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

141–150 of 696 posts

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

#141

Post by mastazi »

I can't wear any earphones for more than 5 minutes without them falling off, this is due to the morphology of my ears. I wonder: how large is the percentage of people with the same problem? Anecdotal, but I know personally at least a couple other people that can't wear earphones for the same reason.

Note: I'm talking about earphones/earbuds exclusively, headphones are fine for obvious reasons. Also some types of earphones (designed for sports) that have "ear-hooks" behind the ear are fine since the hooks will keep them in place.

Note 2: my ears don't have the "bump" (not sure what the scientific term is) that is circled in red in this picture https://imgur.com/a/CJv20Zu

Edit: that bump that I don't have is called "Antitragus" https://elementsofmorphology.nih.gov/anatomy-ear.shtml

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

#142

Post by welly »

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.

.. Which you rarely see stuck in people's ears. You do see those little white airpods everywhere though. People have them stuck in their ears even when they're not playing any audio.

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

#143

Post by 123six »

gmaster1440 wrote: post #9

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.

Yup, good point. It's not possible to extract AirPods from Apple and still have them be as successful. But it's illuminating to isolate the business against a backdrop of other top tech companies. It's kind of like Apple spawned Silicon Valley's hottest new tech company in 2016.

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

#144

Post by crooked-v »

zakki wrote: post #128
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it’s just a matter of what you think is easy enough to be called replaceable. I would wager for most consumers a MacBook battery is not in that category.

That most consumers will come to Apple with their laptop for a service and Genius will replace the battery. Will genius replace the battery for their AirPods?

Yes (though in practice, they're probably just swapping the unit and sending the original back to be refurbished). https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair/service

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

#145

Post by Ericson2314 »

aianus wrote: post #80
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…

Beats invented the first cool bluetooth headset.

Great point. Furthermore, how much have AirBuds eaten into Beats sales? Is this more revenue for Apple or just shifting the exact product.

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

#146

Post by hellllllllooo »

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?

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

#147

Post by ozim »

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…

1) I don't know the estimates but I see it on the streets. Everyone and their dog has AirPods. I already have seen people with Pro version as well. I do not see people walking with their GoPros. If I go skiing I don't see people with their GoPro (people mostly just go skiing and then do some pictures with their phones from what I noticed), Chromecast I have seen some but not as many. There is no comparison.

2) There is one interesting thing. Everyone would say "make software" because it is easily scalable and you want scalable business. You don't want to make physical things, because making business on physical things is not scalable. Now Apple is showing that making physical things makes loads of money if you are Apple. So still making physical things can make more money than making SaaS.

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

#148

Post by satysin »

eanzenberg wrote: post #107
fredifrum wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

battery replacements aren't a thing for AirPods. You can send them to Apple to be recycled, though.

https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair/service To replace the batteries: $50 each airpod, $50 for the charging case

Done this myself. They don't replace the battery but send you a new AirPod or charging case.

My understanding is that opening an AirPod without damaging the plastic casing is close to impossible to do.

My guess would be they replace them then strip the components out of your returned AirPod or charging case and recycle/reuse what they can.

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

#149

Post by ghaff »

crooked-v wrote: post #101
f1refly wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>now the first cool bluetooth headset [citation needed] Honstly every time I see someone wearing earpods I can't take him seriously anymore, they look _so_ bad. There's a lot of options on the market, and airpods are the ugliest of them all.

As somebody who really likes Airpods, I think they look ridiculous, but they work so darn well that the looks are totally irrelvant.

The cell phone Bluetooth headsets produced plenty of eyerolls when they were the thing a number of years back too. Probably for similar reasons--you never know when I may get a phone call that's more important than you.

Personally, I don't wear these sorts of things in public but that's mostly because I hate being isolated from even relatively benign environments.

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

#150

Post by tvararu »

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.

I have both. If the AirPods Pro didn't make my inner ear sore after wearing for 3+ hours, I would sell my Sony's immediately. I might sell them anyway. They are inferior in everything apart from comfort.
Post reply on HN