It’s just marketing. A plus point in differentiation matrix from gazillion competitors. And a justification for a higher price tag. The products are nice though.
I understand your point and in someway do agree that it is marketing and it is a way of differentiating themselves.
But inly to justify a higher price tag? Yes it is true they are premium products, but I don't think it's true that they're that much more expensive than similar items occupying the same marketing niche from other manufacturers.
And they are far more than an order of magnitude cheaper than even a low end set of hearing aids.
But all of that is despite the point.
Samsung, Sony, Bose,… The list goes on. I have bought high-end headphones from them all, some with some without noise cancellation. In ear, over the ear, wired and Bluetooth... the list goes on.
NOBODY has a headphone that accommodates my hearing loss except Apple.
And they started doing it years ago as a feature buried in the accessibility settings.
But they kept improving it to the point where it is now FDA approved.
"A plus point in a differentiation matrix…?"
This is the kind of action that buys customer loyalty for life. I hope you never get to experience the depth of hearing loss that many of us have and how utterly transformative this kind of technology not just can be, but IS.
If all marketing had actual consumer benefit we'd be much better off.
I can understand the cynicism, but I think Apple's investment into accessibility and health (I'm talking heart attack detection, not gamified activity tracking fwiw) as a differentiator is one of these rare win-win situations.
