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Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?

kevinrooke.com

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

#491

Post by heavyset_go »

addicted wrote: post #186
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…

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…

> The iPhone’s UI was so far ahead that it’s now the default UI for every phone.

When it comes to multitasking, the WebOS card metaphor won out and even came to iOS.

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

#492

Post by barry-cotter »

baybal2 wrote: post #479
addicted wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

iPod was a shitty player few tiers below the competition. Tiny battery life, tons of bugs, IO limitations, iTunes nonsence, original, but unergonomic ui, mechanically unsound engineering. iRivers, Cowons, and Samsungs were a head above it without any doubt. They were just never marketed in US. Same with Smartphones. Japanese phones had all features of a smartphone a decade before the rest of the world, but they never…

If this was true the iPhone would have made negligible inroads in the markets where those products were available. Instead it was a massive success immediately in every market where it was offered. I’m sure it had many flaws but it was enough better where it mattered to dominate the competition.

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

#493

Post by Qu3tzal »

peteretep wrote: post #429
wyclif wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Here in SE Asia, everybody still uses 3.5mm jack smartphones. It's a rare occurrence to see wireless earpods, and almost always these are cheap Chinese AirPod knockoffs.

> Here in SE Asia, everybody still uses 3.5mm jack smartphones This does not match my experience at all, but SE Asia is a diverse place.

Doesn't match mine either. Here in Japan (at least in Tokyo) it's uncommon to see wired headphones. Most are random wireless headphones, I would estimate 20-40% only being AirPods.

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

#494

Post by ctdonath »

mrep wrote: post #339
the_watcher wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have high margins on products that retail for multiples of their relevant competition. The same is not true for AirPods. I find it extremely unlikely that their margins are greater than 10%.

Here is an airpod knockoff for $40 [0]. I bet their margin on airpods is higher than even their iphone. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Bluetoooth-Headphones-Sweat...

As a favorite ad opined: "Sure you can get a hamburger for $1. But then you'd have to eat it."

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

#495

Post by heavyset_go »

iudqnolq wrote: post #447
ikeboy wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> In the

I'm wearing a pair I bought over a year ago, and using multiple devices at the same time is as easy as just turning them on.

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

#496

Post by foobarian »

paxys wrote: post #116
123six wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, these are all estimates. And the sales split is unclear, but both Airpods 2 and Airpods Pro have the benefit of launching before the holidays. They got a disproportionate number of sales from those 2 months. Even if everyone went with the $150 version (which is impossible), Airpods revenue would still be $9 billion at 60 million units. The point still stands though, Apple is making a killing off Airpods. Whe…

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…

> If one random sales estimate is $6 billion and the other is $12 billion, ...

... then it still sounds like they are making billions of dollars on mere headphones. Fascinating.

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

#497

Post by baybal2 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #492
baybal2 wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPod was a shitty player few tiers below the competition. Tiny battery life, tons of bugs, IO limitations, iTunes nonsence, original, but unergonomic ui, mechanically unsound engineering. iRivers, Cowons, and Samsungs were a head above it without any doubt. They were just never marketed in US. Same with Smartphones. Japanese phones had all features of a smartphone a decade before the rest of the world, but they never…

If this was true the iPhone would have made negligible inroads in the markets where those products were available. Instead it was a massive success immediately in every market where it was offered. I’m sure it had many flaws but it was enough better where it mattered to dominate the competition.

No, Apple got literally the only one thing right, and that's their marketing

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

#498

Post by ctdonath »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #394
addicted wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

AirPods are objectively great and it has taken 3 years for anything better to come out (and I would rather have seamless pairing than negligible audio quality improvements), but fashion is absolutely part of this. The same is true of the iPod and of the iPhone. To me, that doesn’t diminish from the fact that those are/were best-in-class products, but the ubiquity is absolutely based on fashion. The same is true of th…

Apple Watch was very much marketed as a fashion accessory first. That didn’t work.

Au contraire, that was _vital_ to shifting the public discussion. Right at the beginning, public sentiment was "what? >$400 for a watch? are you crazy?" To stifle that thinking, Apple brilliantly went for the fashion accessory approach and announced the absurdly high-end Watch Edition at >$10,000 ... suddenly discussion went from "$400 is too much" to "$10,000 is absurd, but I can do $400."

Once the Overton Window for watches was shifted away from "vs $5 cheap watch" to ">$400 is reasonable", then Apple could shift the discussion to "...and look at all these other things you get besides time!"

They couldn't get to "...and health" until they got to "...reasonable price." Having achieved both, people buy an Apple Watch for all occasions, because ... well ... it's what sensible tech-connected people do.

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

#499

Post by baby »

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…

And the first cool smartwatch (although I would never buy one myself)

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

#500

Post by baby »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #394
addicted wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

AirPods are objectively great and it has taken 3 years for anything better to come out (and I would rather have seamless pairing than negligible audio quality improvements), but fashion is absolutely part of this. The same is true of the iPod and of the iPhone. To me, that doesn’t diminish from the fact that those are/were best-in-class products, but the ubiquity is absolutely based on fashion. The same is true of th…

People were dissing the airpods when they came out, same with the ipad. Fashion was definitely not part of it there.
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