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Comment by habosa | Hacker News Reader

In San Francisco (so at the center of the bubble) I've been shocked by the adoption of the AirPods pro. I see them everywhere now and they've only been out for two months or so. Add the regular AirPods in and they're downright ubiquitous.

These are $250 headphones. I've loved music all my life and I used to get weird looks from people when I told them I was spending $150-200 on nice earbuds with better sound quality. For about a decade everyone was pretty happy with the white iPod headphones that came in the box.

Thinking back I guess Beats opened the floodgates of "normal people having expensive headphones" and also "headphones as fashion" and then AirPods came in and added a whole convenience layer on top which seems to be driving people to buy in droves.

So yeah, Apple's raking it in. Guess I shouldn't be surprised.

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The noise cancelling changes everything.

It just makes dealing with incessant city noise so much more manageable.

You don't even have to be listening to music.

But if you are listening to music, you hear it so much more clearly and can use a lower volume.

From a quality of life perspective, if you commute by foot/subway/bus, they're so so worth it.

(Yes there were noise-cancelling headphones before, but always bulky or with wires. With AirPods, they're just effortless to bring+wear.)

> (Yes there were noise-cancelling headphones before, but always bulky or with wires. With AirPods, they're just effortless to bring+wear.)

Not true. Sony WF-1000XM3's were released before airpod pros, and they have ANC tech that is by all accounts better than Apples. Its the same ANC module that is in the WH-1000XM3's which are viewed by many to be the best ANC headphone right now.

Off topic, but Sony really needs to get better with naming their products.

It's true, but the main advantage of the Airpods is how compact and convenient overall they are. I keep them in my front pocket usually and I don't even feel that they are here. Sony's case is just too bulky for my taste: https://i.imgur.com/OcJrMHn.jpg

> It just makes dealing with incessant city noise so much more manageable.

> You don't even have to be listening to music.

It does noise cancelling without music? That seems like a bad feature for something that you are expected to keep in your ear all the time.

It can be turned on and off at the user's discretion. There's also a transparency mode to make it easier to hear your surroundings without having to take the AirPods out of your ears. See: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210643

That's really nice then!

You can a) take them out whenever you want, nobody's "expecting" you to keep them in all the time, and b) press a hardware button which toggles noise cancellation instantly, if someone wants to talk to you.

It's a great feature.

> nobody's "expecting" you to keep them in all the time,

I do expect to keep them on, they are expensive device and I won't open the little carrying case and put them in each time someone may speak to me.

>press a hardware button which toggles noise cancellation instantly

That does makes it quite handy!

Don't forget that more than a few of us are sporting Powerbeats Pros, basically AirPods with ear hooks. I personally haven't visually surveyed how common they are, but I can't be the only one that bought a pair. I'm guessing they don't come close to AirPods on sales because you kinda have to know the Powerbeats exist. Whereas I think you'd have to live deep in that cave to not know about AirPods.

(And if AirPods of any kind don't work for your ears, give the Powerbeats a test drive. For me, AirPods are great until I start actively moving around, or put a helmet on.)

I am not someone who spend a lot of money on audio hardware, but plunked $150 for AirPods. The product is just so good, and there is no way I can go back to a wired headset now. In fact I hate talking on my phone without AirPods in general now

Are the AirPods actually good headphones? Personally I don't consider the basic Apple headphones that come with iPhones to be either good audio quality or comfortable design, and the AirPods look identcal aside from the lack of wires (but I've never used them).

I can sort of understand spending $200 on really good quality, comfortable headphones, though I wouldn't myself - if only because I'll inevitably break or lose them after a few months, even more of an issue with these wireless headphones. But if they don't check either of those boxes, I can't fathom why they're so popular, aside from Apple marketing.

My ears are not great so it's really hard for me to speak about audio quality. But in my eyes, they are comparable to some of the more mid-range earbuds in terms of sound quality. I'd love to try the AB2 due to the sound isolation & noise cancellation, but can't justify buying a new set when my current set still work so well.

The reason I bought the original Airpods and will likely buy the newer ones is all about convenience. I wear them on my mountain bike and commuting and being truly wireless is invaluable. Turns out for me the #1 way headphones pop out is due to snagging the cable on something (hands, branches, clothing, etc). Also, being able to quickly connect and switch devices, is fantastic.

If cables truly don't bother you, then there are plenty of great options for wired headsets which offer better quality sound. For me, I can't even sit at my desk and code anymore without getting annoyed now.

I'd say gen 2 is good enough with the noise cancellation/passthrough.

Wish it had better bass personally

Airpods, not really. They still are the same uncomfortable plastic and not so great sound. Apple earbuds have always hurt my ears so airpods would be a no go for me. Airpods pro are quite a bit better but still won't be comfortable for everyone.

yes, they are (imho). AirPods Pro are noticeably better than AirPods and wired Apple earbuds, in both comfort and sound quality. I actually prefer them over my over-ear Sennheisers.

> I've been shocked by the adoption of the AirPods pro.

Gen1 airpods basically suck after 1.5 years in because they only hold 30 min of call battery life. I'd be willing to bet thats 50% of the adoption.

> For about a decade everyone was pretty happy with the white iPod headphones that came in the box.

Which have been made obsolete by smartphone manufacturers (namely Apple) by eliminating the headphone jack.

> AirPods came in and added a whole convenience layer on top which seems to be driving people to buy in droves

1) They're wireless (and dont have the unfashionable "wire around the neck thing") and 2) see point about headphone jack above.

> Which have been made obsolete by smartphone manufacturers (namely Apple) by eliminating the headphone jack.

People love to claim this, but I'm sorry. I have lightening wired ear buds that came with my iPhone 11. I would never use them. The wires absolutely destroy the usability of ear buds. They constantly snag on things, they're always in a knot, etc. Dealing with the wire-management is a cognitive load that's just super irritating. Not to mention when I used to try to fall asleep listening to a podcast using wired ear buds. Waking up with the cord wound around your neck is, again, super annoying.

In contrast, the wireless AirPods just make using them pleasant. It's a joy to not have to think about the wires, especially after years have being scarred by them.

As a random aside, has anyone else noticed that headphone wires don't get tangled the way the used to? It used to be next to impossible to untangle headphones you put in your pocket. But I don't have anything Apple, so I haven't gotten into the AirPods at all, and my phones have kept the headphone jacks, so I still use headphones with wires.

I have noticed that the wires just don't get tangled like they used to. It takes a few shakes and maybe a pull to get them undone, where it used to take several minutes to get your headphones in a working state. Did "tangle-free" technology become ubiquitous or am I just imagining things?

At some point the popular wire insulation changed from a kind of super-flexible silicone-like plastic to a resin-based PVC-free version. Partly for environmental reasons, but it had the side-effect of making wires a little stiffer and slicker. It's also why a couple generations of Lightning cables were known for splitting at the bend point.

I'm not sure if this 100% explains what you're seeing, but it's probably a factor.

Thanks for the insight here, very interesting. I have been wondering what the shift could be, and this makes a lot of sense at least in part.

I noticed that wires that are not perfectly round (they’re kinda rectangular with one very thin and one wider side) don’t tangle as much as the round ones and I’ve seen a lot of those in recent years. So form might be a factor as well.

My experience has been the opposite. I have IEMs with a fairly nice 4-core braided copper cable and it takes a minute to untangle them if they're in my pocket. My other headphones don't fit in my pocket so no problems there.

I will yield braided cables still tangle like a mfer. My Massdrop X Senn gaming headphones have a braided cable that is constantly tangled up. I got a pair of braided headphones with my S10+ and they are stiff as hell yet they still tangle.

Most of my headphones don't have a braided cable though, and all of those are so easy to untangle.

So, because you personally are scarred by the use of wired headphones (which is hilarious that something like that would "scar you", sensationalist much?) everyone else has that same experience? scratches head...

> The wires absolutely destroy the usability of ear buds.

And when your batteries are dead, the headphones literally do not work. How is that for usability?

Gen1 airpods basically suck after 1.5 years in because they only hold 30 min of call battery life.

Don't tell that to my Gen1 AirPods which I use daily and get me from 8:00am to 11:45am (3.75 hours) before they need to be recharged. I got them for Valentine's Day in 2017, so they're 2 years and almost 11 months old.

The parent poster did specify “call battery life”. I can listen to music for hours, but a call with two-way communication drains my AirPods battery very quickly.

This exactly. I use them for both calls and listening to music. They've been rendered almost useless for calls (which used to be 1-1.5hrs, perfect timing for a full conf call).

It's a bit sad when one of the best reasons to buy a product is that the previous version sucks after 1.5 years. We are not making great incentives for manufacturers to make lasting products.

That said it is a new product category, hopefully it will get better over time. And I do own the new airpods pro.

In contrast, down in LA, Airpods were everywhere (at least among iPhone users)...but are now being replaced by cheaper headphones as the owners lose their airpods.

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