Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple AirPods: iPhone accessory or the next big thing?

kevinrooke.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

651–660 of 696 posts

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

#651

Post by ctdonath »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #621
ctdonath wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

At ten grand for a watch your competing with Rolex which doesn't become obsolete in a few years

No, Apple wasn't "competing with Rolex" on price. Ten grand was to defuse the "OMG, $400 for a watch?" response to "well, you COULD get a stupid $10,000 version, but at $400 it's great." It also made the Rolex look lame ("it only tells time"), legitimizing getting an Apple Watch (far cheaper at that) instead.

Offering a handful of $10,000 Watch Edition probably segued into $1B in profits from associating the product line with high fashion. Nobody is ashamed to wear an Apple Watch with a 5-digit suit.

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

#652

Post by rchaud »

ikeboy wrote: post #643
mprev wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're using Ubuntu and Android then you're already trading less convenience for either financial or philosophical reasons. So, you're probably not the market for AirPods.

My killer Android feature is having a microsd card. Not supporting that is very inconvenient of Apple. I've tried both Windows and Mac, I just like Ubuntu better.

microSD is a big, big reason I'm still using Android. Before that the key factor was replaceable batteries, but all the OEMs shifted to non-replaceable sometime around 2015-16.

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

#653

Post by rkuykendall-com »

farmerbb wrote: post #206
rkuykendall-com wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Great name actually.

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

#654

Post by rkuykendall-com »

mhh__ wrote: post #403
rkuykendall-com wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you have enough money not to care then fair enough, different target markets. The sony WF-1000XM3 get mentioned immediately if you google/reddit/etc for "Air Pod Alternative"

I don't have enough money so I just sit it out completely and keep buying the same wired buds I've always bought.

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

#655

Post by capableweb »

thekyle wrote: post #438
capableweb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government should work like that with taxes. Instead of just giving 100% to whatever the government decides it wants to fund, 20% could be reserved to go to what people want it to go to. Have some participation in the tax paying. More interesting and better for the world if we apply that to governments rather than companies :)

That's called participatory budgeting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_budgeting

Thanks for connecting it to a name. I've thought about that thing for some time but never found anything related, so many thanks!

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

#656

Post by capableweb »

reaperducer wrote: post #61
capableweb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government should work like that with taxes. Instead of just giving 100% to whatever the government decides it wants to fund, 20% could be reserved to go to what people want it to go to. Have some participation in the tax paying. More interesting and better for the world if we apply that to governments rather than companies :)

Instead of just giving 100% to whatever the government decides it wants to fund, 20% could be reserved to go to what people want it to go to. Under that plan, the best funded parts of the government would be the ones that benefit rich people only. Then again, considering the intelligence and temperament of the average person, I think in short order we'd have amazing playgrounds and free hot dog stands everywhere, all…

Seems to have worked for Porto Alegre, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porto_Alegre#Participatory_bud...

> A World Bank paper suggests that participatory budgeting has led to direct improvements in facilities in Porto Alegre. For example, sewer and water connections increased from 75% of households in 1988 to 98% in 1997. The number of schools quadrupled since 1986. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEMPOWERMENT/Resources/... (English)

Seems to also have been implemented in quite some places

> By 2001, more than 100 cities in Brazil had implemented PB, while in 2015, thousands of variations have been implemented in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe http://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol8/iss2/art8/

Would be interesting to see how it impacted those places

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

#657

Post by robotresearcher »

sneakernets wrote: post #271
alfonsodev wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did Sony stop naming things the simple way (Walkman, Vaio...) and started naming stuff like that (WF-100MX3 and the like). Im saying this as half joke only :D

They've always named things this way. It was once cool to have stuff like "WF-100MX3" because it reflected the kitsch of the space age.

This is the company that made ‘Walkman’ and ‘PlayStation’. They sometimes use terrific names.

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

#659

Post by psteinweber »

tootie wrote: post #376
capkutay wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when the airpods first came out? SNL, Conan O'Brian, all of twitter were basically dragging it through the mud and making a mockery of them. 3 years later you can't walk around a major city or airport without seeing a significant amount of people using them.

People made fun of pagers, cell phones and bluetooth headsets pretty relentlessly too.

And the Tesla Cybertruck. I would bet on it falling in the exact same category: Being a Meme first, and a huge success later.

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

#660

Post by jonny_eh »

Fnoord wrote: post #166
jonny_eh wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved my Pebble, but it was certainly not cool. Also didn't work as well as my Apple Watch, which I waited until my beloved Pebble finally died before buying.

Apple Watch is 4+ times the price. It still can't do some of the things a Pebble can. For starters, a Pebble can run a week without requiring recharge.

And the Pebble couldn't reliably tell me the weather outside, for a whole week.
Post reply on HN