apple has sold roughly 215 million iPhones per year. These phones cost roughly $1,000 each, and therefore generate $215 billion of revenue for Apple each year. This makes up 81% of Apple’s total revenue
There is no need to guess. Apple actually report ASP when they were reporting Sales Unit Number. In 2017 their iPhone ASP were 618 - 697 depending on Quarter. In 2018 their iPhone ASP were 728 - 793. They stopped reporting unit and ASP in 2019.
Apple Fiscal 2017, 2018, 2019 Revenue was $229.234B, $265.595B, $259.97B And iPhone Revenue was $141.29 , $166.8B, iPhone % of revenue was ~62% to of their revenue.
Not 80%.
The blog post could have been so much better if he spend 10min actually looking up those number.
> That means almost all iPhone users are still either using wired earphones or none at all.
I'm sorry, what? Non-Apple branded Bluetooth earphones (including AirPod knockoffs) are ubiquitous, and far outnumber wired earphones (in part thanks to Apple and many Android OEMs dropping headset jacks).
That only happened on high-end smartphones. Low-end and mid-range still have 3.5 mm socket.
(Also, I actually look around regularly at the train station, and I still see mostly wired headsets. I'm using a wireless one, btw.)
I see the occasional default Apple headphones, but the vast majority of people are using Airpod-alikes.
You see a lot of AirPods (I was gifted a set myself) but you see even more wireless over-ear headphones. I probably notice those the most. And wired are still common, though not necessarily 3.5mm.
Do you mean they are ubiquitous with people using iPhones? Because here is Australia I would guesstimate that 80% of in-ear wireless earphone used with Apple devices are AirPods.
I think probably 50% of people I know who've bought an iPhone in the last year have bought AirPods at the same time (if they didn't already have them).
Over/On ear headphone are a different story, as is Android.
Maybe in new sales, but not in deployed use.
I’ll buy a quality headset or in-ear and it might last me a decade.
- If one random sales estimate is $6 billion and the other is $12 billion, it is clear that there isn't enough information out there, or something else is amiss. This isn't just a margin of error difference, and would completely change the graph in the parent article.
- There is nothing useful to be taken away from comparing its sales numbers against a bunch of SaaS companies. Here's a better idea - put it on a graph along with sales of Echo, Fire TV, Philips Hue, Chromecast, Roku, Ring, Tile, Duracell AA Battery, GoPro etc.
Even 25% of those numbers gets us to really impressive revenue numbers.
Additionally the author's conclusion that although Airpod revenue is relatively good for a technology company, it's small compared to Apple's total revenue and as compared to the future value of services revenue this hardware enables.
If we were to consider that, the comparison is guaranteed to be dramatically worse (in the favor of Apple).
Shopify, Snapchat and Spotify have yet to earn a single net dollar in profit. They're all still losing money as of their most recent quarters. And their lifetime losses are epic to say the least. Twitter also may still be negative for its lifetime, given its very substantial past losses.
If Apple has even modest 10% margins on the Airpods (it's more likely to be 2x to 3x that), it's at least a billion a year in profit right now. That's probably more than Spotify could earn on its zero margin business even if you gave them $20 billion in sales.
And make no mistake about it - a huge portion of these sales are people buying Apple's marketing - not buying the tech itself.
Which I think may bode well for Apple in that we are only scratching the surface of what the tech can do.
The iPod was better than any competitor it faced ever. The UI with the click wheel was completely unmatched. Maybe the Zune, years later, came close, but Apple absolutely crushed it with the iPhone and iPod touch.
The iPhone was leaps and bounds ahead of its time, to the point that the then King of the hill, BlackBerry, didn’t even think it was possible. And the smoothness of the UI was completely unmatched. The pocketPCs of the time were clunky messes. The iPhone’s UI was so far ahead that it’s now the default UI for every phone.
And finally, the AirPods are a far superior experience than the alternatives. In addition though, the AirPods are extremely competitively priced.
The same is true of the iPod and of the iPhone. To me, that doesn’t diminish from the fact that those are/were best-in-class products, but the ubiquity is absolutely based on fashion.
The same is true of the Apple Watch. Of course the irony here is the Apple Watch was very much marketed as a fashion accessory first. That didn’t work. When the messaging pivoted to health and those capabilities got better then the completion (and there is no Android Apple Watch competition. Fitbit is the closest.), adoption spiked. But again, there is a still a very strong fashion component, even tho that isn’t a large part of the marketing anymore (the attempts to target luxury fashionistas have shifted and that has IMHO made for a better product all around). You don’t get a smart watch. You get an Apple Watch.
https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-airpods-review-wireles...
>The biggest downside? Their sound is just OK. AirPods produce a perfectly average sound that's clear in the mid-tones and is good for podcasts but doesn't pack much in the low end. And because of their open design, sound isolation is terrible. There's also no noise cancellation, so you'll be stuck hearing traffic or crowds around you. The Jabra Elite 65Ts produce much better sound at about the same price. Even budget alternatives like the $80 Anker Soundcore earbuds offer just-as-good sound for half the price.
I've read pretty much the same take from most reviewers I've looked at. It matches quality on cheaper models, and is outpaced by competitors in the same price range.
I bought an iPod Classic later on (with 160 GB) to experience the genius usability of the iPod. Except, I didn't experience it.
The major innovation of the iPhone was that it had a capacitive touch UI (which allows finger use, gestures, etc). The iPhone did not have an App Store during release. It was missing a lot of features. It was Nokia who was the market leader around that point. I wish they fully bet on Maemo and capacitive touch instead of Windows Phone (they went the right way with the N9, but the predecessors were still too much on pen and resistive touch, or hybrid).
Right now, it is oddly enough Jolla who have a partly proprietary, partly FOSS, Linux-based OS (SFOS) for which you need a paid license for. After that, they won't track you though. The iPhone would've never sustained a big pie of the smartphone market though; it is Android which killed Nokia. Official SFOS has Android emulation.
The former is subjective, as for the latter - what's the competition to which they are favourably priced?
How come we have such high expectations for argument quality for every other topic other than how "apple is better" - it has reached the point where I read it and I almost jump to astroturfing conclusions. Fortunately for Apple their fans are dedicated enough to astroturf for free!
As well any Apple main product this day in my opinion. Good and decent products, but severely overpriced. Nothing close to as revolutionary as they were in the early days. Look at functions in new models of iPhones or hardware upgrades in Macs, they are not new or exciting. These days they are so much alternatives, it's a wonder to me why Apple is still so popular. It has to be a fashion or prestige feeling in my opinion. And it's only a matter of time before that dies out in my opinion.
When it comes to multitasking, the WebOS card metaphor won out and even came to iOS.
I preferred the Creative Zen Touch to the iPod from the same year (2004), because:
- it had a great UI (similar to the iPod's, but the scroll area was vertical instead of circular)
- I could load music onto it easily (no need to use a special app)
IIRC Apple and Creative had some litigation about the IP for the UI, although I don't recall the details.
EDIT: I agree with your point about the iPhone.
Then I found that my airpods were under the couch and I immediately switched back.
Apple added on their own crippling DRM after that.
iRivers, Cowons, and Samsungs were a head above it without any doubt. They were just never marketed in US.
Same with Smartphones. Japanese phones had all features of a smartphone a decade before the rest of the world, but they never bothered to market them outside thinking of outside world being "not advanced enough" to culturally absorb a phone as an integral lifestyle element, and not as a work tool.
Growing up during the rise of the ipod, it absolutely was a status symbol first and foremost. Owning a zune gave you more ridicule in middle school than not owning an mp3 player at all. People were buying earpods without even buying an ipod, just to have that white cord dangling out of their ear.
Maybe older generations saw it as good tech only, but for late millenials, the ipod's popularity was due to an obsession for vanity. These were the years where everything had to be either lacoste, abercrombie, hollister, american eagle, or a 6 inch tall polo man, after all.
Part of the airpods success is that they tap into this obsession toward vanity harbored deep within millenials, who have also moved on from mall brands to gucci/balenciaga/supreme/insert bougie brand of the decade.
By definition all of the businesses that survive are good at marketing - Apple has managed to drive extraordinary value through positioning and differentiation and left everyone else to compete over the collapsing middle market.
Sony’s precise problem was underinvesting on positioning and brand and relying on their technical advantage ... which proved a problem when everyone else caught up with the tech and they couldn’t repeat the trick with other devices.
People say marketing like it’s something to be ashamed of, and that Apple should deliberately hobble itself by being bad at it. It’s really critical.
Actually the Walkman (which was arguably Sony's second breakout product, the first being a transistor radio) Sony was definitely the cool kid. And don't forget the Playstation or the Trinitron.
In fact Steve Jobs explicitly emulated and admired Sony for their (then) sense of style, customer appeal and quality.
The Sony of today is a different company. Despite the PS2 success I date the decay to when they bought United Artists.
Sony had the Walkman but missed the mp3-player market, didn't bring out a walkman phone, and now they have a product competing with AirPods that's naturally completely disconnected from the walkman both directly and indirectly because "walkmen are ancient" which is not some universal truth, that's just what they let their previously powerful brand degrade to. They've wisely chosen to brand their Airpod competitor the Sony WF1000XM3, who doesn't want products that sound like version of cruiser missiles, or shipping container dimensions? Ironically I heard a friened describe his pair as his "Sony AirPods", because that's what they are to him, the equivalent of Apple AirPods but cheaper and made by Sony, because even the people who own the product can't remember the name. So naturally friends ask why not get "Real" AirPods? And his answer was price, which makes the product sound like a cheap discount version. But it's in the same price range and same quality and even beat out the AirPods in some reviews. Talk about a branding disaster.
Got my first MacBook because of work. Was previously a windows / Linux user and didn’t get macs but ended up loving the MacBook Pro. Got an iPhone from work too, ended up loving that too. Got a pair of AirPods as present, use it pretty frequently now.
Seems like both a good thing (like it after using it) and a bad thing (wouldn’t have gotten into it if not for the unplanned opportunity) for Apple.
Back when i bought airpods 2 years ago, I still had an Android, and they blew me away in terms of UX. Up to that moment, i have tried and failed to find a pair of fully wireless earbuds that worked as well and sounded as good (for earbuds, obviously). And even today, out of all people i know with android phones, about a third of them use airpods. Each one of them had a similar story of quiet dismissal of airpods for quite a while since the release, then they tried them, and bought them shortly after.
P.S. as of now, there are a few good non-airpods truly wireless earbuds that are solid alternatives. Back when i got them, however, every single model out there I tried had some critical flaw. Things like dropped connection or sound getting choppy and stuttery in certain areas. It mostly happened on busy street intersections, so i guess it had something to do with interference from a lot of other bluetooth devices, because the exact same thing used to happen to bluetooth connection in my old car at one specific heavy traffic intersection.
I disagree with the idea that it's marketing. Apple does very little marketing these days. Apple products are a memetic virus.
Apple does a significant amount of marketing, and I'd argue that they've been steadily ramping it up recently. It's just that they're usually a lot better at staying out of your face about it.
Sony WF-1000XM3 are a popular in-ear Bluetooth headphones with noise cancelling. 80 EUR cheaper than Apple Airpods Pro.
Wonder how much influence that had on current AirPods.
It's Air Pod or...
TOZO T10? Sony XB950B1? LETSCOM IPX7? KOVEBBLE IPX7?
Fuck I have no idea what all these numbers and letters mean, I'll buy some Air Pods.
To someone who uses Sony, AudioTechnica (loved my ATH-M50s for.. 5+ years) , Jabra. etc you tend to learn the numbering not that it's great. It's like buying a 3 series or 5 series BMW. There's usually some way to determine which class they're in from that brand, like the Sonys were 1000MX2s before they became 1000MX3s, next will be the MX4, the preceding WF or WH is earbuds vs over-ear (no idea what WF or WH actually means, though).
The sony WF-1000XM3 get mentioned immediately if you google/reddit/etc for "Air Pod Alternative"
Why do you need only one competitor? I picked a random non-apple bluetooth 5 earpod and it's a superior product for over $100 less as far as I can tell.
Jim Collins talked about his conversations with Steve Jobs at the end of the Knowledge project podcasts. He started talking to Steve after Steve got fired from Apple.
"what the tech can do"? you mean the airpods?
what else is there?
I have an Apple Watch, it unlocks my laptop automatically. My AirPods connect seamlessly to my phone for listening to music, my watch when I'm working out and my laptop when I'm doing video calls at work. Continuity, AirDrop, AirPlay ... you can't deny that Apple has built an impressive ecosystem.
Zero people have been swayed by the observation that the components can be acquired for cheaper
And the non-iOS phone users that are married to “how much control they have” have touched an iphone since 2014.
I don't even tinker that much and my foray into iOS lasted only 1 year with the 10S Max. The inability to arrange items freely on the desktop (leave a blank space) was frustrating. The lack of control over default apps was occasionally problematic. The inability to natively link to a Windows computer and transfer files is also something I use.
That said, there are a ton of benefits of iOS over Android that I recognize (iMessage, Apple Wallet, the screen responsiveness, etc).
Oh, how wrong I was. Siri is still garbage, CarPlay is terrible compared to Android Auto. And there's nothing even similar to Google Home. Apple's hands-free story is completely nonexistent which is fine if you've never used a decent hands-free ecosystem, but it's very hard to switch back to.
The iPod was far from the first, far from the best, and maybe even technically not an mp3 player.
Honstly every time I see someone wearing earpods I can't take him seriously anymore, they look _so_ bad. There's a lot of options on the market, and airpods are the ugliest of them all.
The only upside is they’re branded, so you can make yourself look like you’re the type of person who owns Apple products. Wow.
I think it's an amazing product even without the integration and software and integration.
Cherry-picking the detail you think is most important from an article is a form of editorializing. If you want to say what you think is important about an article, do not do so by changing the title. Instead, post it as a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
It is the same bet they have made repeatedly with their phones. Smaller sim card (obsoleting old approaches) - removing headphone jack, switching to lighting, doing totally sealed (but durable) devices etc.
It's generally paid off - oddly people seem to prefer used apple products (ie, beleive in their durability) over used logitech headphones or android phones - so the actual life of apple products ends up being pretty long.
Apple's battery service fee is $49 for airpods and useful life is perhaps around 3 years, if you keep wanting to replace the batteries every three years. My quick sense is that most folks may retire their airpods after the second battery (6 years in) at the longer end.
So far their approach has paid of tremendously for them.
I am curious what other headphone providers are doing here. Ie, how easy is it to get a fresh set of batteries after 3 years that are of high quality and replace them. I've gotten burned replacing batteries in products with amazon replacements and the mfg sometimes doesn't even stock or sell new batteries for their devices so I've gone with Apple for now - if you go into their store for a new battery I've never had a problem with quality.
The question I have is if they are able to meaningfully recycle the used AirPods or if they just end up in the landfill?
I've always just cut the old ones to fit and it's worked fine.
Apple apparently DOES offer battery service for these, but it's $49 PER AirPod. If it was $49 for both I might be up for it.
Apple's battery service across the board is just too damn expensive. I get that it's the labor costs involved, but I wish they would put more thought into this.
I have three older iPads, a few older iPhones and a MacBook Air that are perfectly usable minus the batteries. but it would costs hundreds of dollars to replace them all so they just end up sitting in a bin because I don't have the heart to toss them.
I can't imagine the genius bar has tweezers and microscopes for battery replacements in-store...
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Nintendo+DS+Lite+Battery+Replac...
and here's the battery that you can order for $15 on Nintendo's official store. https://store.nintendo.com/battery-pack-nintendo-ds-lite.htm...
Needless to say, I said no thanks. I'm about ready to throw these away and I'll probably buy a pair of Sony headphones this time.
Their laptops and phones do not have replaceable batteries, why would their headphones?
That's like comparing a car to wheels. Laptops/phones have infinitely more use cases to them. Headphones are accessories.
What are you talking about?
ipads, iphones, even some modern mac laptops that have the disks soldered and batteries glued, etc.
Airpods are an exception to the rule here.
I wonder where this narrative comes from, can you please explain why do you think that Apple products degrade rapidly and are thrown away?
Macbook Pro from 2008: Still boots iPhone 4 (2010): Still functioning (although obviously does not run latest OS) iPhone 5s (2013): Still functioning (running iOS 12 just fine) iPhone 7: (2016): Still flawless
The manager was explaining that on weeks when AirPods are in stock their sales in the electronics department more than double. The exact numbers he mentioned escape me but were staggering. The whole time people were loading thousand dollar TVs onto carts - and the AirPods alone were doing that much over again in sales.
I don't think there's nearly enough evidence for this to be an _actual_ thing.
People keep repeating this almost like a PR slogan but is there any actual solid evidence that constantly measuring health data has a meaningful impact on average, healthy adults and is a reasonable thing to do?
A non-diabetic person does not need to constantly measure their glucose level, and if anything slight anomalies in otherwise asymptomatic people may very well create health scares or overburden the medical system with people getting things checked out that isn't a problem.
This is a very real trade-off already present for example when it comes to mammographies, with many studies suggesting the routine screening might be a net negative.
The economic incentive for the healthcare industry is very obvious when it comes to putting everyone on 24/7 surveillance, but is there any indication it meaningfully improves the life of individuals in general?
ISTR some studies that for certain measures, frequent measurement without specific indication of monitoring need tends to drive overtreatment and worse outcomes, not even considering things like mammograms where the measuring actually can contribute to the thing it detects.
There is still a problem with this PR, since everyone is talking about that, but technology is nowhere near to deliver on those promises. Hope the hype won't kill off real work in developing good sensors.
What percentage of Airpods owners do you reckon _always_ have them inside their ears?
Do you think most people would want to lose all their data if they lose their device?
https://www.reddit.com/r/airpods/comments/e2gmyw/ear_infecti...
If they were being fancy I'm guessing you could use some buzzwords (AI etc. etc.) to combine the data along with the moisture content around the ear to determine whether someone is exercising automatically. (Assuming they don't already, my phone seems to be able to but not very accurately)
I then realized this was Apple's real reason for eliminating the headphone jack. It had nothing to do with courage. It was about eliminating a deeply ingrained user habit so they could solve the problem they themselves created. I wouldn't have bothered with the AirPods if my headphone jack had continued to function.
That said, I don't know if Apple's strategy bothers me. There are a lot of user behaviors rooted in history and old constraints rather than good usability. There are a lot of downsides, but as someone who views technology as ephemeral I don't know if it matters to me.
To do away with the point of failure that you so aptly illustrated by getting salt water in your phone?
I wouldn't have bothered with the AirPods if my headphone jack had continued to function.
That's you, though. There are clearly millions and millions of people who don't want wires.
I don't know if I agree with this assessment. Apple is, to a fault, driven by the user experience of their products and what the "ideal" of a situation should be. It's very likely that AirPods, or some early variant, was discussed while Steve Jobs was at Apple and the conversation probably went something like:
"What would be the perfect user experience for listening to music on an iPhone?"
"I pick up my phone and hit play and the music plays directly into my ears."
AirPods are about as close as someone can get to buying the product, putting them in their ears, and immediately listening as you can get. They set themselves up as soon as you open their case and they automatically connect to the active audio device when you put them in your ears. No one would ever add a wired cable to that process unless they absolutely had to for technical reasons. The only way to make this even more ideal is that the listening device is already in your ear or they can beam the audio directly into your ear canal without some kind of device you insert.
But after having used Bluetooth headphones for a while, going back to wired headphones was pure hell.
They push us into a new shift in technology each time. It's like accelerating us by being a single large agent. No one else has the market presence. Suddenly I was able to buy Jabra earbuds that are pretty damned good but the equivalent of which cost twice or thrice as much.
I've always wanted ones like this, not the weird "around the back of the head like I can't keep my glasses on" ones that make me look like a dork and not the "sound quality is worthless and you look like a stock trader" jawbone ones. This is the best world.
Obviously that's not the case in private, at home, the car and at specialized aplications (ie medical), where audio tech is thriving.
Note: I'm talking about earphones/earbuds exclusively, headphones are fine for obvious reasons. Also some types of earphones (designed for sports) that have "ear-hooks" behind the ear are fine since the hooks will keep them in place.
Note 2: my ears don't have the "bump" (not sure what the scientific term is) that is circled in red in this picture https://imgur.com/a/CJv20Zu
Edit: that bump that I don't have is called "Antitragus" https://elementsofmorphology.nih.gov/anatomy-ear.shtml
(Plus, phones that leak audio seem rude in public places.)
I expect to be the odd guy still using over-ear headphones at some point. When everybody just gets implants. Or maybe I'll just join the crowd when my hearing gets worse. Wouldn't want to miss out on music would I?
I have to use earbuds with a stiff silicone shroud that I can shove deep enough on my ear canal that they can't fall out. I couldn't even get the hard plastic Apple earbuds to balance in my ear, they just fell right out.
I would have guessed Watch but it looks like I'm wrong. Pretty astonishing that people will throw an extra quarter on top of the price of their phone for this, especially given that I've used noise cancelling headphones before. My guess would have been that removing the wire would only make a small difference.
I guess the market is there to discover this kind of thing. Kudos to Apple for finding this.
- I can carry the little dental-floss-case around with me everywhere in my pocket. Even if I don't plan on using them, I have them there just in case. Especially when it comes to noise-cancelling, this has a major effect on day-to-day life for me as unexpected use cases pop up.
- It's not just the lack of a wire: one entire step is eliminated from starting and stopping using your headphones. You just put them in your ears, or take them out. There's no messing with a cord or even a menu on your phone. Something easy is made effortless, which matters.
- Once in, they stay out of the way so well that you can leave them in even if you're not using them. Then when you do unexpectedly decide to watch a video, or take a call, your phone is already plugged directly into your headspace, no extra step necessary.
- All the little details. The fact that taking one out of your ear pauses your media and placing it back in resumes it is essential for wearing them passively while out and about; ordering a coffee, etc. No fumbling with your phone for a pause button; the social signal for "I'm listening" is paired with what you want your media to be doing at that moment.
All of this combines into an experience so frictionless it's mindblowing.
One more thing to consider, Apple Watch works with iPhones only. It might have changed now, but given how integrated with apple ecosystem the watch is, i doubt it is anything but a weak neutered version of the iphone+apple watch experience.
Airpods, on the other hand, work great with Android. The only neutered “features” are those that i dont consider vital at all (like being able to rename the display name of your airpods that gets sent to devices attempting to pair with them).
But compared to the iPhone it looks small so people dismiss it.
That's all that's stopping me from buying this and other premium products. I love premium products but not if I have to replace them every year.
Honestly a little surprised that Airpods would be so successful.
Lol, or they're using other Bluetooth headphones?
LOL indeed, is this what counts as market research/insight?
Pros: I think that the overall design/form-factor is the true winner. The conveniently pocketable charging case, and the ability to wear them during physical activities without falling out, without the need for annoying straps etc is a huge win. Seriously. My hobby is skateboarding, and I have taken countless falls, tons of high-impact activity, and have never once had them fall out. Being free of wires also helps this. The pairing capabilities are fine (Mac and Iphone user), but I agree with what others are saying in that other options also handle this (almost) as well. I switching from IOS to Mac to be mostly seamless, but sometimes have issues switching from Mac to IOS. The sound quality is, meh, but this is Bluetooth, if you want audiophile quality, you must look for wired.
Cons: One major gripe I have with the Airpods is that, while using 'Find-My' works great if you lost an Airpod outside the case (while paired), it does not work at all when the pods are in the case. I understand the charging case has no speaker, therefore no good way to alert, but if Apple had this feature on a new version, it might be enough to make me buy them before my current Airpods reach EOL. My second complaint, is that I feel like Apple is under-utilizing them as an input device for IOS/Mac. You have the capability of summoning siri, and skipping tracks, but you can't do both on a single pod. This design is bad UX for people like me, who typically only use 1 pod at a given time. I also think it would be nice to adjust volume with a gesture. I also get that Apple probably doesn't want to have feature overlap between Airpods and Apple watch, but I digress.
Overall, despite some gripes, I don't really see any better options at this time for what I need them to do. When my Gen 1s die, I will shell out for new ones. I hope that Apple doesn't just rest on their laurels and actually adds some new features/capabilities on subsequent releases, but I'm not holding my breath.
I think most of HN think of the watch as either a thing that will never happen or they think it peaked. But not only do I think that I could likely go a day without having my actual phone with me, I think this is only the beginning for that form factor.
I mean, consider that: handoff is here, and works.
Airpods mean external peripherals can be attached seamlessly.
It supports LTE and Streaming music.
The future I see, phones as they currently exist become tablets, and watches are the new phone.
Then we get airpods and I'm sort of stunned how small they actually are. I just wish the battery was more easily replaceable.
With AirPods, an Apple Watch Is good for Audible books, podcasts, and music.
I used to think that it was cool to just take an iPhone on a trip and be connected. Now, an Apple Watch with AirPods can suffice. For travel the only thing missing from the Apple Watch is not being able to read eBooks which is why AirPods and Audible fill an important use case.
Voice control gets better all the time and our always carry digital device can get very small.
A market research is due by Apple. This is the first Apple product that is compatible outside its own ecosystem, and my guess is that this is having a very positive impact on sales. Steve old "closed ecosystem" adage might be doing more bad than good.
Conceptually, it's already the next big thing. Will it be Apple's next big thing? Probably yes, but in a heavily competitive marketplace.
These hurt my right ear slightly. The audio sometimes stutters. Sometimes the battery drains in one very quickly but not the other, or there's some other bug causing the audio to go out in one ear. Putting them in and taking them out of the case is awkward. Keeping them charged is a responsibility.
The $8 wired earbuds I had before never had any of these problems. And I was never worried about losing them. I saw them being wired as a pro, not a con. I'm going back to those. I can't believe anyone pays $250 for these. I couldn't believe paying $50.
Obviously a million times easier said than done, but has to be a better margin business than where they currently are and would be good lock in.
I feel like every gadget being in one is gonna start breaking down now that software interop is more of a thing.
I can't believe this feature is not standard on today's headphone products, especially digital ones.
edit: Thanks for the responses. Looks like Airpods pro do have this feature. Thumbs up!
The out-of-the-box experience for Sonos is Apple like. Yes, there are forums where users have issues, and so does Apple.
If Apple were to acquire Sonos, it would speed things up a bit.
More interesting and better for the world if we apply that to governments rather than companies :)
I use $15 bluetooth earbuds cause I don't want to worry about losing them.
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They’re ridiculously low friction. Stick them in your ears and they’re on and paired and ready. Take them out and they’re off. Store them and they’re charging. Trivial to swap them between Apple devices, easy to pair the first time.
And they sound great considering their size.
They’re little magic gizmos that make me (and millions of others) happy because they work so well.
> Apple may launch an operating system for AirPods in 2020, and apps like TTYL and Yac are already creating buzz as audio-first applications.
Apple being Apple, this integration will likely only work with airpods. But I'm with you. I'd rather have great sounding music. I have an android phone and $60 earbuds, both of which support the LDAC 990kbps standard. This sounds much better than when I pair the same earbuds with my Macbook using AAC.
...until Airpods get an eSIM (like apple watches) and become standalone products, they'll be earphones. Ear-phones, geddit? Telephones for your ears, they'll be like... oh never mind.
I wonder what's the ratio among the owners, who bought vs. who received them as a gift.
"Wires are annoying" and "other Bluetooth headphones suck" were not problems created by Apple.
That idea of transporting yourself to another location through the use of sound is absolutely fascinating. I think developers should and will start to consider how sound enhances existing experiences, and how new experiences can come from looking at audio output and input as tools to be used to reach the user.
Sound has kind of been neglected in more recent times in technology, with apps and operating systems making fewer sounds then they did in the past, since sounds are often intrusive to whatever other thing the user is listening to. But sound has the potential to communicate completely different ideas and experiences to users and that idea in the article to me is one prime example of that sort of interaction that only works through sound.
Thinking about it... I probably make more money than Spotify, Twitter, Snapchat and shopify.
I bet almost any of apples products could be similarly compared.
I would expect Apple to make more out the AirPods after they force those stuck on iPhone 6S's or SE's to upgrade. Revenue-wise, it almost unfair to begin comparing with the revenues with any of those mentioned companies. It just puts things into perspective of how 'successful' the AirPods have become for Apple.