You'll see the pricing didn't matter at all. You'll probably be wearing a pair yourself when you do that visual survey.
$25000 for 1,5TB of ECC RAM on a Mac Pro are not a bargain. You can buy them for $12300 yourself and plug them into the box.
I wouldn't trade any of my Pebbles for a Apple Watch.
Edit: what I mean is that I consider the Pebble far superior to the AW: customizable and easier to program, with a longer lasting battery and display always on.
Sure, but this argument can be easily taken to its logical absurdity. Someone who just needs a watch that shows the time & date and has a stopwatch can get a Casio which accurately does all this and has a battery that lasts years, in addition to an always-on display (note: for what it's worth, the Apple Watch also has an always-on display). From that perspective a Casio is vastly superior to both a Pebble and an Apple Watch ;-).
>Introduced in 1989, it is popular for its low price [$12.95] and long battery life. Annual production of the watch is 3 million units per year.
So I do get what you're saying, and you're kind of right, but there's absurdity here in both directions. A superior product is not necessarily just one that has a bunch of features crammed into it -- it's one that solves a lot of problems without introducing new problems. If you stick text notifications into my microwave, or a charging port onto my shoes, you haven't actually improved those products.
There's a little bit of irony in having this discussion about a company like Apple, which was lauded for a long time for building interfaces that were purposeful and simple. It was the Android crew ran around talking about how iPhone was behind the curve because it couldn't do multitasking or set up FTP servers, while Apple confidently asserted that building a good, focused device was better than trying to do literally everything everywhere.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that making a product more powerful or capable is orthogonal to making it superior/inferior, and trying to equate the two concepts in either direction can lead you to absurd conclusions. Of course, for many people, the Pebble watch would not be powerful enough; they want/need the extra features in the Apple Watch, just like many people wanted/needed the extra multitasking features in early Android devices. But for people who don't need those features, the Pebble was a superior product because it did its job better and didn't introduce distractions or compromises to accommodate unnecessary features.
It's good that powerful smartwatches exist, but it's unfortunate that there's now an unsatisfied niche of people who are left wanting a more elegant, purposefully designed device that costs less money. At least (thankfully for me) the Apple Watch didn't mean the end of good old-fashioned Casio and Timex watches, because for all of its power, the Apple Watch isn't capable of helping me with my ADHD. It's too complicated and has too many significant tradeoffs to be even useable as a daily driver the way I want to use it, regardless of how much it costs.
Remember the Apple Watch Edition? The one with a gold case that cost 17 grand?
The point wasn't to sell it, although there's a stratum of customer who always get the most expensive version of whatever they're getting.
The point was to make the entry-level price look reasonable, and it worked.
IIRC most gold watches are 12-14k for durability.
And the original Nexus was expensive. So was the original Pixel. You can't really draw any conclusions from Google's inconsistent smartphone lineup and pricing over the past decade.
Cheap Nexus phones: 4, 5, maybe the 5X if you waited a bit.
Expensive Nexus phones: 1, S, Galaxy, 6, 6P.
Expensive Pixel phones: all of them except the 'a' line, sometimes ridiculously so given the poor experience.
So they will launch a „new improved“ line to compete at the $500 price bracket.
Even the expensive pixels are cheap if you wait.
And I doubt this is just any special price. The XM3s were always below MSRP.
Not bothering to look up nexus phones because they're from a different lineage than pixels, hence the different branding.
You're just taking advantage of semantics then.
Anyone who's followed the Nexus line knows exactly what their wording meant, since Nexus devices did give way to the Pixel and did follow the price normalization this person mentions.
Iirc the Nexus 6 Or 6P was the start of rise in prices
They might be misremembering exact prices but I distinctly remember the backlash as Nexus devices went from strong values as dev phones to premium smartphones, then the Pixel dropped and solidified that
Which captures the original poster's point pretty perfectly: the Pixel line did completely abandon those value root until "budget flashship variant" recently became a thing throughout the industry...
which was mostly lead by Apple and the Xr
(and no, I'm not saying Apple made the first budget smartphone, they just popularized the idea of making a budget variant of a 12 hundred dollar phone and marketing them alongside one another)
Apple's magic is making you pay just that bit more for a "magical" experience. Bluetooth earbuds: $100. AirPods: $159. Clunky smartwatch: $300. Apple Watch: $449.
However the price difference with competing products here is so large I think Apple has priced themselves out of the market here.
The idea that a comment on HN has done more extensive research and modeling than Apple for a pricing a particular product is amusing.
And I think that carried forward. Look at the iPod silhouette billboard ads, which were iconic. [1] Those are not about features. Those are about how fucking cool the iPod was. The iPhone was demonstrably a status symbol. [2] And this has obviously worked well for Apple. They sell under 20% of all phones, but make 2/3rds of all phone profits. Actual features are not the only thing in play here.
[1] https://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/tag/ipod-billboard-ads/
[2] e.g.: https://www.deccanchronicle.com/technology/mobiles-and-tabs/...
Yet here you are talking more about "Fashion" rather than actual products. So many fashion experts on HN, you'd think it was Vogue's forums.
And you have the balls to talk about shutting down conversations?
My point wasn't that status goods are worse. A Louis Vuitton purse is objectively a good purse. But people don't buy a Louis Vuitton purse because they've done a careful study of purse quality and just happened to end up with an LV one.
My point was that with status goods, it's hard to have an objective conversation about quality, because people invested in the status part of it generally won't talk about it in those terms. If you say, "Gosh, $3450 seems like a lot for a small bag," [1], they won't say, "Yes, but it makes me look important". They'll talk about how well made the bag is, how long it lasts, etc. They in effect become suddenly and specifically irrational. And if you push, they can get defensive. They might, for example, imagine you said a bunch of things you didn't actually say. Or accuse you of being dismissive and snide.
[1] https://us.louisvuitton.com/eng-us/products/bella-mahina-nvp...
But I also guess the headphones rather aim for the status-oriented crowd.
The one thing holding me back actually is, based on the reaction I'm seeing so far, wondering if there will be a negative stigma to these or if they'll attract a lot of attention. Like the google glass years ago where everyone noticed it immediately and thought you were a douchebag for wearing it.
If you think of apple as a tech company, their products seem absurdly priced. If you think of apple as a company that makes luxury goods that happen to be powered by computers, they make perfect sense.
Homepods sound amazing in a stereo pair, and Apple just released an update for Dolby Atmos support.
If you ignore the above then the only trick that’s left is the fake 3D effect; which isn’t novel or even desirable for someone who cares about authentic sound.
One potentially useful feature would be spatial audio on conference call when multiple people talk - you can discern different information sources when they come from different direction. AFAIK that’s how fighter jet helmets work.
Probably most people in the world.
I've rarely lived alone and always have roommates 25-35 and I'm amazed how much HNers lose touch when they get older, stop having roommates, live in a house, don't see how other people relax.
Maybe I'm coming off as mean, I don't want to. But also consider the new culture of permanently-worn earbuds. I know headphones used to be a hassle when I was growing up. But now you will notice people who never even remove them all day. So it's not extra leap to watch a movie on their phone with earbuds, something all of my roommates do.
At home I prefer my laptop speakers over AirPods just because of comfort - audio quality doesn't overcome the hassle. Laptop speakers generally aren't disturbing flatmates enough.
I assume the same feature on any competing product would feel similar.
I use a pair with my TV and the effects are really awesome.
https://support.apple.com/guide/tv/play-audio-throughout-you...
- making fun of people who would have to pay the price because they feel the peer pressure or
- are pissed because now every other brand who thinks it's fashionable will push their price because they know people will pay it or
- have perfectly working headsets already which were significantly cheaper or
- are jealous that they can't pay for them
...which makes OPs comment look quite ridiculous.
We haven't seen any reviews of these so it's impossible to say one way or the other.
I'm a bit put off spending $400 on a pair of headphones, let alone $550. But it's a bit premature to suggest A is better than B when nobody has actually touched A.
The “fashion statement” argument is completely farcical, always has been.
We're only trying to help you by throttling your phone and not telling you your battery is crap.
We're releasing a snappy new app. Sorry you can no longer have yours on our store.
There's nothing wrong with our keys.
I got them for cheap, and I definitely wouldn’t pay $500 for convenience without exceptional sound quality (so I’m completely not interested in these new ones). But to say that apple’s headphones are not good is, honestly, just wrong. I love the AirPods for background music, podcasts, audiobooks, and phone calls as I go about my day. I owned a different set of wireless earbuds before the AirPods which were actually higher-quality and more expensive, but I didn’t like them nearly as much. Convenience and decent sound quality make the AirPods perfect for casual listening. Of course, still having a separate pair of actual high-end headphones for sitting down and really enjoying the detail in music in other scenarios.
I'm normally an apple user, butttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt (I'll explain that in a second) I have a pc for gaming and casual browsing. I bought a Microsoft brand keyboard under the assumption that it would be good since Microsoft hardware seems to be well reviewed when it comes to the surface line.
The keyboard is garbage, feels cheap, has dumb 'emoji' and office hotkeys that I can't easily disable or remap. And it typed that super long string of t's up there for some reason.
I know that apple has made bad keyboards, but I use one of their butterfly keyboards daily and it is better than the Microsoft one. I can walk into the apple store and know that even if I buy the cheapest product, it is still a well-built product.
I've tried to give non-apple hardware a fair shake, and it just never matches up. I had a project where I needed to use a windows laptop and the company provided me with a Lenovo Carbon x1 (admittedly not the most recent generation). I still can't believe that was what people recommend from Lenovo against macbook pros.
Even if things are returned, they can often end up in landfills still (though I doubt that would happen with these $500 headphones). https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marketplace-amazon-returns-1....
As to quality, Shure IEMs are very close to as good as it gets, so even in the best case, apples cans wouldn't be better (though the speaker in their teardown doesn't look too good).
As for audio quality, there's really not much better that can be done than the good Shure headphones. I suppose it's possible, but quite unlikely.
Firstly, the Shure IEMs are IEMs, not on-ear headphones.
Secondly, since they use physical isolation, there is no need for ANC, which means much less calculation power needed.
Thirdly, they bypass the outer ear. This means that the outer ear won't color the sound, which means that you don't need to correct for that (which is what modern autoequalizers do). Of course this is a bit less natural, but carefully tuned drivers work around that excellently.
Fourth, they are wired, which removes the need for processing the audio signal. Modern DACs are practically indistinguishable from perfection, so that's not an issue.
Fifth, they use balanced armature drivers instead of dynamic drivers. This means that they are not affected at all by resonance and other effects.
This is why Shure IEMs can do both better isolation and better audio quality than even experimental smart headphones. They simply eliminate all the issues by physical means.
The one issue that can't be quite fixed is that Soundstage won't sound as wide as would be possible with open back headphones, but these are closed headphones with ANC so it probably won't be any worse.
Basically, the point is to remove the physical issues so that you don't have to fix them in software. This is a lot more cost efficient and, for things like ANC that can't be done perfectly, gives a better result.
If that requires a lot of processing, so be it, but that is value added to many people.
But when the HomePod was announced, I ordered it immediately, and have never once regretted that decision.
These things are just a HomePod that fits on your skull.
If the price is acceptable and the product is something you'll use and enjoy, get them. They're going to sound absolutely amazing.
Best to judge them for yourself and then return them if they don't meet your expectations.
Waiting for reviews is ok too, though people seem to lose their minds when it comes to Apple (both for and against them). So the reviews are probably going to be even less useful than normal for headphones.
Who is doing this? I basically haven't seen anyone overhyping them. In fact I would say that 95% of what I've read has been very skeptical so far.
You don't like them. Millions of people do. Lots of people don't value the things you (or I!) value.
It seems like there's nothing but "never bet against Apple" type nothing statements backing up everything but I want to give the comments a reasonable shake.
So let's do this.
What value do you place on frequency response versus ease of use? Is there a metric for being able to ride 20 miles on my bike without accidentally pulling them out by the cord? How about the metric for seamlessly transferring audio between sources? What is it worth being able to text my wife while riding my bike?
Once you've dialed in what all these performance metrics are worth, we can compare it to other headphones on a level playing field.
What is entirely trite is people assuming that they are smarter/ better/ more knowledgeable about a product than the people who actually buy and use it. It's condescending and flat out wrong much of the time. This idea that you can pin the desirability of a product down to 1 or 2 bullet points on a chart is frequently completely wrong.
If they had better battery life, they’d be the perfect easy headphone.