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Interested to see what Bose comes out with as a competing product. People love to hate on Bose but their SoundSport earphones ($100) are a great upgrade. And most likely Bose will have black or grey.
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IMO, the coolest part of the presentation yesterday was learning about the JBL headphones which had active noise cancellation delivered through the lightning port (i.e. without batteries in the actual headphones.) That's pretty cool. I say that as someone who really does not like that Apple is abandoning 3.5mm jacks.
 
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Interested to see what Bose comes out with as a competing product. People love to hate on Bose but their SoundSport earphones ($100) are a great upgrade. And most likely Bose will have black or grey.
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I agree completely! I use the QC20s daily, and I absolutely love them.
 
So are these simply Bluetooth or do they use another wireless method?

My question exactly: bluetooth sucks for wireless earphones - pairing hell, frequent drops and sub-par audio quality. I've always thought that if apple could create their own proprietary wireless audio format, they might solve these issues. This brings me onto the next logical question - how do they work? What is the W1 chip doing? Also, it would suggest that they're using bluetooth or wifi if these 'Airpods' can stream from macbooks, iphones and watches that don't contain a W1 chip at present?

Anybody any ideas?

I too would really worry about these when I'm bucketing sweat on a 5k run... I would be in the market for an apple watch now if these things were sweat proof and would stay in the ears. (I sweat a lot as you may have guessed!)

(off topic: PODCASTS APP FOR APPLE WATCH?? WHY NOT APPLE?! WHY?!)
 
Pausing my music was such a chore...

I'll gladly pay $160 and put up with charging every 4 hours to not have to worry about losing my place in a song.
 
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I don't get the concern about them falling out. The current EarPod design only ever comes loose or falls out if the cable gets snagged, but maybe that is just my ears.

The bigger concern for me is loosing them by setting them somewhere.

My guess is sound quality will be nearly identical to the EarPods which could be worse. Modern bluetooth is very good.
 
The most glaring omission for me is music control and volume control.

Using Siri, and all the baggage that comes with it, to do something as simple as raise or lower volume, or go to the next track, is not a good trade-off at all.
 
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Slightly off topic but does anyone know if the Lightning EarPods will work with the 6/6s?

Of course they do. AirPods as well.

I don't get the concern about them falling out. The current EarPod design only ever comes loose or falls out if the cable gets snagged, but maybe that is just my ears.

EarPods don’t fit everyone’s ears. They don’t fit mine.
 
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I honestly think they're ugly. For me it's the ugliest thing released by Apple since I can remember (edit: the iPhone 6 battery case fits the bill too...). That's not to say others can't or shouldn't like them. If they're fit exactly like their wired cousins there's also no way these would stay in my ears through a gym session. It's a shame the only current real competition has serious connection issues, terrible battery life, or all of the above :(
 
Personally, I think they look sort of ok, but I know they won't stay in - Apple buds never, ever stay in when I'm moving. I don't know whether it's bad design or my ears' shape is plain weird, but I know they won't work for me. I need earbuds with some form of grasp/support to hang onto something.
 
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The issue I have with these is simple: are these worth the money? I will never know because I'm not going to risk the money to find out.
 
These AirPods are amazing technologically and the price is a lot less than what I expected, but the biggest breakthrough IMO is Apple's W1 chip.

I hope they license that out to other manufacturers because I'd love to see more wireless headphone options using that chip.
 
I know that the original EarPods were actually the most conformable on-ear almost in-ear buds I've ever personally used. Much better than the told ones and they've never fallen out on me.

Everyone's ears are different though. I assume that if you hate the EarPods, you'll hate these too. Still, despite my reservations about price, I am really tempted by these.

The existing earbuds fall out of my ear all the time. Realise its personal to me and probably something to do with my ears but at the moment when one falls out it is trapped by the cord and not lost. Could never use these because I would lose one in the first week.
 
Try a 15 - 30 minute run, after the ear has changed from being dry.
The AirPods design ain't crash hot either, two thin cigarettes coming out of one's ear.
This mock design is closer to being right.

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These look even easier to lose than the real ones.
 
Ok, just looking at the new beats earphones that work in the same way as the 'Airpods' on apples site it says:

"Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphones deliver up to 40 hours of battery life driven by the efficiency of the Apple W1 chip.... Connect via Class 1 Bluetooth with your device for wireless listening"

Looks like it's bluetooth... the W1 must just remove the pairing woes that come with regular BT earphones.
 
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