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I find this headphone war discussion a bit boring. The AirPods are much more interesting as Apple's first foray into augmented reality. If they add positioning

I find this headphone war discussion a bit boring. The AirPods are much more interesting as Apple's first foray into augmented reality. If they add positioning, this product becomes Magic Leap without the visuals. I don't think they see this as a music device, they see it as a new platform for audio. Interesting things start happening when people start leaving one or both in their ears all day. Arrival times in your ear at the bus stop. Ask Siri for a price check while at the store, etc. A cable to your phone makes the earbuds hard to forget. This makes it easy, but the design details have to be right for you to truly forget they are in. I know "forget they're in" doesn't sound like a groundbreaking feature, because it's not connected to any obvious technical challenge, but I think if they succeed at that it would in fact put these in a new category. Positional audio would seal the deal. You can walk around your kitchen and it would feel like your invisible conversation partner was in the room with you.

reconbot 10y ago
Positional audio also opens a world of options for blind people. Microsoft Guide Dogs is working on this very thing. http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/6/7164623/microsoft-3d-sound-headset-guide-dogs http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/6/7164623/microsoft-3d-sound...
milkshakeyeah 10y ago
Exactly. Device that will whisper important things into your ear is more elegant solution that weird looking glasses with camera. For now at least. I think they will try to push it as kinda lifestyle or fashion accessory and make wearing one piece as natural as wearing watch or jewellery.
- kylec 10y ago
  AirPods are also weird looking: https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-airpods/preview/ https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-airpods/preview/
josu 10y ago
I don't think so. These are my personal reasons: 1. I would hate to talk to a person with those things in their ears. 2. I use my bluetooth headphones the same way I use my wired headphones. 3. I don't feel comfortable talking out loud to nobody in public. It doesn't feel right to talk the phone, I will probably never talk to the air. I'm not a self conscious person, but I care if people think I'm crazy.
- edgarvaldes 10y ago
  Regarding #1, I don't mind talking to someone using ONE earphone, because I can get visual cues about the attention in our conversation.
  - jsemrau 10y ago
    I regularly use the 'one side' earphones for a while now and people are initially a bit setback but realize quickly that I am fully focused on the conversation and move along with it.
- Akarnani 10y ago
  #3 feels analogous to saying: "I would never walk down the street reading a book without looking where i was going." (or something similar) Makes sense until everyone has a smartphone and then this: http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/too-many-pedestrians-injured-by-looking-at-their-phones.html http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructur...
- cs02rm0 10y ago
  I remember people saying #3 about mobile phones. And thinking it was odd myself the first time I heard someone near me talking, turned round and there was only one person there. Bluetooth earpieces for calls are already fairly well accepted. I think we're already past the point of that being a barrier. These things are probably the (nearish) future. I thought the Moto Hint was great a year or so ago and with Apple stepping into the market it should encourage the competition.
mynegation 10y ago
Forget that they are in?! For my particular shape of ears their hard shell design does not work at all. Every time I have to wear apple earbuds because I cannot find my day to day earbuds, I want to rip them out immediately, and my ears hurt after few minutes of using them. Unless the came up with better design there is no way I am forgetting I am wearing apple earbuds.
- eric_h 10y ago
  My problem with apple headphones is that my ear holes are apparently different sizes. The right ear is always fine and the left is always less comfortable (if only just). I switched to over the ear bluetooth headphones a while ago and haven't looked back. Edit: I should add that with in-ear headphones, I was always able to get a good fit by using the one-step smaller rubber ends for the left ear and the default one for the right ear. Never had a problem that way. Still, I prefer over the ear these days, and they also double as earmuffs in the winter time!
  - mynegation 10y ago
    I have this problem too, but I love the compactness of earbuds, especially with Bluetooth. Whatever are my earbuds of the day, I order complyfoam tips for them (not affiliated, just love their product).
- tsycho 10y ago
  I hear you (my wife has a similar problem). The sad answer is that Apple and others don't care for your business. If Airpods work well for the majority of potential customers, that's good business for them. Products don't need to be 100% accessible to be profitable, and while Apple software has been better than many in this department, on a new hardware product/platform such as this, your concerns probably fall quite low down the priority order.
jordache 10y ago
What you are talking about is not rocket science. Binaural audio. Look it up. It has its drawbacks. Compactness of the earbuds is not a breakthrough
- icebraining 10y ago
  Binaural audio just allows changing the (virtual) audio source relative to the ears; the novelty would be to track their location, so that you can use the binaural audio to keep the sound coming for a fixed place while the user moves around.
  - jordache 10y ago
    But the core mechanics of the audio method is flawed. Binaural has distinct sound characteristics, rather than a neutral canvas to project audio in whichever direction.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      But flawed for what? It seems like you're making an argument, but only writing half of it down. The concept explained by erikpukinskis wouldn't require a neutral canvas; it could generate the speech audio adapted to the binaural system.
charlesism 10y ago
I had a pair of Sony HBH-IS800 and I gave up on them after a week. Apple's product has the same drawbacks (charging, troubleshooting, ease of misplacing, price). This product category is not worth the hassle for the average user. Very few people will buy a second pair of wireless earbuds. Not enough to warrant building all the features you mention.
- peteretep 10y ago
  I bought a pair of reasonable quality Bluetooth headphones for running two years ago. Since the first time I used them, I haven't used any of my old normal ones again. The convenience and ease with which they're always in, even if not always on has just blown away the fact they're not particularly high quality. I plug them in at night when I plug my phone in. Yet to misplace them.
  - charlesism 10y ago
    Everyone's different. For me, and possibly most people, buying wireless earbuds just taught me I care more about phone earbuds in theory than in practice. In practice, it isn't actually worth it for me to worry about whether they are paired, charged, and not misplaced. Life is less hassle with boring $15 earbuds.
    - peteretep 10y ago
      > and possibly most people This is where you and Apple disagree, and Apple's record here is pretty good.
      - charlesism 10y ago
        Especially from 1997 to 2011.
- nihonde 10y ago
  I have been using Sony MDR-XB80BS for a few weeks now and they are utterly flawless for me. They can't fall out. They are pretty low profile since they hide behind your ear. Long battery life. Water resistant. No dropouts and amazing sound. I am really impressed by these headphones.
amlib 10y ago
But what about the possibility of losing the earpieces? They don't have a cable and don't secure into your ear like a hearing aid or even a normal bluetooth device. If they are so comfortable to the point of the user "forgetting they are there" the rate at which people will lose these things might be huge. They don't dangle from a cable when falling like normal headphones or Bluetooth headphones that have a cable between each earpiece. Since it's also so comfortable, the user might not even notice they lost an earpiece immediately if they are not listening to anything. (which will specially happen if the user has incentives to use it day long). And more annoyingly, you will most likely lose just one of the pair. Will you be able to buy just one eapiece and pair it alongside the old pairless earpiece? I don't think so... edit: fixed wording as eric_h pointed out
- eric_h 10y ago
  I would imagine that the cable itself contributes more to the headphone falling out than the weight of the headphone itself. Also, I imagine you mean "likely lose just one of the pair", as losing one pair means losing both of them (not intended as a dig, just helping to clarify; your intentions seemed clear)
  - angli 10y ago
    In retrospect the fact that the cable is responsible for making headphones fall out makes so much sense, and I've even experienced it while running, but I hadn't thought of it. Thank you! I don't think I'm alone in that though, which is great for Apple: if they're working better than expected, then consumers will love it. Expectations are everything.
- unfamiliar 10y ago
  The only reason my headphones ever "fall out" is because something catches the cable.
  - kbar13 10y ago
    earbuds fall out all the time for me because generic earbuds are not shaped to fit everyone. it happens most often when i'm walking.
empath75 10y ago
Apple isn't going to be the first company that comes out with audio augmented reality or any new technology, really. Apple doesn't invent new product categories, and never really has. They wait for someone else to come out with an early, terrible version of something, see if there's a market for it, and then come out with a new take on it that doesn't suck. Where is the augmented reality device they're going to be targeting with this? If anything you'll see them take on something like google cardboard or oculus directly before they do something really left field with headphones. But even that is a couple years away.
- dkonofalski 10y ago
  This is my view on this as well. I don't really see Apple opening up into this space unless there's an experience to be had from it. Apple likes to take lackluster experiences that end-users "just deal with" and make them into something excellent. They like to use the word "magical" but I think that's a bit overboard. Just look at any product in their history - they took music players that were fine but bulky and time-consuming to use and turned them into a single intuitive device that could fit in your pocket, carry your entire library, and sync to the computer without any user intervention. I know a lot of tech people are annoyed with iTunes and want to be able to manually drag and drop the files that they want, but, for the non-tech user, iTunes (which already had all their music organized) would just let them sync their music by plugging in without any intervention at all. Apple may have made an assumption for the masses by assuming everyone's music was organized on the computer they were syncing from (and in iTunes, no less), but, when it worked, it was amazing from an experience standpoint. That's what these headphones are. Just think about the list of things that suck about headphones in a perfect world - cables and wires suck on anything, wireless is more convenient in every case, pairing bluetooth headphones sucks when they get disconnected, the batteries on wireless headphones suck. These are their answer to those complaints - headphones that last much longer than others with a charger that is also a case that syncs to all your devices and intelligently plays wherever from whatever device you're using. Whether they succeed is another story, but the explanation for this product is there.
- pj_mukh 10y ago
  Hololens, Google glasses, Couple of other uber-successful kickstarters[1] fully fit the bill of half-baked products with middling success that Apple can now supercharge. AirPods definitely seem like the start of an augmented reality strategy. Couple of different rumours indicate this [2][3] [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vue/vue-your-everyday-smart-glasses https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vue/vue-your-everyday-s... [2] http://www.macrumors.com/2016/11/16/apple-augmented-reality-iphone-camera/ http://www.macrumors.com/2016/11/16/apple-augmented-reality-... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-14/apple-said-to-explore-smart-glasses-in-deeper-wearables-push https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-14/apple-sai...
cwisecarver 10y ago
I'm really hoping that Apple opens up an API to them. They have built in mics like here-one and the new Bose headphones. I would really like to see what app developers can do on a (somewhat) open platform. Intelligent noise cancelling, lowering the volume automatically when it detects someone talking to you, etc.
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  I would bet my bottom dollar it's not going to be an open platform. Apple is going to licence it to companies silly enough to pay.
apsdsm 10y ago
I don't think they see this as a music device either. I think they see it as a way of making money from their decision to remove the audio jack from the phone. That said, you're spot on with your forecasts of how great this could be, the AR of audio is potentially awesome.
- dosethree 10y ago
  I'm very interested in buying these and I have a headphone jack so I don't think it's purely a money thing, but obviously 159$ is quite expense (though so are most bluetooth earbuds that are likely not as nice as these in some ways)
  - NegativeLatency 10y ago
    But they might be nicer in other ways.
- jen729w 10y ago
  That's such a cynical, boring view. I'm sorry, but it is. You really think that Apple removed the headphone jack to make a bit more cash? Seriously? Hand-on-heart honestly, you think that's why? Come on. I think it's because they love cool new things. Thank fk they do because, frankly, nobody else seems to be doing anything interesting. I know, I know, they're not perfect. AirPods are late. They're expensive. I know. But I guarantee you that, come 2020, you will be hard pushed to find a set of wired headphones that resemble those we wear today. I would bet my current net worth on it†. The time has come to do new things with headphones. You want to call them "magical"? Maybe not. But a tiny thing that sits in my ear, Star Trek style, that I can tap and talk to Siri, that detects when I'm talking, that mutes itself, that swaps between paired devices seamlessly, that charges in a little tic-tac case, that's cool. That's what the world wants. It's certainly what I want. But hey, I guess we can just assume they're trying to scrape a few more dollars out of everyone. Yep, that's probably what this is about. (†Not currently all that much, but hey.)
  - flashman 10y ago
    It can be both; one good reason to make something cool is to make money from it.
brian-armstrong 10y ago
I have to echo what others are saying. I don't see how you could possibly forget they're in. I've had issues with every Apple earbud design falling out when I lean over or even just move the wrong way. I'd be constantly worried these would fall out and be damaged. If anything, I'd be constantly reminded I'm wearing them.
- kevinstubbs 10y ago
  Peoples' ears are all different. Apple's earbuds aren't comfortable for me, but they're the first choice for many people that I know. I can easily believe that the AirPods will be so comfortable that some subset of the population will forget they're in.
  - brian-armstrong 10y ago
    They don't work for either of us and yet Apple wants to force us into using them
    - pwinnski 10y ago
      I'm sorry, what? They want to... force you to spend $160? Huh?
      - peteretep 10y ago
        They'd love to! They just can't, yet
    - neotek 10y ago
      How are they forcing you to do anything?
      - brian-armstrong 10y ago
        They've also removed the headphone jack from the newest model iPhone. You can get an adapter that adds it back, but obviously this is fairly inconvenient. Apple's counting on this to get people to toss their old earbuds/headphones. Maybe force is too strong, but it certainly seems physically connected audio devices are now deprecated
untog 10y ago
Except this comes back to same problem most things do these days: battery life. You're going to need to return these to their case every few hours, so no one is going to wear them uninterrupted for a day.
- rplst8 10y ago
  This should be the top answer. The product is simply not ready - as evidenced by a two month delay.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    Is the two month delay evidence that the product is not ready now, or is it evidence that it was not ready two months ago? (This is a rhetorical question. You don't have to answer, because the answer is self-evident.)
    - intended 10y ago
      I wonder- if these things do enough processing, would they get hot?
    - rplst8 10y ago
      Having watched the industry for 25 odd years, it just feels like the tech is not there yet. The short battery life, the less than stellar looks (cigarette butt ears) and whatnot. Two extra months isn't going to fix that IMHO. If you are struggling to get a minimum viable product, it's worrisome. Who knows though, maybe the problems they had were in the actual manufacturing of them.
- stouset 10y ago
  That's five hours of continuous audio. OP is talking about a world where you leave them in all day and get periodic audio. Not everyone listens to music 24/7.
  - untog 10y ago
drieddust 10y ago
Leaving them in your ears all day might not be a good idea from health and hygiene perspective.
- evilduck 10y ago
  I wonder if there's any long term issues with bone conducting headphones. As AR goes, not having noise isolation is a benefit.
brokenmachine 10y ago
I don't see how heavier than normal, wireless earbuds would be any easier to forget than normal earbuds. I don't have a problem with a cable. I actually don't understand why people would want to replace a cheap, robust, simple technology like a cable with non-replaceable batteries and signal-degrading wireless. Also I don't need my phone to talk at me all day. But, "courage".
intended 10y ago
I'm going to disagree with this "forget they are there" bit. I interact with my grandparents every day. One of them needs a hearing aid, which they will never wear. These are light weight, designed for comfort. I am sceptical
chrischen 10y ago
They have had wireless buds before amd the features you drscribe would be cool to try even eithout airpods. Airpods don't enable those features.
puranjay 10y ago
> Ask Siri for a price check while at the store, etc And Siri will just open the Wikipedia entry for "price" :) Jokes aside, Siri has fallen really, really far behind Google Now. It's jokingly bad at even the most mundane tasks.
- theshrike79 10y ago
  Both suck for certain things. The things Siri knows how to answer, she does so really fast and accurately. And if she doesn't know something, the fallback is a search engine. The best thing about Google Assistant (not Google Now) is the context sensitivity. You can ask "how tall is Tom Cruise", get an answer and then ask "how old is he" and Assistant will pick up who you're talking about. Siri will just get completely baffled.
daniel_iversen 10y ago
@erikpukinskis that's absolutely a brilliant thought!! Very clever.

reconbot 10y ago

Positional audio also opens a world of options for blind people. Microsoft Guide Dogs is working on this very thing. http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/6/7164623/microsoft-3d-sound-headset-guide-dogs http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/6/7164623/microsoft-3d-sound...

milkshakeyeah 10y ago

Exactly. Device that will whisper important things into your ear is more elegant solution that weird looking glasses with camera. For now at least. I think they will try to push it as kinda lifestyle or fashion accessory and make wearing one piece as natural as wearing watch or jewellery.

kylec 10y ago
AirPods are also weird looking: https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-airpods/preview/ https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-airpods/preview/

josu 10y ago

I don't think so. These are my personal reasons: 1. I would hate to talk to a person with those things in their ears. 2. I use my bluetooth headphones the same way I use my wired headphones. 3. I don't feel comfortable talking out loud to nobody in public. It doesn't feel right to talk the phone, I will probably never talk to the air. I'm not a self conscious person, but I care if people think I'm crazy.

edgarvaldes 10y ago
Regarding #1, I don't mind talking to someone using ONE earphone, because I can get visual cues about the attention in our conversation.
- jsemrau 10y ago
  I regularly use the 'one side' earphones for a while now and people are initially a bit setback but realize quickly that I am fully focused on the conversation and move along with it.
Akarnani 10y ago
#3 feels analogous to saying: "I would never walk down the street reading a book without looking where i was going." (or something similar) Makes sense until everyone has a smartphone and then this: http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/too-many-pedestrians-injured-by-looking-at-their-phones.html http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructur...
cs02rm0 10y ago
I remember people saying #3 about mobile phones. And thinking it was odd myself the first time I heard someone near me talking, turned round and there was only one person there. Bluetooth earpieces for calls are already fairly well accepted. I think we're already past the point of that being a barrier. These things are probably the (nearish) future. I thought the Moto Hint was great a year or so ago and with Apple stepping into the market it should encourage the competition.

mynegation 10y ago

Forget that they are in?! For my particular shape of ears their hard shell design does not work at all. Every time I have to wear apple earbuds because I cannot find my day to day earbuds, I want to rip them out immediately, and my ears hurt after few minutes of using them. Unless the came up with better design there is no way I am forgetting I am wearing apple earbuds.

eric_h 10y ago
My problem with apple headphones is that my ear holes are apparently different sizes. The right ear is always fine and the left is always less comfortable (if only just). I switched to over the ear bluetooth headphones a while ago and haven't looked back. Edit: I should add that with in-ear headphones, I was always able to get a good fit by using the one-step smaller rubber ends for the left ear and the default one for the right ear. Never had a problem that way. Still, I prefer over the ear these days, and they also double as earmuffs in the winter time!
- mynegation 10y ago
  I have this problem too, but I love the compactness of earbuds, especially with Bluetooth. Whatever are my earbuds of the day, I order complyfoam tips for them (not affiliated, just love their product).
tsycho 10y ago
I hear you (my wife has a similar problem). The sad answer is that Apple and others don't care for your business. If Airpods work well for the majority of potential customers, that's good business for them. Products don't need to be 100% accessible to be profitable, and while Apple software has been better than many in this department, on a new hardware product/platform such as this, your concerns probably fall quite low down the priority order.

jordache 10y ago

What you are talking about is not rocket science. Binaural audio. Look it up. It has its drawbacks. Compactness of the earbuds is not a breakthrough

icebraining 10y ago
Binaural audio just allows changing the (virtual) audio source relative to the ears; the novelty would be to track their location, so that you can use the binaural audio to keep the sound coming for a fixed place while the user moves around.
- jordache 10y ago
  But the core mechanics of the audio method is flawed. Binaural has distinct sound characteristics, rather than a neutral canvas to project audio in whichever direction.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    But flawed for what? It seems like you're making an argument, but only writing half of it down. The concept explained by erikpukinskis wouldn't require a neutral canvas; it could generate the speech audio adapted to the binaural system.

charlesism 10y ago

I had a pair of Sony HBH-IS800 and I gave up on them after a week. Apple's product has the same drawbacks (charging, troubleshooting, ease of misplacing, price). This product category is not worth the hassle for the average user. Very few people will buy a second pair of wireless earbuds. Not enough to warrant building all the features you mention.

peteretep 10y ago
I bought a pair of reasonable quality Bluetooth headphones for running two years ago. Since the first time I used them, I haven't used any of my old normal ones again. The convenience and ease with which they're always in, even if not always on has just blown away the fact they're not particularly high quality. I plug them in at night when I plug my phone in. Yet to misplace them.
- charlesism 10y ago
  Everyone's different. For me, and possibly most people, buying wireless earbuds just taught me I care more about phone earbuds in theory than in practice. In practice, it isn't actually worth it for me to worry about whether they are paired, charged, and not misplaced. Life is less hassle with boring $15 earbuds.
  - peteretep 10y ago
    > and possibly most people This is where you and Apple disagree, and Apple's record here is pretty good.
    - charlesism 10y ago
      Especially from 1997 to 2011.
nihonde 10y ago
I have been using Sony MDR-XB80BS for a few weeks now and they are utterly flawless for me. They can't fall out. They are pretty low profile since they hide behind your ear. Long battery life. Water resistant. No dropouts and amazing sound. I am really impressed by these headphones.

amlib 10y ago

But what about the possibility of losing the earpieces? They don't have a cable and don't secure into your ear like a hearing aid or even a normal bluetooth device. If they are so comfortable to the point of the user "forgetting they are there" the rate at which people will lose these things might be huge. They don't dangle from a cable when falling like normal headphones or Bluetooth headphones that have a cable between each earpiece. Since it's also so comfortable, the user might not even notice they lost an earpiece immediately if they are not listening to anything. (which will specially happen if the user has incentives to use it day long). And more annoyingly, you will most likely lose just one of the pair. Will you be able to buy just one eapiece and pair it alongside the old pairless earpiece? I don't think so... edit: fixed wording as eric_h pointed out

eric_h 10y ago
I would imagine that the cable itself contributes more to the headphone falling out than the weight of the headphone itself. Also, I imagine you mean "likely lose just one of the pair", as losing one pair means losing both of them (not intended as a dig, just helping to clarify; your intentions seemed clear)
- angli 10y ago
  In retrospect the fact that the cable is responsible for making headphones fall out makes so much sense, and I've even experienced it while running, but I hadn't thought of it. Thank you! I don't think I'm alone in that though, which is great for Apple: if they're working better than expected, then consumers will love it. Expectations are everything.
unfamiliar 10y ago
The only reason my headphones ever "fall out" is because something catches the cable.
- kbar13 10y ago
  earbuds fall out all the time for me because generic earbuds are not shaped to fit everyone. it happens most often when i'm walking.

empath75 10y ago

Apple isn't going to be the first company that comes out with audio augmented reality or any new technology, really. Apple doesn't invent new product categories, and never really has. They wait for someone else to come out with an early, terrible version of something, see if there's a market for it, and then come out with a new take on it that doesn't suck. Where is the augmented reality device they're going to be targeting with this? If anything you'll see them take on something like google cardboard or oculus directly before they do something really left field with headphones. But even that is a couple years away.

dkonofalski 10y ago
This is my view on this as well. I don't really see Apple opening up into this space unless there's an experience to be had from it. Apple likes to take lackluster experiences that end-users "just deal with" and make them into something excellent. They like to use the word "magical" but I think that's a bit overboard. Just look at any product in their history - they took music players that were fine but bulky and time-consuming to use and turned them into a single intuitive device that could fit in your pocket, carry your entire library, and sync to the computer without any user intervention. I know a lot of tech people are annoyed with iTunes and want to be able to manually drag and drop the files that they want, but, for the non-tech user, iTunes (which already had all their music organized) would just let them sync their music by plugging in without any intervention at all. Apple may have made an assumption for the masses by assuming everyone's music was organized on the computer they were syncing from (and in iTunes, no less), but, when it worked, it was amazing from an experience standpoint. That's what these headphones are. Just think about the list of things that suck about headphones in a perfect world - cables and wires suck on anything, wireless is more convenient in every case, pairing bluetooth headphones sucks when they get disconnected, the batteries on wireless headphones suck. These are their answer to those complaints - headphones that last much longer than others with a charger that is also a case that syncs to all your devices and intelligently plays wherever from whatever device you're using. Whether they succeed is another story, but the explanation for this product is there.
pj_mukh 10y ago
Hololens, Google glasses, Couple of other uber-successful kickstarters[1] fully fit the bill of half-baked products with middling success that Apple can now supercharge. AirPods definitely seem like the start of an augmented reality strategy. Couple of different rumours indicate this [2][3] [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vue/vue-your-everyday-smart-glasses https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vue/vue-your-everyday-s... [2] http://www.macrumors.com/2016/11/16/apple-augmented-reality-iphone-camera/ http://www.macrumors.com/2016/11/16/apple-augmented-reality-... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-14/apple-said-to-explore-smart-glasses-in-deeper-wearables-push https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-14/apple-sai...

cwisecarver 10y ago

I'm really hoping that Apple opens up an API to them. They have built in mics like here-one and the new Bose headphones. I would really like to see what app developers can do on a (somewhat) open platform. Intelligent noise cancelling, lowering the volume automatically when it detects someone talking to you, etc.

brokenmachine 10y ago
I would bet my bottom dollar it's not going to be an open platform. Apple is going to licence it to companies silly enough to pay.

apsdsm 10y ago

I don't think they see this as a music device either. I think they see it as a way of making money from their decision to remove the audio jack from the phone. That said, you're spot on with your forecasts of how great this could be, the AR of audio is potentially awesome.

dosethree 10y ago
I'm very interested in buying these and I have a headphone jack so I don't think it's purely a money thing, but obviously 159$ is quite expense (though so are most bluetooth earbuds that are likely not as nice as these in some ways)
- NegativeLatency 10y ago
  But they might be nicer in other ways.
jen729w 10y ago
That's such a cynical, boring view. I'm sorry, but it is. You really think that Apple removed the headphone jack to make a bit more cash? Seriously? Hand-on-heart honestly, you think that's why? Come on. I think it's because they love cool new things. Thank fk they do because, frankly, nobody else seems to be doing anything interesting. I know, I know, they're not perfect. AirPods are late. They're expensive. I know. But I guarantee you that, come 2020, you will be hard pushed to find a set of wired headphones that resemble those we wear today. I would bet my current net worth on it†. The time has come to do new things with headphones. You want to call them "magical"? Maybe not. But a tiny thing that sits in my ear, Star Trek style, that I can tap and talk to Siri, that detects when I'm talking, that mutes itself, that swaps between paired devices seamlessly, that charges in a little tic-tac case, that's cool. That's what the world wants. It's certainly what I want. But hey, I guess we can just assume they're trying to scrape a few more dollars out of everyone. Yep, that's probably what this is about. (†Not currently all that much, but hey.)
- flashman 10y ago
  It can be both; one good reason to make something cool is to make money from it.

brian-armstrong 10y ago

I have to echo what others are saying. I don't see how you could possibly forget they're in. I've had issues with every Apple earbud design falling out when I lean over or even just move the wrong way. I'd be constantly worried these would fall out and be damaged. If anything, I'd be constantly reminded I'm wearing them.

kevinstubbs 10y ago
Peoples' ears are all different. Apple's earbuds aren't comfortable for me, but they're the first choice for many people that I know. I can easily believe that the AirPods will be so comfortable that some subset of the population will forget they're in.
- brian-armstrong 10y ago
  They don't work for either of us and yet Apple wants to force us into using them
  - pwinnski 10y ago
    I'm sorry, what? They want to... force you to spend $160? Huh?
    - peteretep 10y ago
      They'd love to! They just can't, yet
  - neotek 10y ago
    How are they forcing you to do anything?
    - brian-armstrong 10y ago
      They've also removed the headphone jack from the newest model iPhone. You can get an adapter that adds it back, but obviously this is fairly inconvenient. Apple's counting on this to get people to toss their old earbuds/headphones. Maybe force is too strong, but it certainly seems physically connected audio devices are now deprecated

untog 10y ago

Except this comes back to same problem most things do these days: battery life. You're going to need to return these to their case every few hours, so no one is going to wear them uninterrupted for a day.

rplst8 10y ago
This should be the top answer. The product is simply not ready - as evidenced by a two month delay.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  Is the two month delay evidence that the product is not ready now, or is it evidence that it was not ready two months ago? (This is a rhetorical question. You don't have to answer, because the answer is self-evident.)
  - intended 10y ago
    I wonder- if these things do enough processing, would they get hot?
  - rplst8 10y ago
    Having watched the industry for 25 odd years, it just feels like the tech is not there yet. The short battery life, the less than stellar looks (cigarette butt ears) and whatnot. Two extra months isn't going to fix that IMHO. If you are struggling to get a minimum viable product, it's worrisome. Who knows though, maybe the problems they had were in the actual manufacturing of them.
stouset 10y ago
That's five hours of continuous audio. OP is talking about a world where you leave them in all day and get periodic audio. Not everyone listens to music 24/7.
- untog 10y ago

drieddust 10y ago

Leaving them in your ears all day might not be a good idea from health and hygiene perspective.

evilduck 10y ago
I wonder if there's any long term issues with bone conducting headphones. As AR goes, not having noise isolation is a benefit.

brokenmachine 10y ago

I don't see how heavier than normal, wireless earbuds would be any easier to forget than normal earbuds. I don't have a problem with a cable. I actually don't understand why people would want to replace a cheap, robust, simple technology like a cable with non-replaceable batteries and signal-degrading wireless. Also I don't need my phone to talk at me all day. But, "courage".

intended 10y ago

I'm going to disagree with this "forget they are there" bit. I interact with my grandparents every day. One of them needs a hearing aid, which they will never wear. These are light weight, designed for comfort. I am sceptical

chrischen 10y ago

They have had wireless buds before amd the features you drscribe would be cool to try even eithout airpods. Airpods don't enable those features.

puranjay 10y ago

> Ask Siri for a price check while at the store, etc And Siri will just open the Wikipedia entry for "price" :) Jokes aside, Siri has fallen really, really far behind Google Now. It's jokingly bad at even the most mundane tasks.

theshrike79 10y ago
Both suck for certain things. The things Siri knows how to answer, she does so really fast and accurately. And if she doesn't know something, the fallback is a search engine. The best thing about Google Assistant (not Google Now) is the context sensitivity. You can ask "how tall is Tom Cruise", get an answer and then ask "how old is he" and Assistant will pick up who you're talking about. Siri will just get completely baffled.

daniel_iversen 10y ago

@erikpukinskis that's absolutely a brilliant thought!! Very clever.