Apple's Greg Joswiak on AirPods Growth: 'It Was Almost Like Wildfire'

[Seoras]

Frankly I'm surprised it took until Apple did it for someone to have the balls to say "ok, enough of these damn wires!"
Ever since my first walkman in the 80's I've been frustrated by the wires dangling from my head that get in the way, or worse, get caught in something and get ripped out. Sometimes breaking the wiring.
Now you just pop them in your ears and stream from your watch. Heaven!
I don't even notice the missing jack socket anymore. Why would I?
...and yet, people. still. moan. on. and. on. and. on....
Words and phrases like "stripped", "removed my", "forced", "exploit", blah blah blah.
It's a free market, go buy something else...

 

[Abazigal]

Controversial to us but extremely calculated and planned well in advance by them. By forcing into people the need to get BT headphones. This was as they had just acquired beats and were about ready to launch their AirPods. Extremely greedy and jerk move on their part. The worst is that they weren’t honest about it and said they needed to ditch the headphone jack because of waterproofing. No it was for them to rack in billions more with their products.

But is this not so uniquely Apple?

The lesson Apple keeps teaching and which others inexplicably keep ignoring is - to create true meaningful change in a market, you need to force change. By taking bold unapologetic stances.

Here’s a touchscreen smart phone without the familiarity of a physical Qwerty keyboard. Here’s a large screen tablet without a desktop OS and desktop apps and file system. Here’s a smart phone without a headphone jack. Here’s a laptop with only usb c ports. And let’s now forget how the first iMac came without a floppy disk drive.

The real benefit comes not in me not needing a wired headphone, but in the removal of the jack (hopefully) incentivising companies to come up with better wireless headphones and wireless technologies. By giving them one extra reason to and one less reason not to.

And they say the iPhone will eventually lose even the charging port altogether? It will be interesting to see what succeeds the headphone jack and if Apple ends up betting on the right horse all along.

 

[az431]

To me, this is just strange, but I guess I’m not a massive one for status symbols, I find that rather petty.

To me it’s strange that people visit an Apple forum to question why people buy Apple products. I find that behavior rather petty.

 

[john123]

To me it’s strange that people visit an Apple forum to question why people buy Apple products. I find that behavior rather petty.

I don't think that's why most people come here. I don't think it's why he came here, and I know it's not why I come here.

I freely admit I'm more motivated to complain about something I don't like than to join the masses in talking about something they like. On here, it's more like an echo chamber, so I'm even more inclined to voice the contrarian opinion and otherwise shut up.

It's valid to ask others and ourselves why we buy things. I can tell you that if the exact same quality earbuds as my AirPods Pro were being sold by Sony or Jabra for $229, I'd probably still buy the Apple ones. And I'm not someone who cares about brand that much. But apparently I care about it some. I've been hoodwinked by some damn good marketing.

 

[Rojaaemon]

Their level of bonding within the Apple Ecosystem.

The fact they just work with other Apple products is enough to sell 99% of customers over competitors they’ve never heard of before.

If my iPhone 8 "just worked" I might expect the AirPods designed to go with it "just work" but... No! iPhone has lot's of annoying, longstanding bugs.

But keep selling these things, Apple! We stockholders are making lots of money!

 

[makingdots]

Let's not confuse trapping people into one type of product and then marketing the heck out of your version of it with "being right."

"marketing the heck out" homepod was also marketed but it didn't took off like airpod did
airpod is just great, lot of reviewers rated the hell out of it, even android folks use it

 

[kahkityoong]

Yep. Plus they're a status symbol and convey to everyone else — very visibly and noticeably — that you own not just one put two Apple products.

Don't get me wrong. They're very good. But at $249, they are like most Apple products: padded with a huge profit margin.

If people are seeing Apple products as a status symbol that’s a pretty low bar.

 

[alien3dx]

Not 100% accurate. Typically if you write software for the devices you need to own the latest and greatest. For instance, I can't do any LIDAR work without the new iPad.

In software development, you need to write the lowest specification work instead of latest and greatest. We love to write code with latest but if ain't broken dont fixed it.

 

[john123]

"marketing the heck out" homepod was also marketed but it didn't took off like airpod did
airpod is just great, lot of reviewers rated the hell out of it, even android folks use it

• I don't think anyone here has said it's a bad product. I myself said I own a pair of AirPods Pro. The main questions have been (a) whether it sells more because it's an Apple product and (b) whether it also can sell at a higher price because it's an Apple product. There's not much doubt that the answer to both is yes; all we'd be quibbling about is the amounts.
• You actually hit the nail on the head with HomePod. Android people do use AirPods, and yet HomePod locks you into Apple's ecosystem.
• Also, see about on the status symbol bit. Sad? Yeah. True? Yeah. Something you wear out and about as a fashion accessory is different than the speaker you put on your desk.

 

[flexmarketman]

After buying Apple products for years, including computers, phones, and laptops, I bought a Samsung phone. I miss the ease and integration of Apple's ecosystem but I have a ***** headphone jack and can listen to my phone while charging it. I also have a fingerprint sensor and a 512GB removable storage. The hardware is vastly superior.

Don't buy the BS Apple PR machine. Apple still installs a headphone jack on its desktop and laptop machines. Boy, if wireless is so much better, why not eliminate it there? Clearly there is the space in a laptop or desktop to install wireless.

They are milking their user base for every dime of profit, not interested in providing better products.

 

[Ghost31]

Because wired earphones can run indefinitely, don't require batteries and are 100X simpler

Lol oh boy. Where to even begin? Wired headphones don’t run indefinitely because they are powered by whatever the hell device they’re connected to and everything dies at some point.

there’s also the issue of...I don’t know...wires?A tangled mess? I remember just something as simple as going on a walk and feeling the wire smack me as I went and how annoying it was. Or how every movement you make with your body has to have the wire your connected to considered. “Gonna turn my head left.Let’s hope it doesn’t yank my headphones off”

and battery life is such an odd one to gush about with wired headphones considered wireless headphones can get 50 hours on a single charge. Some people would charge maybe once a month? Hugeeee inconvenience man

 

[john123]

Lol oh boy. Where to even begin? Wired headphones don’t run indefinitely because they are powered by whatever the hell device they’re connected to and everything dies at some point.

there’s also the issue of...I don’t know...wires?A tangled mess? I remember just something as simple as going on a walk and feeling the wire smack me as I went and how annoying it was. Or how every movement you make with your body has to have the wire your connected to considered. “Gonna turn my head left.Let’s hope it doesn’t yank my headphones off”

and battery life is such an odd one to gush about with wired headphones considered wireless headphones can get 50 hours on a single charge. Some people would charge maybe once a month? Hugeeee inconvenience man

You're taking him literally with "indefinitely." You know what he meant.

As for batteries, there's 2 aspects to life. There's life on a single charge, and it can suck to realize you're out at the wrong time. And then there's the life of the battery overall. Most reviews estimate you'll get about 2 years of life with regular use out of the AirPods. Then they're trash.

As for the wires, many of us don't mind them. Something smaller that wraps around my ears and stays in them at the gym is my preference. Similarly, some people use really high end headphones, and if they want to use them with their iPhone, more power to them.

Like most things in life, it's tradeoffs. Some people like yourself like the tradeoffs. Some people like myself don't.

What puzzles me the most is why you guys are SO adamantly anti-wired-headphones. It wasn't a choice between Bluetooth OR wired. Why does it offend you so much that some of us wanted to preserve the option?

 

[7thson]

When the AirPods were released, I was dismayed at the price. I had given BT headphones a fair chance, but ultimately settled for an unknown brand in $30ish range because I found they all dropped connections roughly the same. BT were for running/exercising, but EarPods were the go to for listening throughout the day.
The biggest problem with EarPods was I couldn’t get more than 4 months out of a pair before a connection, either at the jack, the remote or one of the buds, degraded to the point of un-usability. This was simply because the cord would inevitably snag on something, a drawer edge, handle, knob, branch, etc stressing the cord. I loved the EarPods for their comfort but especially for the in-line controls.
In a years time, though, I was spending around $100 on ear buds, factoring in even when I managed to find ear pods on sale. When I weighed that against the $160 Apple was asking for AirPods and the expectancy of years of life, it was an easy purchase to make.
In reality, I got about two years of good service out of them, before the batteries degraded and sweat ruined the mics, but it still is so much better than wired, in convenience and price. When I got an Apple Watch, the trifecta was complete and now I am hopelessly locked into the ecosystem.

 

[farewelwilliams]

See above. You don't have to be a monopoly to exert absurdly large commercial forces. In this case, removing functionality created a huge market opportunity for them in high margin accessories. That opportunity wouldn't have existed otherwise.

We can go down the semantics of "forcing" and "trapping" all day. A combination of:

• making an old option really inconvenient (the adapter is painful as noted previously)
• effectively requiring most people to use a new option
• creating your own new option in this market you just created
• marketing it aggressively while pricing it at 60% margins because you exert brand power

is what I think many would call a very effective business strategy. I'd agree.

BUT: I'd also call it crappy coming from the company that was the voice of user focused design and usability for so very long.

except the functionality is still there, just very slightly more work.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

2011: The year Steve Jobs died and Tim Cook took over.

2012: The year Apple lost me as a Mac customer with the cancellation of the 17in MBP, and soldering down the Retina MBPs. I'm STILL on hardware from that year.

2013: The year Apple lost me as an iOS customer with the release of iOS 7 and the refusal to make larger-screen phones. I'm STILL on (recent) Samsung Galaxy hardware since I switched back then.

2013: The year the Mac Pro was thrown in the trashcan. Literally.

2014: The year I stopped updating OS X with the release of Yosemite. I even tried Mavericks but remained on Mountain Lion until Sierra. I'm on High Sierra now since I upgraded all my machines including my 2012 iMac with SSDs myself.

2016: The year Apple truly pissed me off and lost all hope of my business with the AWFUL MBP keyboard/TouchBar, USB-C-only revision, and further sealing up/soldering down Macs, as well as the removal of the headphone jack on their phones to be replaced by dongles and REALLY EXPENSIVE headphones.

The AirPods fit right here, at the HEIGHT of my anger and dissonance with Apple's direction.

2019: The year Apple rekindled my hope in macOS with the release of the Mac Pro, only to dash them again when I saw the price. Still, it's an ugly/beautiful POWERHOUSE and I'm glad it exists, but I no longer need such power.

2020: The year Apple may actually regain my business:

1. The iPad is FINALLY a real laptop replacement (for consumer use, at least) with mouse/trackpad support
2. They fixed the broken keyboards that apologists SWORE there is nothing wrong with
3. iPhones and iPads come in a variety of configs for a wide array of price points, and all are VERY capable due to A chips
4. Other companies commoditized wireless headphones and are now easily acquired for WELL under $50
5. USB-C is common enough to not be (much of) an issue, compared to 2016 at least, and E-GPUs are stable(ish)
6. They FINALLY have a larger-than-15 in MBP POWERHOUSE (now that I DON'T need one, sadly, but it's tempting), even if it still has the silly TouchBar

Man, the 2010's were ROUGH.

Can't WAIT for WWDC and the fall season, although COVID-19 might've thrown a wrench into the timetables.

But I STILL won't buy AirPods. Probably EVER.

 

[Abazigal]

What puzzles me the most is why you guys are SO adamantly anti-wired-headphones. It wasn't a choice between Bluetooth OR wired. Why does it offend you so much that some of us wanted to preserve the option?

I shared my thoughts on this matter a few posts above.

But is this not so uniquely Apple?

The lesson Apple keeps teaching and which others inexplicably keep ignoring is - to create true meaningful change in a market, you need to force change. By taking bold unapologetic stances.

Here’s a touchscreen smart phone without the familiarity of a physical Qwerty keyboard. Here’s a large screen tablet without a desktop OS and desktop apps and file system. Here’s a smart phone without a headphone jack. Here’s a laptop with only usb c ports. And let’s now forget how the first iMac came without a floppy disk drive.

The real benefit comes not in me not needing a wired headphone, but in the removal of the jack (hopefully) incentivising companies to come up with better wireless headphones and wireless technologies. By giving them one extra reason to and one less reason not to.

And they say the iPhone will eventually lose even the charging port altogether? It will be interesting to see what succeeds the headphone jack and if Apple ends up betting on the right horse all along.

In a sense, it’s like flash vs html5 all over again. Tell yourself ina deep raspy voice - “there can be only one”....

 

[ani4ani]

They do, as Bluetooth is a standard.
But none of them just work like other Apple products. Just bring your case near your phone and bam pair and ready to go. Then you can easily just bring them up near your iPad or Mac (with an app) and they are paired and good to go.

Other headphones are just much less convienent and most consumers don’t know many brand names or trust them.

Not many people are prosumer. Most just buy something on the expectation it will just work and be done with it, and they like to buy as much as they can from a brand they know and trust.

This is Apple marketing at its best...I have a $15 pair of wireless headphones (early test of the concept) and some Sony’s and trust me, once originally paired (which in each case, took about a minute), as soon they are lifted out of their respective case, they are connected before I have managed to get one of them in my ear.

I think most consumers interested in audio devices would think of audio brands before Apple, e.g. B&W, Bose, Sony Sennheiser etc. before Apple. People pick Apple because they don’t have to think about it.

 

[Ghost31]

You're taking him literally with "indefinitely." You know what he meant.

As for batteries, there's 2 aspects to life. There's life on a single charge, and it can suck to realize you're out at the wrong time. And then there's the life of the battery overall. Most reviews estimate you'll get about 2 years of life with regular use out of the AirPods. Then they're trash.

As for the wires, many of us don't mind them. Something smaller that wraps around my ears and stays in them at the gym is my preference. Similarly, some people use really high end headphones, and if they want to use them with their iPhone, more power to them.

Like most things in life, it's tradeoffs. Some people like yourself like the tradeoffs. Some people like myself don't.

What puzzles me the most is why you guys are SO adamantly anti-wired-headphones. It wasn't a choice between Bluetooth OR wired. Why does it offend you so much that some of us wanted to preserve the option?

Who’s offended? I think people that prefer wires should continue to use wired headphones and be happy. I use wired headphones with my Xbox and love them. The only time any of us say something is when people that prefer wires want to talk about how stupid wireless headphones are for x subjective reasons. It’s a forum. People will talk and engage. It happens.

and yet, iPhone users can still use a wire if they want to. So all the “Apple just removed the headphone jack so you’d buy their headphones!” Can just shut up about it

 

[john123]

People will talk and engage. It happens.
....
so all the “Apple just removed the headphone jack so you’d buy their headphones!” Can just shut up about it

I'm confused.

 

[russell_314]

Not 100% accurate. Typically if you write software for the devices you need to own the latest and greatest. For instance, I can't do any LIDAR work without the new iPad.

Of course if you're a developer or someone in the tech industry you would want the latest of whatever. I was talking about the end user.

 

[Ghost31]

I'm confused.

Talk and engage. Like we’re doing now. But in my opinion, stupid conspiracy theories about apple just removing the headphone jack because they’re greedy are garbage conversation. We’ve had the same tired threads about it for years. My opinion about your opinion or anybody else’s opinion is an opinion. Which is also part of discussion. “Can just shut up about it” is simply “i dont like that opinion”. Not literally shut up

Less confused? More confused? Hungry? I have a half pizza i can share

 

[kaz911]

I must have defective ears; I can't stand the feel/fit of any of these "earplug" styles, but that's most of what they're selling now until you get up to the big over-ear ones.

Have you tried the AirPod pro's?

I had same issue - could not use any of the in-ear products at all. I tried a lot of different in-ear and they wore all uncomfortable after 10-30 min. (I've owned Bose, PowerBeats, Jabra and many other in-ear) So I almost did not buy AirPod Pro's. But then I went to an apple store and tried a pair on. Completely different feeling - and I bought a pair.

And the difference is amazing. I can wear the AirPods Pro almost all day without any irritation or feeling my ear canals heating up.


I think the two differences are:
1. The earbuds going into your ear - are oval shaped and NOT round like all the other.
2. There is a slight opening in the earbuds that allow for some limited airflow.


And they stay in the ears really well. I did a 12k run yesterday with 60% trail. At 4k on the trail I feel hard forward and landed very hard.. EarPods stayed in place no issues at all. Handled better than my hands, knees and ankle...

Yes there are issues - on mine both started to rattle. Seems like small objects can get into the microphone and it makes them sound like they rattle in Transparency and ANC mode. Switch ANC and Transparency off and rattle goes away.
So I have a new pair on its way right now. (So yesterdays run was done with Transparency off and ANC off)

I don't know if the design have changed since the original ones I bought (first shipment in) - but if not I'm happy I for once bought AC+ for them originally. At least that will allow my to exchange them for a reasonable cost if it happens again (unless covered by warranty - this exchange was on warranty). I don't normally buy AC+ but I sometimes do with brand new Apple Products...

 

[john123]

Talk and engage. Like we’re doing now. But in my opinion, stupid conspiracy theories about apple just removing the headphone jack because they’re greedy are garbage conversation. We’ve had the same tired threads about it for years. My opinion about your opinion or anybody else’s opinion is an opinion. Which is also part of discussion. “Can just shut up about it” is simply “i dont like that opinion”. Not literally shut up

Less confused? More confused? Hungry? I have a half pizza i can share

Got it. And yes, pizza sounds amazing right now.

 

[incoherent_1]

Let's not confuse trapping people into one type of product and then marketing the heck out of your version of it with "being right."

I think removing the headphone jack was obnoxious, but people wanted fuss-free wireless headphones regardless.

 

[BaltimoreMediaBlog]

Apple F'd up one thing. They should have by now included the basic Airpods in most iPhone products.
But that's greed for you, give you nearly unusable headphones instead if your phone needs charging.
It literally rips off customers.