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Comment by hobofan | Hacker News Reader

I don't know how so much people believe that AirPods were the first of their kind of product. This isn't the first time I had to make a similar comment.

Bragi crowdfunded "The Dash" in early 2014 (to much publicity) and released them in late 2015. To my knowledge this was the first high-profile pair of "disconnected wireless earbuds".

AirPods were released late 2016, so a full year later, so they were not the first with this kind of a product by a long stretch. By that time, Bragi already released a second stripped-down version of their product. The Pixel buds also much more closely resemble "The Dash" than AirPods.

As for product pages, I sadly don't have paper trail, but I'm sure people more into the topic can find examples dating back ~10 years for pages where the product twirls around the page while scrolling (and there is nothing more connecting the product page for the Pixel Buds and the AirPods).

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Bragi crowdfunded "The Dash" in early 2014 (to much publicity) and released them in late 2015. To my knowledge this was the first high-profile pair of "disconnected wireless earbuds".

And they had so-so reviews.

There were smartphones before the iPhone, there were tablets before the iPad, there were smartwatches before the Apple Watch. However, in general when Apple enters a category they set the bar for the rest of the industry (with some exceptions, e.g. HomePod and to some extend the Apple TV), because they nail the experience and the category becomes much more popular. Moreover, Apple generally dominates the categories they enter when it comes to profit margins. (And no, it is not only because people pay to carry an Apple logo.)

So, it is not strange that people compare Google Pixel Buds to AirPods. The now-iconic AirPod is what Google wants to emulate or compete with, not "The Dash" or many of the other less-visible competitors.

> because they nail the experience and the category becomes much more popular. Moreover, Apple generally dominates the categories they enter when it comes to profit margins. (And no, it is not only because people pay to carry an Apple logo.)

At some point it switched from people buying Apple as a premium brand to, as you said them just being "more popular" and leveraging that. A lot of people simply don't look much farther than they brands they already own, and this applies to Apple as well.

I wouldn't say that the AirPods were a "setting the bar" product. I'd argue that for the Apple ecosystem it was more of a "keeping the bar", with AirPods being the path of least resistance after they removed the headphone jack.

As for product pages, I sadly don't have paper trail

Good, I would hate for you to waste effort on something few but yourself care about. Because I doubt you'd find many that would agree that Google is really ripping off "The Dash" because they were "first!!11".

As much as it will pain some to admit, Google is ripping off Apple, not some Kickstarter project no one has heard about.

There were many wireless earbuds around the time Apple came out with the AirPods so you're really not selling your point here. Just because a company wants to get into that market now doesn't automatically make it derivative from Apple. The Dash was very popular, people have heard about it. Samsung Gear IconX earbuds were also popular and out before AirPods. Should we say that Apple is derivative of Samsung because they came to the market first? By your logic, yes we should.

None of my friends outside tech circles have heard of "The Dash". They all know and most of them bought or want AirPods. An estimated 60 million AirPods were sold in 2019, nobody else in the category comes close.

I understand, but it’s reasonable to think that engineers might copy the work of other engineers, even if that work didn’t find commercial success.

Why not agree that both Apple and Google we’re inspired by the Dash?

If this were academia, they would probably be required to site them as a source.

Ok so if I understand you correctly... if I copy something people haven't heard of I'm an innovator and everyone that follows is a fraud.

Don't forget about Samsung's Gear IconX earbuds, they came out before Apple as well.

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