I think they were the first ones to do wireless earbuds well. I don’t recall any such product before Airpods. The noise cancellation feature of the Airpods was introduced by them too for that form factor. I don’t recall any headphones advertised as having spatial audio either.
I’m not into headphones as such so I may be wrong in all this.
The original Airpods were, put quite nicely, garbage. Their saving grace was integration with iOS - the sound quality and microphone was both a downgrade from Earpods, and cost ~5x more. I certainly met my fair share of people who swear by them, but rarely anyone who will defend them outside the convenience factor.
The Airpods Pro had a much better debut and design, but the ANC was 2 years too late to earn the title of "first ANC earbuds". Spatial audio is certainly not an Apple invention, wireless head-tracking headphones have existed for almost a decade in the industry.
I'm mostly just baffled that these editors punch-up an article like this, read it back to themselves, and then publish it. "Tech geeks" encompassing the purview of Apple enthusiasts, sure. Most people have already been impressed by this tech though, seeing a multi-trillion dollar company do it again doesn't impress me. Bonus points if that company abuses their vendor privileges to make bad headphones the only ergonomic option.
I know noise cancellation was a thing but not in an Airpod form factor. At least as I remember it. I still think Airpods are junk. The metal for charging is too small and often times one or more pod won’t charge. The Beats Studio Plus pods are great though. The ANC is better too than the Airpods. But I didn’t see many people wearing pods like Airpods before Apple came out with Airpods. They were lampooned for looking stupid but now it’s a multi-billion dollar a year category for Apple.
> But I didn’t see many people wearing pods like Airpods before Apple came out with Airpods.
Maybe because most aren't a brilliant neon white?
Make no mistake - true wireless earbuds were not a huge market until Apple got rid of the headphone jack. For better or worse, they have artificially created a demand for wireless headphones, and then positioned themselves so they're the only company capable of neat integration.
The wireless “buds” I recall had a wrap around the ear to keep it in place. No one really had what we call buds now. Bose, Google, Samsung, etc. all now sell a version of Airpods.
I think Apple's wired headphones are actually pretty damn good. It also has the best microphones. There's no alternative wired earbuds with better microphones for the price.
Yeah, uh... revolutionary.