13 ms·

AirPods Are Becoming a Platform?

155 points by bdr 7y ago

tazjin 7y ago
Now if only they had a wire so I could use them in areas with higher population density than Silicon Valley.
- therein 7y ago
  Even in San Francisco walking across busy intersections I get significant enough interference that audio is dropped for 2-3 seconds. Also is it just me or does the article just talk about how great AirPods are and how Apple really set it apart from competition this time and killed that silent launch but never really even tries to support or justify this opinion?
  - itg 7y ago
    Looked at the history of AboveAvalon, seems like a site that tries to justify everything Apple does and how great they are. Speaking of AirPods, their sound quality isn't all that great. I ended up getting the Galaxy Buds which were cheaper and sounded better.
  - konceptz 7y ago
    Interestingly I get the same in NYC. Asked a friend who gave me a detailed explanation which I have almost entirely forget right now... but something to do with car detection. If you happen to cross in the middle of the street you won’t notice the same drop effect.
- mynegation 7y ago
  I hear you (ha!), but they do have wired earbuds bundled with every iPhone. Or do you mean switching between wired and wireless for the same set? I have the same problem and I use wired earbuds for a walk through the busy streets.
stopads 7y ago
Oh please, they sold us on a fake problem and then the cure by removing ports. That's not innovation. That's not a platform. iPhones could all have usb ports and audio jacks and removable storage. Nothing is preventing any of that. Stop pretending Apple is moving the ball forward here.
- briandear 7y ago
  Wires get tangled. To switch from your iPhone to Mac, you unplug the wire and plug it in again. Then there is the question of having to remain within wires length of the machine. AirPods actually made wireless headphones usable and dead simple.
  - stopads 7y ago
    The first time I bought wireless headphones was in 1998. It's great that they got smaller and sleeker and more reliable since then, but removing ports and then forcing people to buy another accessory that you then boast about how good the margins are on in your earnings call is not innovation. I'm just getting quite tired of companies taking two steps backward, one step forward, and then marketing the hell out of this process to pretend like they made things better for us. I'm not merely anti-Apple, it feels like half the tech industry is stalled and just forcing nonsense like this on us while pretending it's "innovation" and "progress". It's innovating in how high the margins can go, nothing more.
  - JustSomeNobody 7y ago
    > To switch from your iPhone to Mac, you unplug the wire and plug it in again. Exactly why wires are so easy!
  - josteink 7y ago
    > To switch from your iPhone to Mac, you unplug the wire and plug it in again. So you are saying there is a standard-mechanism for interoperability between units from any vendor, and it’s mirrored in a highly discoverable physical interface which always reflects how things are connected, so there’s never any confusion or need for debugging? And no need for firmware updates or charging? That sounds just about perfect to me, like a dream come true! When will the iPhone support this amazing, new technology without the need for proprietary dongles? I can’t wait!
dpflan 7y ago
> “Another example involves utilizing AirPods to deliver different sound experiences to different people despite being in the same location and looking at the same thing. As an example, a single presentation shown in a school or office setting can end up delivering a dozen different experiences to those in attendance.“ Devil’s Advocate: Personalized, targeted advertising? A presentation that is different per user requires a model for that person, I’m not quite sure how useful this example is except if we’re talking about foreign language translation.
- abraCadabstrax 7y ago
  I think translation (or rather interpretation) is actually a wonderful use case. My experience with doing simultaneous interpretation for large conferences usually means that the cost of maintaining and providing listening devices is borne by the interpretation company. Providing your own listening device, especially such a high-grade device as what this purports to be, offers an interesting cost reduction and performance improvement.
DiabloD3 7y ago
Unfortunately, wireless headphones will never take off until they either permanently fix Bluetooth, or replace it with a better protocol that doesn't drop signal from my pocket to my head. Seriously, get your shit together, guys. And no, AirPods aren't magically immune, in fact, their bifurcated nature makes it worse. Edit: For those asking/stating "they already took off", not really. Most people do not own headphones, do not want headphones, and most people keep owning or keep buying wired headphones; even if the numbers say more wireless sold, it isn't backwards facing enough, and doesn't include all the wired pairs people already own, it also doesn't include ones included in the box. The two largest complaints I always hear is either the device connectivity is garbage, the device audio quality is garbage, or the comfort is fucking horrible compared to similarly priced wired earbuds and IEMs. Too many corners are cut to make these things work, and most consumers just aren't happy. So, they didn't take off if most people hate them, you have to have one hell of a RDF-boner for that industry to argue otherwise. Also, /r/headphones says hi.
- lostmsu 7y ago
  Huh? I've been using Bluetooth headphones and hands-frees for years, and even in 2008 they did not have problems transmitting audio both ways in real time. Perhaps the ones you happened to have are just bad.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    Apple threads tend to follow a rather predictable pattern around here. Even for features like Bluetooth, for which Apple has the best implementation in the market, by far.
    - josteink 7y ago
      That may or may not be, but it stands to reason that Bluetooth will never be as reliable as wired, and that if you compare wired vs Bluetooth you will get better sound quality for wired at every price point. I already have amazing sounding wired Shure in-ears and Beyerdynamic headphones. I’m not spending $500+ to have them replaced with inferior-sounding wireless options. I was even given some $400 Bose BC700 (supposedly the “absolutely best wireless headphones you can get”) for free. I returned them because they sound like shit. It’s like the music has lost all signs of life and all its action by the time it makes it to my ear. Not to mention the obvious phase-distortion caused by the ANC. Too much DSP, not enough hifi. What a joke. And I will certainly not be considering Apple AirPods which IME has the worst sound I’ve ever heard on any so called “premium” head-sets. They’re basically a joke in the audiophile environment.
itsthecourier 7y ago
That sales chart is misleading, should then account for inflation airpods will be way below the iphone
msci100 7y ago
I don't know if I necessarily agree the line of thinking that Airpod users will buy more than one pair, but the potential to push Airpod Pro's syncing capabilities to other rooms is interesting. A fun example would be to use Airpod Pros as walkie talkies with other Pro users in the same house or area. Definitely would interested in tinkering with any Dev kit came out for building Airpod apps.
- soneil 7y ago
  Buying more than one pair happens quite easily - I did, but I didn’t set out to do so. When the second generation came out, I upgraded for the wireless charging. I tend to sleep with one in (a pre-existing habit, and as I’m an “active sleeper”, one that benefitted from being freed from the tangle), so I kept the previous pair as my bed-pair. This usage is noticeably detrimental to the battery, so I figured keeping the old ones like this would save me doing the same damage to the next pair. Now I’be upgraded again to the pros, but kept the gen2 because they better fit the times that I only have one in one ear (which the pros don’t seem to suit well at all). So I now have three pairs, not because I wanted three pairs - but because the situational uses I’ve found for them, feel more appropriate than discarding them while they still work. And I can’t imagine this is going to be a very rare outlier, thanks to the huge ick component of their resale value.
  - msci100 7y ago
    Interesting! That's a great example of why to have multiple pairs. Learn something new every day.
LeoPanthera 7y ago
The Pro Airpods simply don’t fit my ears. The left one could be made to fit with some determined wiggling, but the right one would never make a seal, and the phone would complain that the seal was bad. I returned them. I can’t imagine that I am that unique. It’s especially odd, as I own the first generation “regular” airpods, and they fit just fine.
- zarriak 7y ago
  Did it still happen with the different sizes of ear tips? That sounds very odd.
  - LeoPanthera 7y ago
    Yep. Tried them all.
- dmlittle 7y ago
  I've got the exact opposite problem. The AirPods Pro fit perfectly (I go running with them) but I could never get the regular AirPods to fit and stay in my ear (event while sitting still).
- bluegreyred 7y ago
  Interesting. As a datapoint, I was unexpectedly gifted Airpod Pros for Christmas and all three tip sizes seal well in my ears according to the test app. The middle sized one is most comfortable. Regular Airpods fit fine. That being said I'm planning on passing them on to somebody without Airpods (after buying new eartips!) because I already own regular Airpods and Bose QC35s. I prefer the on-ear Boses for ANC and the Airpods for comfort (not completely in-ear, easy to take in/out for casual listening, less isolation than Pro's transparency mode, they fall out and pause playback when I fall asleep). The Airpod Pros aren't bad, they would be a good compromise between the two for somebody who likes in-ear buds. I just don't have a use for them and find them overpriced.
- macintux 7y ago
  I struggle with that too. I’m holding out hope that a 3rd party offers alternative tips.
ck425 7y ago
I don't see what is unique about airpods that an androids supplier couldn't replicate in terms of the platform stuff. Also I expect the growing trend of disconnecting from technology will hit immersive technology forms like audio particularly hard.
- briandear 7y ago
  > I don't see what is unique about airpods that an androids supplier couldn't replicate in terms of the platform stuff. The W2 chip, that’s what.
  - brian-armstrong 7y ago
    You are right, Apple holds an exclusive right to any novel RF or DSP techniques.
  - grzm 7y ago
    I would love to see the W2 chip available to third party makers such as JH Audio. I can't imagine Apple getting into the IEM market directly, but having the passive sound blocking of IEMs with the pairing quality of the W2, I'd be very happy. I've got ears that don't really fit either the first gen or the AirPods Pro. Custom-molded IEMs would be great. With the detachable ear tips and looser fit of the AirPods Pro case, I'm hoping a third-party will come out with something similar to Etymotic's flanged ear tips.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    W2 is actually used in Apple Watch.
- gumby 7y ago
  Apple has enough verticality in product, and such a large profit margin that they could afford the development at both ends of the connection. While any one android developer doesn’t have enough volume to justify the NRE. They would need a standards body or cooperation to justify it. To get there they typically wait for Google to do the heavy lifting. Samsung is perhaps the only one with the financial power but their making is much lower than apple’s. I agree there’s no engineering barrier in principle.
zarriak 7y ago
I think the vast majority of people on the airpods to airpods pro path are on because like most people they hate the apple hard plastic headphones. The reason that the people that have both pairs they polled is because the people in their family/friend group that they would give them to don't have airpods specifically because they hate the hard plastic. It is very interesting that they still look quite stupid when you see people wear them but it is enough of a different type of stupid than google glass that people won't laugh at you out loud in public.
- Animats 7y ago
  From the article: "This technology prowess and manufacturing acumen goes to waste if people don’t actually want to be seen wearing the devices. Apple’s success at redefining luxury, combined with the company’s design-led culture, gives the company a large advantage in the area of understanding what people will want to wear on the body." Apple, after all, is the company that successfully positioned white-wire earphones as cool. Users could easily have been ridiculed as "iDweebs", like Google's "Glassholes".
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    They were for a while when AirPods first came out. Remember the “toothbrush head” images that were going around?
jeethsuresh 7y ago
This seems a little far-fetched. There's a great quote from someone whose name escapes me right now, about the definition of a platform being when revenue generated by software running on the device far outpaces revenue generated by sales of the device itself. I've always liked that definition, and it seems accurate to me based on historical evidence (PCs - definitely a platform. Smartwatches - definitely not). In this test, the airpods fail abysmally - not only do they not allow for revenue generation today, they don't even allow for third party developers to use their hardware features in any capacity. In fact, the main use-case for airpods appears to be efficiency and convenience when combined with Siri. All three "sources" described by the article fail to define for me the benefit users will gain from airpods as a platform, and instead have done an excellent job of convincing me that users will benefit far more from treating airpods as a product. Compounding this is the fact that most computing platforms are primarily visual in their interactions with their users - this is clearly no coincidence. Visual interfaces allow developers to surface many pieces of information at once, and they allow users to absorb information at a pace that is variable (based on context) and comfortable to them. Aural platforms don't have this capability, and the context that they assume is often wrong. For example, I've been driving a lot these past few days, and one of the worst Apple-built experiences I've ever had occurred when I needed to stop for gas. Not only was I directed to a gas station I had already passed (driving on the freeway), but when I wanted to navigate to another gas station there was no way (obvious or not) for me to tell Siri to find me a gas station ahead of me. In fact, there was no way to confirm where any of the gas stations Siri found me were in relation to me, without looking at my screen. One more thing: Aural platforms are exclusively serial. They surface one piece of information at a time, and in fact they would be less usable if they surfaced any more than that (or surfaced each piece of information any quicker). This alone, I feel, makes them unsuitable platforms in today's world. Edit: randall found the quote, by Bill Gates: 'Gates said something along the lines of, “That’s a crock of shit. This isn’t a platform. A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the company that creates it. Then it’s a platform.”' [1] [1] https://stratechery.com/2018/the-bill-gates-line/ https://stratechery.com/2018/the-bill-gates-line/
- randall 7y ago
  >>There's a great quote from someone whose name escapes me right now Bill Gates. You're looking for Bill Gates. https://stratechery.com/2018/the-bill-gates-line/ https://stratechery.com/2018/the-bill-gates-line/
hayksaakian 7y ago
A lot of "could" and "would" to speculate about airpods becoming a platform. The article vastly overpromises and underdelivers
tootie 7y ago
Jabra Elites are better and cost less.
- Antoninus 7y ago
  I’ve been wearing jabras at the gym for the past 3 years and use the bose qc ii 35’s for my daily programming job. I’ve never had an issue. In fact, the jabras have a much longer range but don’t have the ability to connect to two devices at once like the bose products.
- lostdog 7y ago
  This previous thread suggests that Jabra's are pretty terrible: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19095576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19095576 Do you know if the product line has improved since then?
  - tootie 7y ago
    It's the top rated by Wirecutter right now. I mostly use them just paired with my phone but I haven't had trouble using then with whatever when I've needed to.
kejaed 7y ago
When I look at AirPods and AirPods Pro I don’t necessarily see a platform, but what I do see is the 2nd wearable hit from Apple (after the Apple Watch), and what is likely the basis for their AR platform. Wearable, miniature, real-time allow-latency (audio) processing and with the precise indoor location tracking on the iPhone 11 series, I see Apple setting the technology stage (as the often do) for a true platform, AR, with these technologies coming together. This is one of the pieces I’ve been meaning to write up for my audience of zero...
torgian 7y ago
Eh.
jammygit 7y ago
My air pod microphone stopped working with the iOS 13 update. The only thing I want is for the basic functionality to work
- takeda 7y ago
  Things like that is why I hate Android followed this stupid trend of removing DAC. This was working perfectly fine, there was no good reason to "fix" it.
SirHound 7y ago
The point about people owning multiple AirPods is a weird tangent and not something I expect to play a major part of their strategy. However I totally buy the rest of this and used to think something similar when they were first released. They haven’t done much in the meantime but with the Pros capabilities and the location detection of the iPhone 11 I think we’re only just at a place something interesting could be done.
KaiserPro 7y ago
This is peak tech journalism: uncritical wishful thinking. A strong claim, I know, but hear me out. 1) these are very small bluetooth headphones. 2) They only work when attached to a smart phone 3) They are still headphones. Another thing to note is that they are still a substandard user experience compared to 3.5mm jack and decent headphones ($50+ with non tangle wires) Bluetooth headphones are great if you want to not have to fiddle with wires. But, they are capricious and run out of batteries. The pros have both noise isolation _and_ reduction. But, they are still let in a boat load of noise, especially speaking. For long term use, you have to sacrifice isolation for comfort. For the same price as airpod pros you can get custom moulded in ear monitors. 35db of noise reduction, and they don't hurt. The real selling point of ear buds is the fashion part. People are wearing them because they are a signal of how rich/successful they are. (in the same way people wore those shitty ipod ear buds.) As for a platform, what are they going to do to be useful? "intelligent noise"? but that requires situational awareness that doesn't exist on smartphones yet. They will be swept aside as soon as decent AR wearable pop onto the scene. Be that in 3 or 15 years.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  > The real selling point of ear buds is the fashion part. People are wearing them because they are a signal of how rich/successful they are. Or people just really like the convenience of well implemented wireless headphones.
  - asdff 7y ago
    If people were buying solely for the convenience factor, they wouldn't be putting up with the $160 price tag to get a blutooth version of the headphones that came free with the phone. There are plenty of good and cheap headphones on the market if convenience was your only concern.
  - meesles 7y ago
    Then buy the black ones for 1/5 of the price and the same exact feature set. Apple is not king of audio hardware, they are the king of turning decent quality, well-packaged and integrated hardware into commodities and fashion statements. And what convenience? They're just selling a bluetooth thing online, same as everyone else. I agree with GP about the tech journalism. I find it funny that the usual cast of journalists that write these articles have been doing so for years and stand to gain a lot from Apple's success, and are deeply embedded in Apple's press organizations.
jonplackett 7y ago
I had a really weird experience with my AirPods Pro. I was cooking with the noise cancelling turned on and I sliced off half my fingernail with a potato peeler, right down between the nail and the finger. It was pretty gross. But I had the noise cancelling on and as I looked at my finger I had this weird out of body experience where I couldn’t feel anything and just felt completely separate from it - I had to take the AirPods out before I could come to grips with the situation and do anything about it. That noise cancellation is powerful stuff. I can see how it could transport you maybe even as much as VR
- nneonneo 7y ago
  There are a whole bunch of reasons (physiological and psychological) why getting a cut like that produces a delayed sensation of pain. Psychologically, if you're deeply concentrated in something (e.g. immersed in listening to music), you might be subject to a form of delayed perception. Physiologically, the cut area may not send pain signals until an inflammatory response mounts against the bleeding. These could combine to produce a significant delay in your (conscious) perception of the wound, even without something like the AirPods. (One could argue the degree to which it isolates you from the environment acoustically might also be insulating you from heeding your environment at all - sounds like something that might be worth studying!)
  - allovernow 7y ago
    Adrenaline also quickly increases and can totally mask pain. Even if one feels relatively calm.
    - jonplackett 7y ago
      It wasn't so much the pain. It was like a kind of paralysis because I didn't feel like I was quite there. The AirPods didn't even have any music playing, just the ANC turned on.
hootbootscoot 7y ago
just wait til the charger becomes one... bluetooth audio IS lo-fi, on purpose, but whatever floats your 64kbps Real Audio boat, I suppose...(I'm an OGG Vorbis person myself, lol)
- hootbootscoot 7y ago
  I can't believe no one mentioned the optional subwoofer er "plug" yet...it's like a meme and stuff already...
dzhiurgis 7y ago
Apple could easily add eSIM to AirPods (probably makes more sense to put into care) to enable fully wireless life experience. Make them even smaller and it could challenge neuralink for a while (especially for Alexa generation).
- 4ad 7y ago
  The Apple Watch is hundreds of times bigger in volume and putting eSIM inside was a huge engineering challenge, one that still comes with MANY caveats. I don't see how it's feasible to put eSIM in earphones with current and next-gen technology.
  - dzhiurgis 7y ago
    Problem still is Apple is tasting third party modem. 5G SOC could be more than feasible. Putting it into charging case is piece of cake.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  The AirPods themselves have no UI (Siri isn't a viable replacement, sorry) so you'd most likely still have a device nearby like phone/watch/etc from where you can control it so might as well stream the content from it and do away with the need for LTE. Wi-Fi would be quite useful though, so they can keep working outside of Bluetooth range (big house, office building, etc) by falling back to the Wi-Fi and talking to the phone over it.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    That’s where you pair the AirPods with the cellular Apple Watch.....
- iaml 7y ago
  I think apple's plan here is a combination of watch+airpods, which works already btw. You can connect watch to airpods directly and play music via esim of the watch.
vegardx 7y ago
There's something very Her-esque (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/) over the AirPods, at least when they were first released. There's something futuristic but also realistic about it. Can't really put my finger on it. One of the features that I feel is glossed over very quickly is Live Listen[0], especially for an article about it being "a platform". For those that have family members with hearing loss they are a godsend in noisy environments like a cafe. Just put an iPhone with tons of processing power and an array of microphones on the table and let it filter out most of the noise and send it to the AirPods with impressive low latency. It's truly amazing, if you have AirPods and an iPhone you should try it. They outperform more professional solutions by miles. I have only tried it with AirPods, but I can only imagine how well it works with proper hearing aids that are tuned to the frequency range. I wish they'd make an audio loop "bridge" of some sort for Live Listen, as hearing aids are expensive and available technology from government usually lags behind 10+ years. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209082 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209082
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- boudin 7y ago
  The whole point of hearing aids is to be easily forgotten and to last a day without the need to charge. I'm quite sure that with a good computer, profesionnal microphones and some good headphones with a jack you'll have a better solution with lower latency than an iphone and airpods, but that misses the point of hearing aids
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    My father doesn't even use his $1000+ hearing aids because he says they just amplify everything and don't help. If Airpods + an iPhone on the table can help him out, like making table conversation more accessible, that would be a big deal. I'll have to look into it. The point of Airpods + iPhone here is that they are still highly portable, people today already carry both around just for fun. Your desktop PC + mic setup is not.
xg15 7y ago
> In essence, we are moving away from pulling data from various apps to receiving a curated feed of data that is dynamic - always changing and tailored to our needs. Is there any indication that users (not designers, developers, businesses or "the industry") actually want this?
- shuckles 7y ago
  TikTok?
  - bori5 7y ago
    What do breath mints have to do with anything
- wccrawford 7y ago
  Isn't that what Google Reader, Flipbook, etc are? Isn't that what many news websites are? It's just a question of degree. I'm sure some people want all their info to come from just 1 site, but most people want it separated into manageable chunks. Car info from this site, computer from that site, etc. For instance, I come to Hacker News for most of my computer-related news. I use reddit for most entertainment, though there's some computer stuff there. I use Flipbook for random things that I wouldn't think to subscribe to on Reddit. And people use Facebook, etc for things that their friends like and want to share.
anonu 7y ago
I would also add that there is a custom chip design in the airpods (m1?). In terms of "sucking the oxygen out of the market", it's a lot easier when your competition can't even come close to the level of tech savvy you put into your hardware
- saagarjha 7y ago
  First-generation AirPods have a W1 SoC, and AirPods with “Hey Siri” functionality have a H1 chip.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  How is it a failing of their competitors "tech savvy" that Apple put a custom chip for which they are able to embed support in the OS, and won't share / license?
  - anonu 7y ago
    It's not so much a failure by the competition. My point is that Apple raises the bar so much by building a custom chip. A custom chip raises the bar on user experience: faster bluetooth connection times, longer battery life. What does the R&D cost for that chip? $100 million? Thats a complete guess - but totally within the realm of possibility given how much cash Apple sits on... Do you think the next viable competitor can spend that kind of money?
rsp1984 7y ago
Forget platforms, the real prize is making the form factor comfortable enough for side sleepers and making the battery last 8+ hours (duration of a good nights sleep). The number of people on the planet with bedroom noise problems is vastly larger than the number of audiophiles. Plus the value created per customer would be dramatically higher. Solve these issues and I can see AirPods being a $50B / year business.
- theNJR 7y ago
  I sleep with one AirPod in. Have been since 2016.
  - germinalphrase 7y ago
    What is your purpose in doing so? Background tones? Notifications?
    - cerberusss 7y ago
      I don't know about theNRJ's purpose, but mine is falling asleep to Twitch or some podcast.
    - theNJR 7y ago
      Background sound. Usually reruns of The Office, which is a bit absurd but it helps me fall asleep. It’s now a conditioned response.
pcarolan 7y ago
It seems like we've hit a point where someone could have airpods and a mobile enabled iwatch and accomplish 80% of what needs to be done communication-wise, namely text, email, voice calls. Has anyone tried this? It might actually encourage more voice calls due to the interface constraints which might be a nice side effect (for some).
- dcdevito 7y ago
  I do this every day. I leave my iPhone home and just use my Apple Watch and AirPods. Works great, and as long as my iPhone is on at home on WiFi it will relay just about everything.
- Eloso 7y ago
  I have tried it as an experiment to lower my mobile phone usage. I wanted the ability to make calls, check texts, pay using mobile payments, and play music without the distraction of mindlessly grabbing for my phone to browse the Internet whenever a moment of boredom surfaces. It works quite well. I turned off notifications for emails and texts. Instead, I check those once an hour or so. If a conversation becomes longer than a message or two, I call the person or tell them I’ll text them later. I haven’t been fully able to ditch the phone, but I didn’t intend to. I experimented with this set up mostly for nights and weekends.
neya 7y ago
I currently own a 1000xm3. My colleague recently just bought an Airpods pro and was going on for ages about how awesome it is. I offered him to try out my XM3s. He tried them out for 15 mins. I never heard another word from him again. See, my colleague's behaviour is what many bloggers and self-proclaimed journalists exhibit today. They try out one thing and simply go on to write about how superior it is. The Sony XM3s have all the functionality in the AirPods pro with so much more. For example, you can swipe your fingers over the headphone housing and it will do different things depending on the direction of the swipe. They provide you an app to configure this and the buttons on the headphone itself. Not to mention, they also allow you to enable high resolution codecs, equalizer and surround sound from the app itself. The sound quality (which is one of the reasons people buy headphones for) is also vastly superior on the Sony's. So, it's not an apples to apples comparison, yes (Headphones vs Earphones)? Ok, In addition to my Sony's, I also have the Galaxy earbuds. It also supported swipe gestures and configurable actions via the app which is tightly integrated with Galaxy phones. The sound quality is superior and has officially been benchmarked by consumer reports to be the same as well[1]. Nothing what the author is excited about here is unique just to Apple even in terms of strategy or technology. IF anything, it's confusing nomenclature bundled with mediocre hardware. [1] https://www.consumerreports.org/headphones/apple-airpods-vs-samsung-galaxy-buds-earphones-face-off/ https://www.consumerreports.org/headphones/apple-airpods-vs-... The author simply needs go out and try other brands of headphones.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  You’re missing the entire point of AirPods. They’re small and they work great with Apple products. Neither of things you mentioned do the same.
- cujo 7y ago
  The XM3s are over the ear headphones right? Apples to apples? Stick to your Galaxy comparison. At least it's on point.
- 1123581321 7y ago
  I suspect your colleague was more bemused than shamed by your comparison. Wireless buds are considered a different product category from headphones due to market perception as well as how and when they are used. Some people find Airpods to be nice to use everywhere; those who prefer headphone audio quality use them when convenient.
elagost 7y ago
Lots of people in this thread seem to be fighting about whether AirPods (and wireless headphones in general) are a viable product or not. "Wires are not a hassle and provide a better experience most of the time" crowd, vs. "Wires are awful and I'll take all the drawbacks of wireless just to get rid of them" crowd. Generally, won't people who care about headphones own multiple pairs of headphones? I have a cheap pair of liquid-resistant bluetooth buds for workouts, and they work great for that but sound pretty bad. For walking or home use, I use either a wired set of nicer earbuds, or some wired over-ear headphones that sound amazing. All of them combined cost less than airpods, too. If you care enough to spend money on headphones and not just use the wired pack-in ones that come with most devices, would one not just do an hour of research before spending almost $200 on something with a very obviously limited lifespan? And as far as airpods being a platform: the author seems to think "sensors = platform". They're a nicely integrated part of Apple's whole mobile platform, but not a platform themselves. You can't use airpods by themselves, so how does that make them a platform?
TurkishPoptart 7y ago
As an Android user (begrudgingly) I hate bluetooth. It never works the way it should. My impression is that iPhone users have no issue with it.
Slippery_John 7y ago
One of the best features of the airpods is seemingly not advertised: in transparency mode they automatically switch to active noise cancellation if there is some excessively loud/harmful noise. I live in a city where I walk everywhere. The audio landscape of a city can be incredibly harmful. Notably the shrieking of brakes in need of replacement and the many awful sounds of construction. Walking around with transparency mode on, even when not listening to anything, has immeasurably improved my quality of life. I can still be aware of my surroundings without having to deal with anything but the first few fractions of these hostile noises.

155 points by bdr 7y ago

tazjin 7y ago

Now if only they had a wire so I could use them in areas with higher population density than Silicon Valley.

therein 7y ago
Even in San Francisco walking across busy intersections I get significant enough interference that audio is dropped for 2-3 seconds. Also is it just me or does the article just talk about how great AirPods are and how Apple really set it apart from competition this time and killed that silent launch but never really even tries to support or justify this opinion?
- itg 7y ago
  Looked at the history of AboveAvalon, seems like a site that tries to justify everything Apple does and how great they are. Speaking of AirPods, their sound quality isn't all that great. I ended up getting the Galaxy Buds which were cheaper and sounded better.
- konceptz 7y ago
  Interestingly I get the same in NYC. Asked a friend who gave me a detailed explanation which I have almost entirely forget right now... but something to do with car detection. If you happen to cross in the middle of the street you won’t notice the same drop effect.
mynegation 7y ago
I hear you (ha!), but they do have wired earbuds bundled with every iPhone. Or do you mean switching between wired and wireless for the same set? I have the same problem and I use wired earbuds for a walk through the busy streets.

stopads 7y ago

Oh please, they sold us on a fake problem and then the cure by removing ports. That's not innovation. That's not a platform. iPhones could all have usb ports and audio jacks and removable storage. Nothing is preventing any of that. Stop pretending Apple is moving the ball forward here.

briandear 7y ago
Wires get tangled. To switch from your iPhone to Mac, you unplug the wire and plug it in again. Then there is the question of having to remain within wires length of the machine. AirPods actually made wireless headphones usable and dead simple.
- stopads 7y ago
  The first time I bought wireless headphones was in 1998. It's great that they got smaller and sleeker and more reliable since then, but removing ports and then forcing people to buy another accessory that you then boast about how good the margins are on in your earnings call is not innovation. I'm just getting quite tired of companies taking two steps backward, one step forward, and then marketing the hell out of this process to pretend like they made things better for us. I'm not merely anti-Apple, it feels like half the tech industry is stalled and just forcing nonsense like this on us while pretending it's "innovation" and "progress". It's innovating in how high the margins can go, nothing more.
- JustSomeNobody 7y ago
  > To switch from your iPhone to Mac, you unplug the wire and plug it in again. Exactly why wires are so easy!
- josteink 7y ago
  > To switch from your iPhone to Mac, you unplug the wire and plug it in again. So you are saying there is a standard-mechanism for interoperability between units from any vendor, and it’s mirrored in a highly discoverable physical interface which always reflects how things are connected, so there’s never any confusion or need for debugging? And no need for firmware updates or charging? That sounds just about perfect to me, like a dream come true! When will the iPhone support this amazing, new technology without the need for proprietary dongles? I can’t wait!

dpflan 7y ago

> “Another example involves utilizing AirPods to deliver different sound experiences to different people despite being in the same location and looking at the same thing. As an example, a single presentation shown in a school or office setting can end up delivering a dozen different experiences to those in attendance.“ Devil’s Advocate: Personalized, targeted advertising? A presentation that is different per user requires a model for that person, I’m not quite sure how useful this example is except if we’re talking about foreign language translation.

abraCadabstrax 7y ago
I think translation (or rather interpretation) is actually a wonderful use case. My experience with doing simultaneous interpretation for large conferences usually means that the cost of maintaining and providing listening devices is borne by the interpretation company. Providing your own listening device, especially such a high-grade device as what this purports to be, offers an interesting cost reduction and performance improvement.

DiabloD3 7y ago

Unfortunately, wireless headphones will never take off until they either permanently fix Bluetooth, or replace it with a better protocol that doesn't drop signal from my pocket to my head. Seriously, get your shit together, guys. And no, AirPods aren't magically immune, in fact, their bifurcated nature makes it worse. Edit: For those asking/stating "they already took off", not really. Most people do not own headphones, do not want headphones, and most people keep owning or keep buying wired headphones; even if the numbers say more wireless sold, it isn't backwards facing enough, and doesn't include all the wired pairs people already own, it also doesn't include ones included in the box. The two largest complaints I always hear is either the device connectivity is garbage, the device audio quality is garbage, or the comfort is fucking horrible compared to similarly priced wired earbuds and IEMs. Too many corners are cut to make these things work, and most consumers just aren't happy. So, they didn't take off if most people hate them, you have to have one hell of a RDF-boner for that industry to argue otherwise. Also, /r/headphones says hi.

lostmsu 7y ago
Huh? I've been using Bluetooth headphones and hands-frees for years, and even in 2008 they did not have problems transmitting audio both ways in real time. Perhaps the ones you happened to have are just bad.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  Apple threads tend to follow a rather predictable pattern around here. Even for features like Bluetooth, for which Apple has the best implementation in the market, by far.
  - josteink 7y ago
    That may or may not be, but it stands to reason that Bluetooth will never be as reliable as wired, and that if you compare wired vs Bluetooth you will get better sound quality for wired at every price point. I already have amazing sounding wired Shure in-ears and Beyerdynamic headphones. I’m not spending $500+ to have them replaced with inferior-sounding wireless options. I was even given some $400 Bose BC700 (supposedly the “absolutely best wireless headphones you can get”) for free. I returned them because they sound like shit. It’s like the music has lost all signs of life and all its action by the time it makes it to my ear. Not to mention the obvious phase-distortion caused by the ANC. Too much DSP, not enough hifi. What a joke. And I will certainly not be considering Apple AirPods which IME has the worst sound I’ve ever heard on any so called “premium” head-sets. They’re basically a joke in the audiophile environment.

itsthecourier 7y ago

That sales chart is misleading, should then account for inflation airpods will be way below the iphone

msci100 7y ago

I don't know if I necessarily agree the line of thinking that Airpod users will buy more than one pair, but the potential to push Airpod Pro's syncing capabilities to other rooms is interesting. A fun example would be to use Airpod Pros as walkie talkies with other Pro users in the same house or area. Definitely would interested in tinkering with any Dev kit came out for building Airpod apps.

soneil 7y ago
Buying more than one pair happens quite easily - I did, but I didn’t set out to do so. When the second generation came out, I upgraded for the wireless charging. I tend to sleep with one in (a pre-existing habit, and as I’m an “active sleeper”, one that benefitted from being freed from the tangle), so I kept the previous pair as my bed-pair. This usage is noticeably detrimental to the battery, so I figured keeping the old ones like this would save me doing the same damage to the next pair. Now I’be upgraded again to the pros, but kept the gen2 because they better fit the times that I only have one in one ear (which the pros don’t seem to suit well at all). So I now have three pairs, not because I wanted three pairs - but because the situational uses I’ve found for them, feel more appropriate than discarding them while they still work. And I can’t imagine this is going to be a very rare outlier, thanks to the huge ick component of their resale value.
- msci100 7y ago
  Interesting! That's a great example of why to have multiple pairs. Learn something new every day.

LeoPanthera 7y ago

The Pro Airpods simply don’t fit my ears. The left one could be made to fit with some determined wiggling, but the right one would never make a seal, and the phone would complain that the seal was bad. I returned them. I can’t imagine that I am that unique. It’s especially odd, as I own the first generation “regular” airpods, and they fit just fine.

zarriak 7y ago
Did it still happen with the different sizes of ear tips? That sounds very odd.
- LeoPanthera 7y ago
  Yep. Tried them all.
dmlittle 7y ago
I've got the exact opposite problem. The AirPods Pro fit perfectly (I go running with them) but I could never get the regular AirPods to fit and stay in my ear (event while sitting still).
bluegreyred 7y ago
Interesting. As a datapoint, I was unexpectedly gifted Airpod Pros for Christmas and all three tip sizes seal well in my ears according to the test app. The middle sized one is most comfortable. Regular Airpods fit fine. That being said I'm planning on passing them on to somebody without Airpods (after buying new eartips!) because I already own regular Airpods and Bose QC35s. I prefer the on-ear Boses for ANC and the Airpods for comfort (not completely in-ear, easy to take in/out for casual listening, less isolation than Pro's transparency mode, they fall out and pause playback when I fall asleep). The Airpod Pros aren't bad, they would be a good compromise between the two for somebody who likes in-ear buds. I just don't have a use for them and find them overpriced.
macintux 7y ago
I struggle with that too. I’m holding out hope that a 3rd party offers alternative tips.

ck425 7y ago

I don't see what is unique about airpods that an androids supplier couldn't replicate in terms of the platform stuff. Also I expect the growing trend of disconnecting from technology will hit immersive technology forms like audio particularly hard.

briandear 7y ago
> I don't see what is unique about airpods that an androids supplier couldn't replicate in terms of the platform stuff. The W2 chip, that’s what.
- brian-armstrong 7y ago
  You are right, Apple holds an exclusive right to any novel RF or DSP techniques.
- grzm 7y ago
  I would love to see the W2 chip available to third party makers such as JH Audio. I can't imagine Apple getting into the IEM market directly, but having the passive sound blocking of IEMs with the pairing quality of the W2, I'd be very happy. I've got ears that don't really fit either the first gen or the AirPods Pro. Custom-molded IEMs would be great. With the detachable ear tips and looser fit of the AirPods Pro case, I'm hoping a third-party will come out with something similar to Etymotic's flanged ear tips.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  W2 is actually used in Apple Watch.
gumby 7y ago
Apple has enough verticality in product, and such a large profit margin that they could afford the development at both ends of the connection. While any one android developer doesn’t have enough volume to justify the NRE. They would need a standards body or cooperation to justify it. To get there they typically wait for Google to do the heavy lifting. Samsung is perhaps the only one with the financial power but their making is much lower than apple’s. I agree there’s no engineering barrier in principle.

zarriak 7y ago

I think the vast majority of people on the airpods to airpods pro path are on because like most people they hate the apple hard plastic headphones. The reason that the people that have both pairs they polled is because the people in their family/friend group that they would give them to don't have airpods specifically because they hate the hard plastic. It is very interesting that they still look quite stupid when you see people wear them but it is enough of a different type of stupid than google glass that people won't laugh at you out loud in public.

Animats 7y ago
From the article: "This technology prowess and manufacturing acumen goes to waste if people don’t actually want to be seen wearing the devices. Apple’s success at redefining luxury, combined with the company’s design-led culture, gives the company a large advantage in the area of understanding what people will want to wear on the body." Apple, after all, is the company that successfully positioned white-wire earphones as cool. Users could easily have been ridiculed as "iDweebs", like Google's "Glassholes".
- saagarjha 7y ago
  They were for a while when AirPods first came out. Remember the “toothbrush head” images that were going around?

jeethsuresh 7y ago

This seems a little far-fetched. There's a great quote from someone whose name escapes me right now, about the definition of a platform being when revenue generated by software running on the device far outpaces revenue generated by sales of the device itself. I've always liked that definition, and it seems accurate to me based on historical evidence (PCs - definitely a platform. Smartwatches - definitely not). In this test, the airpods fail abysmally - not only do they not allow for revenue generation today, they don't even allow for third party developers to use their hardware features in any capacity. In fact, the main use-case for airpods appears to be efficiency and convenience when combined with Siri. All three "sources" described by the article fail to define for me the benefit users will gain from airpods as a platform, and instead have done an excellent job of convincing me that users will benefit far more from treating airpods as a product. Compounding this is the fact that most computing platforms are primarily visual in their interactions with their users - this is clearly no coincidence. Visual interfaces allow developers to surface many pieces of information at once, and they allow users to absorb information at a pace that is variable (based on context) and comfortable to them. Aural platforms don't have this capability, and the context that they assume is often wrong. For example, I've been driving a lot these past few days, and one of the worst Apple-built experiences I've ever had occurred when I needed to stop for gas. Not only was I directed to a gas station I had already passed (driving on the freeway), but when I wanted to navigate to another gas station there was no way (obvious or not) for me to tell Siri to find me a gas station ahead of me. In fact, there was no way to confirm where any of the gas stations Siri found me were in relation to me, without looking at my screen. One more thing: Aural platforms are exclusively serial. They surface one piece of information at a time, and in fact they would be less usable if they surfaced any more than that (or surfaced each piece of information any quicker). This alone, I feel, makes them unsuitable platforms in today's world. Edit: randall found the quote, by Bill Gates: 'Gates said something along the lines of, “That’s a crock of shit. This isn’t a platform. A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the company that creates it. Then it’s a platform.”' [1] [1] https://stratechery.com/2018/the-bill-gates-line/ https://stratechery.com/2018/the-bill-gates-line/

randall 7y ago
>>There's a great quote from someone whose name escapes me right now Bill Gates. You're looking for Bill Gates. https://stratechery.com/2018/the-bill-gates-line/ https://stratechery.com/2018/the-bill-gates-line/

hayksaakian 7y ago

A lot of "could" and "would" to speculate about airpods becoming a platform. The article vastly overpromises and underdelivers

tootie 7y ago

Jabra Elites are better and cost less.

Antoninus 7y ago
I’ve been wearing jabras at the gym for the past 3 years and use the bose qc ii 35’s for my daily programming job. I’ve never had an issue. In fact, the jabras have a much longer range but don’t have the ability to connect to two devices at once like the bose products.
lostdog 7y ago
This previous thread suggests that Jabra's are pretty terrible: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19095576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19095576 Do you know if the product line has improved since then?
- tootie 7y ago
  It's the top rated by Wirecutter right now. I mostly use them just paired with my phone but I haven't had trouble using then with whatever when I've needed to.

kejaed 7y ago

When I look at AirPods and AirPods Pro I don’t necessarily see a platform, but what I do see is the 2nd wearable hit from Apple (after the Apple Watch), and what is likely the basis for their AR platform. Wearable, miniature, real-time allow-latency (audio) processing and with the precise indoor location tracking on the iPhone 11 series, I see Apple setting the technology stage (as the often do) for a true platform, AR, with these technologies coming together. This is one of the pieces I’ve been meaning to write up for my audience of zero...

torgian 7y ago

Eh.

jammygit 7y ago

My air pod microphone stopped working with the iOS 13 update. The only thing I want is for the basic functionality to work

takeda 7y ago
Things like that is why I hate Android followed this stupid trend of removing DAC. This was working perfectly fine, there was no good reason to "fix" it.

SirHound 7y ago

The point about people owning multiple AirPods is a weird tangent and not something I expect to play a major part of their strategy. However I totally buy the rest of this and used to think something similar when they were first released. They haven’t done much in the meantime but with the Pros capabilities and the location detection of the iPhone 11 I think we’re only just at a place something interesting could be done.

KaiserPro 7y ago

This is peak tech journalism: uncritical wishful thinking. A strong claim, I know, but hear me out. 1) these are very small bluetooth headphones. 2) They only work when attached to a smart phone 3) They are still headphones. Another thing to note is that they are still a substandard user experience compared to 3.5mm jack and decent headphones ($50+ with non tangle wires) Bluetooth headphones are great if you want to not have to fiddle with wires. But, they are capricious and run out of batteries. The pros have both noise isolation _and_ reduction. But, they are still let in a boat load of noise, especially speaking. For long term use, you have to sacrifice isolation for comfort. For the same price as airpod pros you can get custom moulded in ear monitors. 35db of noise reduction, and they don't hurt. The real selling point of ear buds is the fashion part. People are wearing them because they are a signal of how rich/successful they are. (in the same way people wore those shitty ipod ear buds.) As for a platform, what are they going to do to be useful? "intelligent noise"? but that requires situational awareness that doesn't exist on smartphones yet. They will be swept aside as soon as decent AR wearable pop onto the scene. Be that in 3 or 15 years.

toasterlovin 7y ago
> The real selling point of ear buds is the fashion part. People are wearing them because they are a signal of how rich/successful they are. Or people just really like the convenience of well implemented wireless headphones.
- asdff 7y ago
  If people were buying solely for the convenience factor, they wouldn't be putting up with the $160 price tag to get a blutooth version of the headphones that came free with the phone. There are plenty of good and cheap headphones on the market if convenience was your only concern.
- meesles 7y ago
  Then buy the black ones for 1/5 of the price and the same exact feature set. Apple is not king of audio hardware, they are the king of turning decent quality, well-packaged and integrated hardware into commodities and fashion statements. And what convenience? They're just selling a bluetooth thing online, same as everyone else. I agree with GP about the tech journalism. I find it funny that the usual cast of journalists that write these articles have been doing so for years and stand to gain a lot from Apple's success, and are deeply embedded in Apple's press organizations.

jonplackett 7y ago

I had a really weird experience with my AirPods Pro. I was cooking with the noise cancelling turned on and I sliced off half my fingernail with a potato peeler, right down between the nail and the finger. It was pretty gross. But I had the noise cancelling on and as I looked at my finger I had this weird out of body experience where I couldn’t feel anything and just felt completely separate from it - I had to take the AirPods out before I could come to grips with the situation and do anything about it. That noise cancellation is powerful stuff. I can see how it could transport you maybe even as much as VR

nneonneo 7y ago
There are a whole bunch of reasons (physiological and psychological) why getting a cut like that produces a delayed sensation of pain. Psychologically, if you're deeply concentrated in something (e.g. immersed in listening to music), you might be subject to a form of delayed perception. Physiologically, the cut area may not send pain signals until an inflammatory response mounts against the bleeding. These could combine to produce a significant delay in your (conscious) perception of the wound, even without something like the AirPods. (One could argue the degree to which it isolates you from the environment acoustically might also be insulating you from heeding your environment at all - sounds like something that might be worth studying!)
- allovernow 7y ago
  Adrenaline also quickly increases and can totally mask pain. Even if one feels relatively calm.
  - jonplackett 7y ago
    It wasn't so much the pain. It was like a kind of paralysis because I didn't feel like I was quite there. The AirPods didn't even have any music playing, just the ANC turned on.

hootbootscoot 7y ago

just wait til the charger becomes one... bluetooth audio IS lo-fi, on purpose, but whatever floats your 64kbps Real Audio boat, I suppose...(I'm an OGG Vorbis person myself, lol)

hootbootscoot 7y ago
I can't believe no one mentioned the optional subwoofer er "plug" yet...it's like a meme and stuff already...

dzhiurgis 7y ago

Apple could easily add eSIM to AirPods (probably makes more sense to put into care) to enable fully wireless life experience. Make them even smaller and it could challenge neuralink for a while (especially for Alexa generation).

4ad 7y ago
The Apple Watch is hundreds of times bigger in volume and putting eSIM inside was a huge engineering challenge, one that still comes with MANY caveats. I don't see how it's feasible to put eSIM in earphones with current and next-gen technology.
- dzhiurgis 7y ago
  Problem still is Apple is tasting third party modem. 5G SOC could be more than feasible. Putting it into charging case is piece of cake.
Nextgrid 7y ago
The AirPods themselves have no UI (Siri isn't a viable replacement, sorry) so you'd most likely still have a device nearby like phone/watch/etc from where you can control it so might as well stream the content from it and do away with the need for LTE. Wi-Fi would be quite useful though, so they can keep working outside of Bluetooth range (big house, office building, etc) by falling back to the Wi-Fi and talking to the phone over it.
- scarface74 7y ago
  That’s where you pair the AirPods with the cellular Apple Watch.....
iaml 7y ago
I think apple's plan here is a combination of watch+airpods, which works already btw. You can connect watch to airpods directly and play music via esim of the watch.

vegardx 7y ago

There's something very Her-esque (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/) over the AirPods, at least when they were first released. There's something futuristic but also realistic about it. Can't really put my finger on it. One of the features that I feel is glossed over very quickly is Live Listen[0], especially for an article about it being "a platform". For those that have family members with hearing loss they are a godsend in noisy environments like a cafe. Just put an iPhone with tons of processing power and an array of microphones on the table and let it filter out most of the noise and send it to the AirPods with impressive low latency. It's truly amazing, if you have AirPods and an iPhone you should try it. They outperform more professional solutions by miles. I have only tried it with AirPods, but I can only imagine how well it works with proper hearing aids that are tuned to the frequency range. I wish they'd make an audio loop "bridge" of some sort for Live Listen, as hearing aids are expensive and available technology from government usually lags behind 10+ years. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209082 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209082

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
boudin 7y ago
The whole point of hearing aids is to be easily forgotten and to last a day without the need to charge. I'm quite sure that with a good computer, profesionnal microphones and some good headphones with a jack you'll have a better solution with lower latency than an iphone and airpods, but that misses the point of hearing aids
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  My father doesn't even use his $1000+ hearing aids because he says they just amplify everything and don't help. If Airpods + an iPhone on the table can help him out, like making table conversation more accessible, that would be a big deal. I'll have to look into it. The point of Airpods + iPhone here is that they are still highly portable, people today already carry both around just for fun. Your desktop PC + mic setup is not.

xg15 7y ago

> In essence, we are moving away from pulling data from various apps to receiving a curated feed of data that is dynamic - always changing and tailored to our needs. Is there any indication that users (not designers, developers, businesses or "the industry") actually want this?

shuckles 7y ago
TikTok?
- bori5 7y ago
  What do breath mints have to do with anything
wccrawford 7y ago
Isn't that what Google Reader, Flipbook, etc are? Isn't that what many news websites are? It's just a question of degree. I'm sure some people want all their info to come from just 1 site, but most people want it separated into manageable chunks. Car info from this site, computer from that site, etc. For instance, I come to Hacker News for most of my computer-related news. I use reddit for most entertainment, though there's some computer stuff there. I use Flipbook for random things that I wouldn't think to subscribe to on Reddit. And people use Facebook, etc for things that their friends like and want to share.

anonu 7y ago

I would also add that there is a custom chip design in the airpods (m1?). In terms of "sucking the oxygen out of the market", it's a lot easier when your competition can't even come close to the level of tech savvy you put into your hardware

saagarjha 7y ago
First-generation AirPods have a W1 SoC, and AirPods with “Hey Siri” functionality have a H1 chip.
FireBeyond 7y ago
How is it a failing of their competitors "tech savvy" that Apple put a custom chip for which they are able to embed support in the OS, and won't share / license?
- anonu 7y ago
  It's not so much a failure by the competition. My point is that Apple raises the bar so much by building a custom chip. A custom chip raises the bar on user experience: faster bluetooth connection times, longer battery life. What does the R&D cost for that chip? $100 million? Thats a complete guess - but totally within the realm of possibility given how much cash Apple sits on... Do you think the next viable competitor can spend that kind of money?

rsp1984 7y ago

Forget platforms, the real prize is making the form factor comfortable enough for side sleepers and making the battery last 8+ hours (duration of a good nights sleep). The number of people on the planet with bedroom noise problems is vastly larger than the number of audiophiles. Plus the value created per customer would be dramatically higher. Solve these issues and I can see AirPods being a $50B / year business.

theNJR 7y ago
I sleep with one AirPod in. Have been since 2016.
- germinalphrase 7y ago
  What is your purpose in doing so? Background tones? Notifications?
  - cerberusss 7y ago
    I don't know about theNRJ's purpose, but mine is falling asleep to Twitch or some podcast.
  - theNJR 7y ago
    Background sound. Usually reruns of The Office, which is a bit absurd but it helps me fall asleep. It’s now a conditioned response.

pcarolan 7y ago

It seems like we've hit a point where someone could have airpods and a mobile enabled iwatch and accomplish 80% of what needs to be done communication-wise, namely text, email, voice calls. Has anyone tried this? It might actually encourage more voice calls due to the interface constraints which might be a nice side effect (for some).

dcdevito 7y ago
I do this every day. I leave my iPhone home and just use my Apple Watch and AirPods. Works great, and as long as my iPhone is on at home on WiFi it will relay just about everything.
Eloso 7y ago
I have tried it as an experiment to lower my mobile phone usage. I wanted the ability to make calls, check texts, pay using mobile payments, and play music without the distraction of mindlessly grabbing for my phone to browse the Internet whenever a moment of boredom surfaces. It works quite well. I turned off notifications for emails and texts. Instead, I check those once an hour or so. If a conversation becomes longer than a message or two, I call the person or tell them I’ll text them later. I haven’t been fully able to ditch the phone, but I didn’t intend to. I experimented with this set up mostly for nights and weekends.

neya 7y ago

I currently own a 1000xm3. My colleague recently just bought an Airpods pro and was going on for ages about how awesome it is. I offered him to try out my XM3s. He tried them out for 15 mins. I never heard another word from him again. See, my colleague's behaviour is what many bloggers and self-proclaimed journalists exhibit today. They try out one thing and simply go on to write about how superior it is. The Sony XM3s have all the functionality in the AirPods pro with so much more. For example, you can swipe your fingers over the headphone housing and it will do different things depending on the direction of the swipe. They provide you an app to configure this and the buttons on the headphone itself. Not to mention, they also allow you to enable high resolution codecs, equalizer and surround sound from the app itself. The sound quality (which is one of the reasons people buy headphones for) is also vastly superior on the Sony's. So, it's not an apples to apples comparison, yes (Headphones vs Earphones)? Ok, In addition to my Sony's, I also have the Galaxy earbuds. It also supported swipe gestures and configurable actions via the app which is tightly integrated with Galaxy phones. The sound quality is superior and has officially been benchmarked by consumer reports to be the same as well[1]. Nothing what the author is excited about here is unique just to Apple even in terms of strategy or technology. IF anything, it's confusing nomenclature bundled with mediocre hardware. [1] https://www.consumerreports.org/headphones/apple-airpods-vs-samsung-galaxy-buds-earphones-face-off/ https://www.consumerreports.org/headphones/apple-airpods-vs-... The author simply needs go out and try other brands of headphones.

saagarjha 7y ago
You’re missing the entire point of AirPods. They’re small and they work great with Apple products. Neither of things you mentioned do the same.
cujo 7y ago
The XM3s are over the ear headphones right? Apples to apples? Stick to your Galaxy comparison. At least it's on point.
1123581321 7y ago
I suspect your colleague was more bemused than shamed by your comparison. Wireless buds are considered a different product category from headphones due to market perception as well as how and when they are used. Some people find Airpods to be nice to use everywhere; those who prefer headphone audio quality use them when convenient.

elagost 7y ago

Lots of people in this thread seem to be fighting about whether AirPods (and wireless headphones in general) are a viable product or not. "Wires are not a hassle and provide a better experience most of the time" crowd, vs. "Wires are awful and I'll take all the drawbacks of wireless just to get rid of them" crowd. Generally, won't people who care about headphones own multiple pairs of headphones? I have a cheap pair of liquid-resistant bluetooth buds for workouts, and they work great for that but sound pretty bad. For walking or home use, I use either a wired set of nicer earbuds, or some wired over-ear headphones that sound amazing. All of them combined cost less than airpods, too. If you care enough to spend money on headphones and not just use the wired pack-in ones that come with most devices, would one not just do an hour of research before spending almost $200 on something with a very obviously limited lifespan? And as far as airpods being a platform: the author seems to think "sensors = platform". They're a nicely integrated part of Apple's whole mobile platform, but not a platform themselves. You can't use airpods by themselves, so how does that make them a platform?

TurkishPoptart 7y ago

As an Android user (begrudgingly) I hate bluetooth. It never works the way it should. My impression is that iPhone users have no issue with it.

Slippery_John 7y ago

One of the best features of the airpods is seemingly not advertised: in transparency mode they automatically switch to active noise cancellation if there is some excessively loud/harmful noise. I live in a city where I walk everywhere. The audio landscape of a city can be incredibly harmful. Notably the shrieking of brakes in need of replacement and the many awful sounds of construction. Walking around with transparency mode on, even when not listening to anything, has immeasurably improved my quality of life. I can still be aware of my surroundings without having to deal with anything but the first few fractions of these hostile noises.