Apple's 'AirPods' to Use Custom Bluetooth Chip, Target Higher End Than Beats Brand

[Bill Av]

So what do we think Apple airpods will cost ?

At least $249. Probably $299. I've wanted something made for the iPhone (as opposed to "works with"), but oddly I didn't want it to be made by Apple. Apple doesn't have the greatest track record with things like this. Usually twice the price of a comparable 3rd party item.

Has anybody brought up "iPod Hi-Fi" yet?

 

[DisraeliGears]

So what do we think Apple airpods will cost ?

If I had to bet, I'd say $199, which is the most your average person would pay for fancy ass headphones. I'm not talking about audiophiles there, nor Mac fanboys, but the guy who regularly upgrades his iPhone. I could see Apple pricing them at $299, but any higher than that is simply crazy. I could talk myself into me at $199, at $299 I'd wait for a sale. At $399 I'd be like WTF

 

[woodynorman]

business or personal? Depending on your line of work I can see it. For me, other than personal. Email or text makes more sense most of the time.

Even when I got my last car I never spoke to the sales person outside of email until we met. When it's in writing you can reference it later.

Business. The only person I call on my personal phone is my mom And thats maybe once a week.

 

[@Brett]

Nothing is better then universal, how's that lightning connector working out? Yeah didn't think so. Should have USB or USB-C

Lightning came before USB C and Lighting is very well done and thought out. I like that they used it instead of the micro USB that could only go in one way and tended to have ports damaged easily.

 

[dan110]

Dear Apple,

When you released the original iPod and then launched iTunes, you made music accessible and legal in a very convenient and customer focused way. As someone who was there from the very beginning back in circa 2001, I have to say that you've completely lost your way.

Music, as Steve Jobs reminded us, is universal. It permeates all the walls built up by culture, society, and economics. This bluetooth earphone seems to be just one more barrier to simply enjoying one's music in a personal way that we used to have with a clean UI/UX and the classic headphone jack. Now, with the embarrassment of iTunes, iOS Music, etc, it's just becoming too much.

I imagine waiting for a layover flight and having to look for an outlet to recharge my earplugs. Or to combat this, having to buy an independent battery pack to plug in one more iDevice. Or what about forgetting to charge the nth iDevice and needing to use it and finding that the battery is dead?

I just have a strong feeling this is all going in the wrong direction.

Love,

Apple Fanatic

 

[44267547]

61 phone calls made or received today. I still use my phone as a phone.

Now, their is an accurate statistic. My iPhone won't be replaced by EarPods anytime soon by my standards. I will say when using my iPhone, I mainly use the speaker phone feature and leave the phone in place. But having the opportunity to have Bluetooth EarPods is something intruiging, it all depends on their capabilities.

 

[mildocjr]

As long as they sound nothing like Beats

 

[cmichaelb]

They are pretty expensive, except that almost none of them are worth the asking price. You're paying more for the brand then you are audio quality.

I got a set of Beats headphones for about 70% off. At that price, they are competitive with their competition and sound very good for that price range.

Full price? I totally agree with you.

 

[Michael Goff]

I can buy a good looking budget android phone for that money

Yeah, but that's about the normal asking price for completely wireless headphones right now. Bragi just came out saying they have a 150$ model. Others are upwards of 200-250. They're expensive because miniaturization is expensive.

 

[Night Spring]

I imagine waiting for a layover flight and having to look for an outlet to recharge my earplugs. Or to combat this, having to buy an independent battery pack to plug in one more iDevice. Or what about forgetting to charge the nth iDevice and needing to use it and finding that the batter is dead?

This is certainly a valid point. However, the current reality is, I'm sitting in an airport listening to music with wired headphones connected to my iPhone. My flight it called. In order to avoid getting the wire tangled as I get up and gather my bags, I take off my headphones, carefully wrap up the wire, and put away my headphones, before getting up and walking to the plane, where, once seated, I reverse the process to put my headphones on again. With wireless headphones/earbuds, I can just get up, gather my bags, walk to the plane, and sit down at my seat all the while listening to music through my earbuds while the phone stays in my purse.

Yes, I have to think about how to keep my earbuds charged. But that's a tradeoff I'm willing to accept for avoiding tangled wires. For those people who still prefer wires, there will be a lightning adapter.

 

[elmateo487]

Just like good grammar seemed to pass you by.

Whoosh

 

[elmateo487]

Because transferring 128-256GB wirelessly is anyone's idea of fun, right?

And transferring that much with USB 2 is?

 

[oopsroger]

At least $249. Probably $299. I've wanted something made for the iPhone (as opposed to "works with"), but oddly I didn't want it to be made by Apple. Apple doesn't have the greatest track record with things like this. Usually twice the price of a comparable 3rd party item.

Has anybody brought up "iPod Hi-Fi" yet?

View attachment 648741

Man I remember this product. In the introduction, it seemed to me, for the first time, that even Steve didn't believe what he was saying (about how wonderful the device is)

 

[caipirina08]

Depending and what is being announced tonight (especially the price point) I might go ahead and pre-order the Bragi Headphone at 119$ pre-order price ... I fear those airpods will be 399$ .. the regular Bragi being 299 now, Samsung has the IconX for 150 ... all those have too many bells and whistles ... at this point I would love the Samsung just for the built in MP3 player ... there are those Sony Walkman (still a wire ear to ear) that have built in players, but I don't need water proof .. this 'own' BT chip might be the answer to getting rid of the connection issue ear-to-ear, that the first models of truly wireless headphones have .. In the end, my iPhone is not my main music player anymore... it would take some very convincing reviews from the audiophile community to get me on the airpods train ...

Anyone else thinks of that one episode of Black Mirror where people already have those discreet no wire earpod-y things?

 

[recoil80]

People thinking they are going to bundle these with the phone

Of course they are not.
iPhone will ship as usual with a decent, but not high quality, pair of headphones. They could offer bluetooth and lighting models of EarPods, and hope customers will upgrade to Beats headphones like they do today

 

[ErikGrim]

As long as they sound nothing like Beats

Slagging Beats like it's 2010.

 

[mdlooker]

If Beats bluetooth are $120, I can easily see these clearing $200. They'll be nice for low/no-impact settings.

 

[TrueBlou]

Nothing is better then universal, how's that lightning connector working out? Yeah didn't think so. Should have USB or USB-C

Pretty good actually, haven't found the lightning cable to be a hindrance at all in the past few years.

As for the custom chip, you do know that it'll still offer the less advanced Bluetooth that the rest of the industry uses?
If something can be improved upon to offer a better experience then I'm all for it. People who are happy with an inferior experience and/or universal compatibility will still have it.

 

[mildocjr]

If Beats bluetooth are $120, I can easily see these clearing $200. They'll be nice for low/no-impact settings.

If you really paid for sound quality in headphones and Beats were $120 then your entry level Bose would be $1500.

I'm asking for them to re-engineer Beats if they make them their standard headphones for the new phone.

I mean come on Apple, your earpods have better bass response and treble clarity than Beats studio headphones.

 

[S.B.G]

Apple is working on its own Bluetooth-like communication chip and its own Bluetooth headphones

When I hear stuff like this it reminds me of my experience with Motorola Solutions and their proprietary equipment requirements and I cringe a little. Just like with their APX series 2-way radios I was locked into using their most uncomfortable BT earpieces because they didn't allow third-party devices to connect to them. I just hope Apple wouldn't be doing the same thing because I've never liked the fit and feel of the Apple earbuds/pods et al.

 

[caipirina08]

What if they use their own version of BT only to connect the left and right side, which had been troublesome for the truly wireless earphones so far, but connection to phone is standard BT and so those Airpods can be used with other BT devices? We shall find out

 

[calaverasgrande]

I find it disconcerting that all of the press about the upcoming iPhone 7 is breathless fanboy gushing about the removal of the headphone jack. Nobody seems to care that Apple bought out a headphone company, then is about to make their phone only compatible with a proprietary connector, which they license.

By the way, there are phones and other devices which are waterproof, and have headphone jacks.

 

[Tinmania]

This is already possible and Apple may already be doing it when using BT headsets with AAC support. A2DP includes signaling protocols that let the phone determine the capabilities of the decoder in the headset for MP3, AAC, ATRAC and optional vendor-specific codecs such as AptX, so in theory everything is in place for Apple to stream AAC music files without an additional transcoding step as long as the headset supports the specific format (bitrate, sampling rate etc.).

No one that I know of, including Apple, is doing it. Yes it is possible, but the reasons I have heard is that ringtones, etc., are not in the supported codec format so it is not done.

And as I noted it has been "possible" for some time. It really doesn't matter if it is possible with hardly anyone actually doing it.



Mike

 

[mildocjr]

I find it disconcerting that all of the press about the upcoming iPhone 7 is breathless fanboy gushing about the removal of the headphone jack. Nobody seems to care that Apple bought out a headphone company, then is about to make their phone only compatible with a proprietary connector, which they license.

By the way, there are phones and other devices which are waterproof, and have headphone jacks.

Let me catch you up on things, Apple killed off the floppy drive, no one's complaining today, Apple started the war on Flash, most people support it, Apple killed off optical drives and provided digital media as the alternative, almost no one complained except those few who still use it. Apple also was the first for plug-and-play, didn't hear anyone complain about not having to install drivers. Apple was the first to present wireless to consumers, didn't hear anyone complain about having to plug in an Ethernet cord.

I'm pretty sure Apple knows what they are doing with this. Especially since Bluetooth headphones have existed for years.

 

[Rigby]

No one that I know of, including Apple, is doing it. Yes it is possible, but the reasons I have heard is that ringtones, etc., are not in the supported codec format so it is not done.

And as I noted it has been "possible" for some time. It really doesn't matter if it is possible with hardly anyone actually doing it.

That's a good point. Mixing in system sounds would require decoding to PCM first.

I'm not too concerned about tandem coding losses though. AAC behaves pretty well in that regard. Someone on Hydrogenaudio did a test and couldn't hear a difference in ABX testing up to 10 rounds of encoding or so. I suspect the distortions caused by the limited power available for the amp in tiny earbuds will be orders of magnitude bigger.