AirPods Have Captured One Quarter of Wireless Headphone Spending Since Launching

[The Game 161]

beats are also doing very well..solo3 for one
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How? You can't buy the damn things anywhere, so where are these numbers coming from?

because everybody previously had already ordered them

 

[CB1234]

I'm a consumer, this is good news for Tim Cook, not good news for me.

If you DONT buy these AirPods, then it is good news for you and bad news for Tim Cook....

 

[Abazigal]

Beats was an extremely poor acquisition, no doubt. For $3B, Apple could have made a lot of sweet deals with the record labels and hired all the best engineers in the music streaming space. Plus, they could have had a couple of billion left over to promote the heck out of it.

They definitely didn't need the headphone business, nor the distractions of the merger and the task of managing a sub-brand. They should have kept their eye on the prize and focused on creating the best Apple Music apps on all their devices.

3 billion likely won't get you very far in the music industry unless you also have the right connections. Which was precisely what the Beats acquisition was - buying out Dr Dre. I think you are underestimating the costs of doing business in the music world.

 

[ryanwarsaw]

3 billion likely won't get you very far in the music industry unless you also have the right connections. Which was precisely what the Beats acquisition was - buying out Dr Dre. I think you are underestimating the costs of doing business in the music world.

He also acts like because Apple spent $3 billion on beats they couldn't have done the other. $3 billion is chump change for Apple and this amount in no way hampered their ability to do any other project they would have wanted to.

Apple can afford to have tacos for lunch and fajitas for dinner if they want to.

 

[weckart]

Only when in the store where I happily connected my brand new AirPods I learned that I could not alter volume nor skip to next/prior track, I was dumbfounded and asked for the money back...
Steve Jobs would have NEVER EVER signed off on this BS. Never. I wonder why Cook did. Personally, I dont Tim Cook has the faintest idea about intuition nor TASTE. I mean, can any of you imagine Cook trying those AirPods out for a week and NOT ONCE did he wish that he could turn down or up the volume without pulling his iPhone out the pocket ?????

Really? Jobs was happy enough to sign off on the first generation iPod Touch. The one with the dodgy screen where black looked negative. The one where the only way to change volume was to take the iPT out of your pocket, swipe to unlock and bring up the music app so that you can access the volume slider. That one. With no volume buttons. He liked that one enough.

 

[randomplaydo]

Beats was an extremely poor acquisition, no doubt. For $3B, Apple could have made a lot of sweet deals with the record labels and hired all the best engineers in the music streaming space. Plus, they could have had a couple of billion left over to promote the heck out of it.

They definitely didn't need the headphone business, nor the distractions of the merger and the task of managing a sub-brand. They should have kept their eye on the prize and focused on creating the best Apple Music apps on all their devices.

The Beats acquisition wasn't for the headphones. The headphones part was just a deal sweetener and a built in annual revenue generator. They bought Beats for the Beats music streaming service and the contracts that went with it. Unlike when the ipod came out and Apple gave record companies a solution to get paid on digital music through the itunes store, this time record company executives flat out refused to work with Apple on streaming licensing because they got royally screwed the first time over. The only way they could do music streaming through what became Apple Music was to BUY a company with licensing contracts that the record companies couldn't just walk away from.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

No, not even in the same category. They will be successful, but we're talking more like a bit more successful than the Apple Watch... nothing earth-shaking. BUT, they are probably a pretty high-margin product, so they don't have to sell like iPhones to be worth doing.

I was being 'sarcastic'. In a wave of *yawn* new products, could AirPods 'save' Tim Cook? I hear the Apple Watch v3 will be a sleeper, the iPhone 8 will be a yawner, and we are still waiting for new Macs and Mac pro after a very crappy (by some accounts) MacBook Pro unveiling.

 

[GenesisST]

I am thinking of buying QC35 as well.... Can I ask if they are noise cancelling?

I fly a lot and currently own wired Bose headphones with noise cancellation, which are brilliant at busy airports and when in flight...

If QC35 are good at background noise cancellation/muting, then I may buy them...

Thanks in advance for your reply..

I find the noise cancelling very good and the reviews I've read seem to agree. I think they were designed from the QC25, if I recall correctly.

Keep in mind that these are my very first noise-cancelling headphones ever, so I cannot compare with other models or brands.

 

[Rocko99]

I don't buy the numbers at all.

 

[BobVB]

Been seeing them out and about. Probably resist since:
1) with earbuds my left ear won't seal and it falls out. Too expensive to experiment.
2) use earbuds in situations where Siri is unusable. Until they get a basic usage set for Siri that's in the phone all the time a Siri controlled anything is lesser.

 

[Karma*Police]

The Beats acquisition wasn't for the headphones. The headphones part was just a deal sweetener and a built in annual revenue generator. They bought Beats for the Beats music streaming service and the contracts that went with it. Unlike when the ipod came out and Apple gave record companies a solution to get paid on digital music through the itunes store, this time record company executives flat out refused to work with Apple on streaming licensing because they got royally screwed the first time over. The only way they could do music streaming through what became Apple Music was to BUY a company with licensing contracts that the record companies couldn't just walk away from.

That's not true. The record labels worked with Apple on the family plan and later gave the same deals to Spotify and Google.

Apple should have had a streaming service up and running in house years ago but Eddy Cue completely missed the boat and thought he could catch up by buying Beats and having Iovine and crew quickly build that business for him. Instead, he badly botched the launch, tarnishing Apple's brand in the process. AM recovered and is now best in class IMO, but he should have been fired for that miscalculation, lack of foresight and allowing a small competitor like Spotify to take such a huge lead.
[doublepost=1484242913][/doublepost]

3 billion likely won't get you very far in the music industry unless you also have the right connections. Which was precisely what the Beats acquisition was - buying out Dr Dre. I think you are underestimating the costs of doing business in the music world.

Apple, being number one in digital downloads, didn't have the right connections? $3 billion can also buy you a lot of music executives. I think you're underestimating just how much can be done with $3 billion. Look how far Spotify and Google got with just a few million.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I am thinking of buying QC35 as well.... Can I ask if they are noise cancelling?

I fly a lot and currently own wired Bose headphones with noise cancellation, which are brilliant at busy airports and when in flight...

If QC35 are good at background noise cancellation/muting, then I may buy them...

Thanks in advance for your reply..

I've got the older Bose that were discontinued. The noise reduction is AWESOME. I have been able to sleep on the flights in and out of Orlando, with screaming kids and crabby parents. They are awesome. The reason they were discontinued, or so rumors have it, was that the swivel at the top of the ear cup broke easily. The replacement has a beefed up swivel.

Mine are the battery model, not the rechargeable model.

 

[Jefe's MacAir]

Bose also saw a big increase, from 10% to 16%. What's the cause of that?

I'm a day late and maybe somebody already answered this for you, but likely it was the release of their first wireless noise cancelling headphones that have also received rave reviews for both sound cancelling and sound quality.

 

[Mac 128]

How? You can't buy the damn things anywhere, so where are these numbers coming from?

They're coming from the opt-in Apple enthusiasts who subscribe to Slice's website -- a company specifically created to track Apple Watch sales. In other words, they're meaningless.

 

[erasr]

Surely having Bluetooth in your ears so close to your head for potentially so long is dangerous. Bluetooth still emits radiation, albeit low, but strong enough to be dangerous 'over long periods' experts say.

I never see this mentioned by anyone here.

 

[The Game 161]

Surely having Bluetooth in your ears so close to your head for potentially so long is dangerous. Bluetooth still emits radiation, albeit low, but strong enough to be dangerous 'over long periods' experts say.

I never see this mentioned by anyone here.

You can get cancer living a normal life. You live your life as you normal as you can. You simply can not worry about things like this. What will be will be.

 

[25ghosts]

Really? Jobs was happy enough to sign off on the first generation iPod Touch. The one with the dodgy screen where black looked negative. The one where the only way to change volume was to take the iPT out of your pocket, swipe to unlock and bring up the music app so that you can access the volume slider. That one. With no volume buttons. He liked that one enough.

Again, to the cheap seats... It is all about context. 2017 Baby, times change. 15 years ago we were OK with pulling the device out the pocket. iOS made us lazy and turned us into Luxury animals. Today, no one wants to pull out the phone to get to the next tune.

So that in THIS context, no - he would have never signed off on it !
[doublepost=1484264764][/doublepost]

Are we forgetting about the iPod shuffle now? Very limited interface, all sacrificed to enable a very small and portable form factor. MacBook Air? Expensive, lacking in ports and processing power, all to enable a thin and light form factor?

It's a pointless discussion since Steve Jobs is dead and no one has any way of knowing what he would have endorsed...

On that note, this entire forum is pointless as anything we say here won't change anything.

 

[NufSaid]

Apple has lost their mojo....they can't create a new product that people love.....oh wait...rats..the earpods are awesome.

RATS....ummmm where are tech blogs going to find clickbait

 

[weckart]

Again, to the cheap seats... It is all about context. 2017 Baby, times change. 15 years ago we were OK with pulling the device out the pocket. iOS made us lazy and turned us into Luxury animals. Today, no one wants to pull out the phone to get to the next tune.

Nice dig there. Except that it wasn't 15 years ago. HRH Steve fell on his sword and the 2nd gen iPT got a volume switch in double quick time. Not that this was the first clunker that met his approval then, before or after.

As you were. Baby.

 

[Abazigal]

On that note, this entire forum is pointless as anything we say here won't change anything.

What sort of meaningful discussion were you hoping to have with "Steve Jobs would never have allowed X"? The man is dead. There is no way such an argument can be verified or disputed. It's irritating and adds absolutely nothing of value to the discussion at hand.

And you know what? I don't really care even if Steve Jobs could suddenly come back to life and tell Tim Cook that he is doing things wrong. It's Tim Cook's Apple now, and his to run as he seems fit. Not Steve's. Even if some people here don't like it, they have to accept and acknowledge that fact.

 

[GeneralChang]

Surely having Bluetooth in your ears so close to your head for potentially so long is dangerous. Bluetooth still emits radiation, albeit low, but strong enough to be dangerous 'over long periods' experts say.

I never see this mentioned by anyone here.

You would get far more harmful radiation just walking around the block on a sunny day, to say nothing of flying on an airplane.

I'm sure the Airpods are as safe as they can be for having two highly energetic batteries stuffed into your ears.
[doublepost=1484321154][/doublepost]

On that note, this entire forum is pointless as anything we say here won't change anything.

Yeah, but that's not what he was saying. The forum is here to discuss Apple and their products, but considering how much the markets and products have changed since Jobs died, "what would Steve do" is a useless discussion point because hey, nobody knows.

Remember that making Phil Schiller jump off a balcony is well within the realm of possibility.

 

[25ghosts]

Remember that making Phil Schiller jump off a balcony is well within the realm of possibility.

He did jump of a balcony - (metaphorically speaking at least).
The moment he OK'd releasing a set of bluetooth headphones with NO controls !
[doublepost=1484340415][/doublepost]

What sort of meaningful discussion were you hoping to have with "Steve Jobs would never have allowed X"? The man is dead. There is no way such an argument can be verified or disputed. It's irritating and adds absolutely nothing of value to the discussion at hand.

And you know what? I don't really care even if Steve Jobs could suddenly come back to life and tell Tim Cook that he is doing things wrong. It's Tim Cook's Apple now, and his to run as he seems fit. Not Steve's. Even if some people here don't like it, they have to accept and acknowledge that fact.

You tell me that saying this or that about SD does nothing good. Then you go on to say that Tim Cook runs Apple as sees fit.. Well my friend, you dont know that any more than I do. Perhaps, he would like to run it differently but can't... That would make your statements here just as meaningless as the ones I made.

This is a forum and whatever we say here changes nothing. What we say is what we believe and think and last I checked we have free speech.
[doublepost=1484340607][/doublepost]

Nice dig there. Except that it wasn't 15 years ago. HRH Steve fell on his sword and the 2nd gen iPT got a volume switch in double quick time. Not that this was the first clunker that met his approval then, before or after.

As you were. Baby.

Nobodys perfect. And while Steve was at it he had a few. Mobile.me for instance. But he never managed to mess up as badly as launching a device without controls. IMO AirPods peaks at Apple's worst product, like EVER. Even the Newton had its uses...

 

[GeneralChang]

He did jump of a balcony - (metaphorically speaking at least).
The moment he OK'd releasing a set of bluetooth headphones with NO controls !

No, he literally jumped off a balcony.

 

[25ghosts]

No, he literally jumped off a balcony.

Nice one... Never saw that. Really sympathetic to watch.

 

[44267547]

The chart should read: Pre headphone jacks vs Post headphone jacks.

Except the 3.5 Jack doesn't qualify for an article regarding sales of an actual product, hence the Airpods. The Jack was included hardware inside an actual product.