Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing? • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?

#201

Post by rkuykendall-com » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #112

gz5 wrote: post #40

Amazing how Apple managed to make the first cool MP3 player, then the first cool smartphone and now the first cool bluetooth headset. For almost 20 years now, Apple has owned electronic fashion. Sony for example was unable to parlay its Walkman dominance into similar positions with new devices. And make no mistake about it - a huge portion of these sales are people buying Apple's marketing - not buying the tech itsel…

> Sony for example was unable to parlay its Walkman dominance into similar positions with new devices. Sony WF-1000XM3 are a popular in-ear Bluetooth headphones with noise cancelling. 80 EUR cheaper than Apple Airpods Pro.

Stupid name and impossible to distinguish from their other wireless headphones. This is the Dell XXHBE 34-9q276d.snfd2 vs Macbook Pro all over again.

Re: Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?

#202

Post by rurp » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #56

taurath wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A “single purpose music box” would be neat to me. Maybe it controls all the speakers in my house, informs me of concerts coming up, let’s me set a mood, and most importantly doesn’t care about anything else. I feel like every gadget being in one is gonna start breaking down now that software interop is more of a thing.

Chromecast is $35 and will play spotify and other apps pretty darn well.

Three or four years ago I loved my Chromecasts, but it's crazy how much worse they have gotten in that time. They used to have a really simple setup and then "just worked" from there. Now though, they regularly disappear from every device we use them with in my household and have to be setup again. The setup flow has changed several times over the past few years, always for the worse. Once everything is (re-)setup, they still fail to connect or lose a connection often enough to be a big annoyance.

I'm not a fan of smart tv apps for all of the reasons discussed on HN, but they work so much better for me than Chromecast I've started using those instead whenever possible.

Re: Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?

#203

Post by russell_h » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

I was at Costco a while ago and overheard a conversation between some kind of store manager and several visitors in suits.

The manager was explaining that on weeks when AirPods are in stock their sales in the electronics department more than double. The exact numbers he mentioned escape me but were staggering. The whole time people were loading thousand dollar TVs onto carts - and the AirPods alone were doing that much over again in sales.

Re: Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?

#204

Post by MBCook » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #37

How does this compare to Apple Watch? Sounds to me like this is a fairly big upside surprise. If you were given the choice beforehand, which of the two would you want to have managed? I would have guessed Watch but it looks like I'm wrong. Pretty astonishing that people will throw an extra quarter on top of the price of their phone for this, especially given that I've used noise cancelling headphones before. My guess…

For what it’s worth I’ve heard Apple has made more money off the Apple Watch than they did from all iPods combined. That business is HUGE too.

But compared to the iPhone it looks small so people dismiss it.

Re: Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?

#205

Post by MBCook » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #47

joshmn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hated them until I tried them. Their integration within Apple's ecosystem is killer.

Are they worth it if your setup is a MBP plus an Android smartphone?

They can pair with an Android phone, but I don’t know if you get the great connection/pausing related features or not.

Re: Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?

#206

Post by farmerbb » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

rkuykendall-com wrote: post #197

gz5 wrote: post #40

Amazing how Apple managed to make the first cool MP3 player, then the first cool smartphone and now the first cool bluetooth headset. For almost 20 years now, Apple has owned electronic fashion. Sony for example was unable to parlay its Walkman dominance into similar positions with new devices. And make no mistake about it - a huge portion of these sales are people buying Apple's marketing - not buying the tech itsel…

AirPods don't have a single competitor. There's no clear alternative on the market. It's Air Pod or... TOZO T10? Sony XB950B1? LETSCOM IPX7? KOVEBBLE IPX7? Fuck I have no idea what all these numbers and letters mean, I'll buy some Air Pods.

There's plenty of AirPods competitors on the market now with easily recognizable names. I'm a proud Samsung Galaxy Buds user myself.

Re: Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?

#207

Post by velosol » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

Vysero wrote: post #167

I really don't understand. Why would someone pay $120 for a product they can buy online from a off brand retailer for half the price? I must be missing something. How are airpods better than say Cambridge Audio Melomania's which are almost half the cost?

Check out [1] - also the Melomanias are the closest I've found to wired quality headphones (and absurdly good battery life) that also are close enough to 'just working' but they were $99 last I looked.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21985320

Re: Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?

#208

Post by cromwellian » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

kristianc wrote: post #135

eanzenberg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about the marketing swaying people these days. People are going for the easiest devices to use that get out of the way and are high quality.

Which I guess would explain why there are Android phones that crush the iPhone on tech specs but make a minuscule (and sometimes negative) proportion of the industry’s profit?

It’s simple to explain in the same way that Apple even in the 90s made the most profit of any personal computer manufacturer even though PCs clearly had superior hardware and much more software.

The answer is monopoly pricing vs competition. Apple is the only iOS manufacturer, just like they were the only MacOS Manufacturer (excepting the brief period of Mac clones)

That means all Android manufacturers compete and split their market driving down prices and margins and divvying up market share.

You saw the same thing in PCs when they were almost sold at cost or razor thin margins because they were commodified: a pc from dell vs hp vs compaq vs gazillion other vendors was basically the same experience.

Re: Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?

#209

Post by samatman » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

kristianc wrote: post #193

_trampeltier wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony's problem was never the hardware or the design. The problem was, special in the beginning of the MP3 / Smartphone age, they tryed to lock everything so hard with DRM (because other parts from Sony does sell Movies and Music). The even installed something like an trojan already very early in the MP3 market. So al lot of tech guys said "bye, bye Sony" when the market still was very young. I think they lost a lot b…

Apple had DRM on iTunes with FairPlay and AAC for around six years until the courts forced them to remove it. iTunes was still a huge business for them at the time. Sure that DRM was the real issue? Likewise, claiming that the Root Kit business (by which time the iPod had been around for a good 5 years) sunk Sony’s business seems like a bit of a reach.

During that same era, Apple's slogan for the iPod was, notoriously: "Rip. Mix. Burn."

They were the first company to crack the nut of digital music sales, and getting those deals with the recording industry absolutely required DRM at the time.

Re: Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?

#210

Post by MBCook » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

hellllllllooo wrote: post #146

Most profitable company in the tech world creates new product and uses prior manufacturing skill, brand awareness/loyalty, device lock-in, advertising experience and retail channels to sell it and makes more profit that arbitrary list of companies in different business areas. What's the point?

The point is that one little product is HUGE. Just MASSIVE. People may not think it’s very big because it’s such a small share of Apple’s revenue but it would be a success everyone talked about if a third party had got those numbers.