451–460 of 696 posts
Airpods are an integral part of Apple's future medical ambition. Always in ear Airpods constantly taking your Temp, HR, Glucose, GSR, etc. With the kicker that it is only stored locally and securely on your device, all processing done locally via HealthKit. That customized data will change how we think about patient care.
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It's not just the numbers, there are other wild assumptions going on. > That means almost all iPhone users are still either using wired earphones or none at all. I'm sorry, what? Non-Apple branded Bluetooth earphones (including AirPod knockoffs) are ubiquitous, and far outnumber wired earphones (in part thanks to Apple and many Android OEMs dropping headset jacks).
Imagine thinking that AirPods were the first wireless headset.
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I am of course not debating that AirPods are successful. However, - If one random sales estimate is $6 billion and the other is $12 billion, it is clear that there isn't enough information out there, or something else is amiss. This isn't just a margin of error difference, and would completely change the graph in the parent article. - There is nothing useful to be taken away from comparing its sales numbers against a…
I would find an estimate like "AirPods make more money than Spotify" interesting; its a sort-of poetic "the hardware you use to listen to the music is worth more than the music itself", at least in a limited scope (of course, the entire audio hardware industry is larger than Spotify, but is the entire audio hareware industry larger than the entire music recording industry? idk).
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…
I strongly disagree about the fashion bit. The iPod was better than any competitor it faced ever. The UI with the click wheel was completely unmatched. Maybe the Zune, years later, came close, but Apple absolutely crushed it with the iPhone and iPod touch. The iPhone was leaps and bounds ahead of its time, to the point that the then King of the hill, BlackBerry, didn’t even think it was possible. And the smoothness o…
I preferred the Creative Zen Touch to the iPod from the same year (2004), because:
- it had a great UI (similar to the iPod's, but the scroll area was vertical instead of circular)
- I could load music onto it easily (no need to use a special app)
IIRC Apple and Creative had some litigation about the IP for the UI, although I don't recall the details.
EDIT: I agree with your point about the iPhone.
As always, none of the numbers are official, so take all of them with a huge grain of salt. The article also doesn't link to a single source, not even an unofficial one. > Assuming an even split of sales between Gen 1, Gen 2, and AirPods Pro, Airpods revenue was $12 billion in 2019 This itself is a terrible assumption. AirPods Pro launched in November 2019, so had just 2 months of sales. Even otherwise, there is neve…
It's not just the numbers, there are other wild assumptions going on. > That means almost all iPhone users are still either using wired earphones or none at all. I'm sorry, what? Non-Apple branded Bluetooth earphones (including AirPod knockoffs) are ubiquitous, and far outnumber wired earphones (in part thanks to Apple and many Android OEMs dropping headset jacks).
You see a lot of AirPods (I was gifted a set myself) but you see even more wireless over-ear headphones. I probably notice those the most. And wired are still common, though not necessarily 3.5mm.
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What exactly is this seamless pairing that Airpods do so much better than everyone else? I've not noticed much in the way of seams on the other wireless earbuds I've tried. Connect on device, it works, and autoconnects next time.
The difficulty is when headsets are paired with two devices at the same place, eg phone & laptop. In the I believe there are higher end non Apple devices that have solved this.
Impressive figures no doubt, but in my opinion flawed to consider Airpods as a standalone business and compare to other businesses. It's so successful specifically because Apple built bespoke chips, software, and integration across their ecosystem for the Airpods. This is something a brand new company building just the Airpods product would never be able to accomplish.
I think it's an amazing product even without the integration and software and integration.
I have a pair of Airpods. What bugs me most is that le lithium battery is not replaceable, and will degrade after a couple years. which makes these a high-end throwaway device...
And what apple is betting on is that people will prefer their totally sealed, light as possible, "throwaway" $200 product over the competitions user service, replaceable battery option. It is the same bet they have made repeatedly with their phones. Smaller sim card (obsoleting old approaches) - removing headphone jack, switching to lighting, doing totally sealed (but durable) devices etc. It's generally paid off - o…
I've always just cut the old ones to fit and it's worked fine.
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Well technically, most others had a "wire" connecting left part to the right part :P
100% of the world calls those "wireless" not "wired": https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wireless+headset&ia=images&iax=ima... Every headset has some amount of wiring.
Yet half of HN has a fit anytime the word “Serverless” is uttered.
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BOM looks like <$10 (there's barely anything inside). Maybe $15 with those small batteries. I doubt it's economical to recycle. What's fascinating is that people are willing to pay so much over the BOM. But I guess that's Apple speciality making people do it.
I think you're significantly underestimating the BOM on those.
Now I'm looking at iFixit teardown and it looks very different.
I guess you're right.