1) Come out with a phone case that can hold the AirPods, and ideally charge them (Maybe enhance the battery case they already have?). I don't want yet another thing in my pocket, especially one I also have to remember to charge. Let me charge my phone, which can then charge my airpods. Let me always have my airpods on me by attaching them to my phone.
2) Make a "Find my Airpods" feature that plays a really loud ass beep out of the headphones when they inevitably fall out of my ears/hands/pocket/bag/everywhere
3) Enable more tap commands than just Siri. Siri sucks so much. And I don't want to be on an airplane loudly repeating "Turn up the volume"
If someone isn't warming up an injection-molding machine right now to produce a lanyard / anti-loss-thing for these, they are leaving money on the table.
Exactly. They should have a detachable cable which basically turns them into regular earphones (while simultaneously charging them). I suspect many people would simply leave them attached to the cable at all times, just as they do with their current earphones.
Then, you could unhook them if you wanted to go wireless for a jog or something.
This. Have a lightning connector cable that Ys up to both of these and charges them so that you can keep on listening.
Edit: So at the top, these could basically fit into like a sleeve. Could also have an attachment that hooked over the ear or into it like some headphones do. That way they're less likely to fall out.
Man, I wish I knew someone with some manufacturing connections to get this going.
You should work for apple because this is exactly right! How can a random guy on HN get it but engineers and executives at the biggest and most resource rich company in the world not get it.
Also, the airpods have some serious bluetooth headset douchbag factor going on. Shoulda made them skin color tones to offset it a bit.
Most of Apple's products have a status-display thing going for them, at least when they initially hit the market.
When the iPod first came out, the white earbuds were a sign that you were listening to an iPod and not to some cheap Walkman. (There was a period of time when people were advised not to wear them in some places, because advertising that you had a $500 gadget in your pocket was a good way to get mugged.) That sort of thing isn't accidental.
These look to be the same way. They're not supposed to blend in, because at least some of the people who buy them initially want to be seen wearing them. At some point in the future once that market is saturated, I suspect Apple will come out with a more subtle version (probably in black, not flesh-toned; it's been a long time since Apple has done earth/skin tones).
The problem is that they look ridiculous. There are similar products (Bragi Dash, a Samsung model, and one other competitor whose name escapes me) that fit entirely in your ear instead of needing a bit poking down.
Like many of the comments today, a matter of opinion. It does seem to be a transitional form. So similar to the previous wired EarPods.
And who knows, for all the ragging on Apple for making form-over-function decisions right now, that part sticking out improves performance. Gotta wait to see what they're actually like to use.
U would be amazed at what happens at mega companies. Blown Away.
Funny story: the other talking to the CEO of a mega corporation. They fired a senior person here, #1 employee. Told him about it, he did even know it happened. And she reported to him. He thought she was on vacation.
>... thanks to a charging case that holds multiple additional charges for more than 24 hours of listening time.5 Need a quick charge? Just 15 minutes in the case gives you 3 hours of listening time.
They claim that a 15-minute charge from the case gives 3 hours of battery life. That seems fairly usable -- perfect for a charge-up during bathroom breaks.
A perfect solution, because there's no way in hell you'll ever want to take these into the bathroom. Tilt your head to the right and plop, you just dropped $75 in the toilet.
Minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of life doesn't mean it can't be a major inconvenience in the moment. And when I'm out, or indisposed to charge my headphones, in that moment it's a major inconvenience. Especially for a solution that went in search of a problem that didn't exist.
I believe you're firmly in the camp of first world problems. As far as I can tell they are the first wireless earphones to even address this problem with not one (external battery) but two (rapid charging) solutions at once.
If you're spending $159 on wireless headphones for your iPhone, you're probably already the poster child for the first world and are thus entitled to complain about first world problems.
Sure, but we're having this conversation on a forum for members of a rather upper middle class profession using a $1000 computer, talking about a $600 phone. We're all firmly in the camp of first world problems. Being extremely fortunate to have these problems doesn't delegitimize them. Nobody's saying it's on par with anything truly terrible in the world.
It's the first gen of a new product. They will only get better from here. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they iterate on it annually to go along with new iPhones.
It's not unusual for me to fall asleep most of a long haul flight. In ear monitors that do a lot of noise cancelation/isolation really are a help in dealing with the noise of an airplane. So, for me, not needing to charge is pretty key.
That said, apple ear buds and my ears never really did get along.
What I'm wondering is if you can charge just one earbud at a time while using the other.
For a lot of uses (for example: podcasts, casual movie watching on a long flight, getting driving directions on a road trip), it'd be entirely practical to use one earbud at a time and so have effectively 24+ hours battery life.
Right at the top: "Optical sensors and motion accelerometers work with the W1 chip to automatically control the audio and engage the microphone, giving you the ability to use one or both AirPods. "
That's a great idea. Would be neat to have one earbud in for inevitable siri api integrations too, so I can have my emails and texts and slack messages read to me.
I hate wires with a passion and love the concept of wireless headphones. But these look like they are shaped just like the wired apple earpods, which fall out of my ears with the slightest movement or breeze. So now I'll also immediately lose them as they fall out on the street.
This is the problem I have as well. It doesn't matter how fancy they are if they don't fit in your ears. For this reason, I can only wear ear clip headphones, not ear buds.
So they just deprecated hundreds of perfectly viable audio accessories which have better sound quality than their proprietary premium product just so you are dependent on yet another Apple product? Maximum vendor lock-in. And please don't say "everyone can make a Bluetooth speaker". They will probably come up with some artificial license which makes it "iPhone certified" so that even there they can squeeze some cold cash.
It really bothers me how Apple is so obsessed with making ridiculous amounts of money and the tricks they pull to make it work. And somehow, it works!
> just so you are dependent on yet another Apple product
The hardware requirements of a headphone jack put some very real limitations on phone design (waterproofing, interior space taken up by the digital -> analog hardware, etc).
Whether that was the driving cause or not is in the air, but "getting people to buy Lightning stuff" isn't the only reason to do it.
Except the Dash is very specifically engineered to remain in the ear. It's one of their selling points. Apple made no mention of this and at first glance it doesn't look like they had the same concern. For example, the Dash doesn't have parts that extend out and down beyond the ear itself like the AirPods do. Seems like a simple way to accidentally knock them out.
Yeah - living in New York and taking the subway means I'm never buying these things, because if one falls out of my ear at any point during my commute I'll probably never find it again.
I could and did until about two weeks ago when the Apple TV decided to disassociate itself from home sharing on my account for some reason. I can't get it back on home sharing without a remote though. Strangely I can still use it with air play just fine.
They solved hard problems in need of solutions. Kudos to the team designing this!
My problems with earbuds is they fall out, some quicker then others. But they will fall out, making me stress about it and as a result giving me a substandard experience.
I hope improved future versions will give the ability to order personalized earbuds based on a 3d-ear measurement.
Until that time, I'll keep using the Bose QuietComfort 25.
I think these look amazing. I've always wanted a pair of tiny bluetooth headphones + mic that don't suck. I am sure that Apple will live up to its quality expectation... if they do, I won't be sad that the stereo-minijack is gone.
Although these have some nice ideas in them, I had the old disappointing Jobs-era Apple bluetooth earbud so I am not going to rush out and try them. Also, they don't seem to work with Apple TV which is a shame.
Also: right and left are distinguished by printing on the device. Why wouldn't they put a flat part or a little bump so you could tell the two apart by feel before trying to get them to stay in your ear?
Having them chargeable over the phone's lightning port (like the iPad stylus) seems like such an obvious option. No silly carry case required. I wonder if they looked into this.
1) Come out with a phone case that can hold the AirPods, and ideally charge them (Maybe enhance the battery case they already have?). I don't want yet another thing in my pocket, especially one I also have to remember to charge. Let me charge my phone, which can then charge my airpods. Let me always have my airpods on me by attaching them to my phone.
2) Make a "Find my Airpods" feature that plays a really loud ass beep out of the headphones when they inevitably fall out of my ears/hands/pocket/bag/everywhere
3) Enable more tap commands than just Siri. Siri sucks so much. And I don't want to be on an airplane loudly repeating "Turn up the volume"