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Apple's Upcoming Over-Ear Wireless Headphones to Target High-End Noise-Canceling Market

Apple, you can try, but I bet you won't beat the sound of my $30 Superlux HD681 Evo Headphones.
 
kyykesko said:
Think of it another way: Would you pay 487.33€ for headphones that have a lightning connector only? I don't care what kind of quality they manage to get, I've got better targets to empty my wallet on than headphones I can only use with a single device. And I seriously doubt they are going to be able to make headphones that'd be worth that kind of money. My iPhone X definitely isn't worth it's cost.
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The rumors says they are wireless, I'm in the market for one of those. If they have a lightning cord: not interested.
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
This is Apple. There are already rumors of both AirPods 2 and 3 in play. Why will Apple want to make headphones that would last much longer than a phone? Around here, the phone logic would even apply to the counterpoint: "you spend 0.81€K for a new phone ever year or two but you want a 568.55€ set of headphones to last many times longer???"

Whatever these shall be named, might as well go ahead and stick a "1" on as a suffix: HeadPods 1, AirCans 1, AirHeads 1, because there is probably ALREADY thinking about what will wait for the "2" and maybe the "3" too. It's Apple... where cash flow refresh rules all strategic thinking.
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Wow, good point. Kinda forgot about that, since the MW60's have been out for a few years now without a successor, somehow I thought Apple would follow with this strategy.
 
citysnaps said:
You might want to schedule a visit to the Genius Bar. I have made and sent photographs everyday since owning my X in December, and have yet to have any problems.
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I called Apple support. Their great suggestion was I reset my settings which i refused to do as that never does anything. They next suggested I restore my iphone, which again i refused. These magic two things support suggests for last 10 years never fix anything.

Maybe try to get apple to let me see a genius. Nowadays they make you go through support first before they let you make an appointment. The other challenge is it takes some period of time for the bug to appear, then i restart the iphone, and the problem goes away for a couple days or so.
 
iReality85 said:
I've always viewed Apple's end game with Beats as being absorbing into the company. Beats is a little odd- Apple usually doesn't buy companies and/or brands and then continue to give such a relatively high level of exposure to the original brand or product. It's usually been a means for Apple to acquire IP, talent, or both.

So Beats has been a bit unique in that regard. I don't even think Beats is or has ever been an especially good brand of products. If anything, an Apple-branded high end headphone (i.e. studio monitors) would, I think, point to a possible EOL of the Beats brand.
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It's important for Beats to be separate from Apple. It has it's own following. For Apple to drop the name would literally throwing money down the drain. Read: http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketi...come-millennials-favorite-audio-brand-175314/

But while Apple needs the Beats brand for the reasons in that article, it doesn't need to embellish the Apple brand with new headphones. Surely it has more important things to spend it's efforts on than two-bit headphones (in the scheme of Apple's revenue).
 
I don't know about this. People that are in the market for high-end headphones, are well aware of + and - for eachheadphones they check. If Apple produces headpohnes that will sound really good and have good noise cancelling(i have no doubt about it) then i'm sure they will get lots of attention. But if they produce same not-so-good sounding headphones that are cheaply made, then i'm sure all those people will look the other way.
 
indychris said:
That' not a very fair assessment, IMO. Yes, it's true that audio people are not going to be designing the next gen AMOLED display, but that's really not the point. Apple has numerous times pulled teams off of one project to work on another, but even more, Apple is well known to simply not putting enough focus INTO a project to actually bring it to its full potential, such as when they kept Apple TV as a "hobby" for years. Just because they have people working on it doesn't mean that they have the BEST people working on it, or that the company is actually focusing on bringing a cutting edge, top quality, market-changing product to the customer.
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Aren't all products supposed to go through Jony Ive's design group? I read an article sometime back that the Mac team had problems scheduling meetings with the design group.
 
gnomeisland said:
But it really isn't. If you aren't interested in hashing this out, don't bring it up.
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I brought it up because 1. this article mentions it and 2. as a pricing example vis a vis Apple's other recent audio accessory AirPod. I have hashed out HomePod on many MR threads if you want my thoughts on the product. I'm not going to hijack this article by REhashing them.
 
asdavis10 said:
I’m sure Apple believes they can walk and chew gum at the same time but how about they focus on their core products first.

iOS 11 has been a mess. High Sierra has had too many bugs. The Mac mini and Mac Pro are waiting for a refresh. The MacBook Pro needs to be rethought. No future development on AirPort products. No more Touch ID.

But somewhere was a group of people asking for Apple-branded headphones and Apple is about to deliver. I’m happy for those people.
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You realize there isn't one team at Apple. The people responsible for this were probably responsible for the HomePod, AirPods, etc. It's not a this-or-that situation. They aren't ripping iOS developers away to work on audio hardware.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
It's important for Beats to be separate from Apple. It has it's own following. For Apple to drop the name would literally throwing money down the drain. Read: http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketi...come-millennials-favorite-audio-brand-175314/

But while Apple needs the Beats brand for the reasons in that article, it doesn't need to embellish the Apple brand with new headphones. Surely it has more important things to spend it's efforts on than two-bit headphones (in the scheme of Apple's revenue).
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If Apple’s business model now is around extracting more money from iPhone owners (and it sure seems to be the case) than pricey Bose-like headphones make sense.
 
Plinga said:
These Apple headphones have got to be 'true' wireless i.e. there is no band connecting the two sides, right? What other "all new" design could there be? I hope it's not just all white repainted Beats (black please).
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How could you possibly do "true" wireless with over-the-ear headphones? Not only would you need some sort of crazy uncomfortable vacuum seal over someone's ear/head, it would look absolutely ridiculous
 
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Basically, just sell good looking Beats Studio 3s... I think there is a tremendous market for something like MDR-1000X / WH-1000X M2 / QC35 but with a W1 chip and without the Beats design, which is not to everyone's taste.
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fuchsdh said:
When it comes to noise cancellation, Bose is the only real game in town, though. Their noise cancellation is great and it's the reason I got their headphones, even if they're ungainly and the actual audio is comparatively poor.

Apple could definitely make something that was probably nicer and better sounding than Bose at the sameish price, and I'd be happy.
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Not true anymore. Sony have been offering excellent NC capabilities for 2 years now. I have both MDR-1000X and WH-1000X M2 and find them excellent. Having tried QC2, QC25 and QC35, I would say that they are roughly on par. Reviewers online have a hard time finding out which ones are better nowadays.
 
Rogifan said:
If Apple’s business model now is around extracting more money from iPhone owners (and it sure seems to be the case) than pricey Bose-like headphones make sense.
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Right, but my question is why does Apple need to spend R&D above what Beats spends on headphones. Why is such duplication needed for something that won't move the needle on Apple's bottom line -- or top line for that matter? When you look at the historical downfall of companies this kind of redundancy and bloat is the cancer. AirPods are unique. But if Apple is going to go whole hog into audio why not let Beat do the heavy lifting? Surely Beats could make a line exclusive for Apple products. It already has phones with the W1 chip.
 
If this is proven to be accurate for over the ear headphones, this category won’t apply to me. I don’t have any desire to wear something large and I never preferred over the ear headphones, regardless of he sound quality and noise canceling. I always preferred the minimalistic approach, but I do believe this is a catergory Apple will emphasize on, especially given how they it seems they will expand beyond the Airpods, but I don’t expect Apple to be this product ready until 2019 at the earliest.
 
The only advantage Apple has in this product segment is the W1 SOC. Great if the battery has to be minuscule as in the airpods. For OTR headphones the battery can be much larger and this advantage fades.
 
Apple: We want to make some high end over-ear headphones.

Beats: We already make high end over-ear headphones.

Apple: We mean really high end.

Beats: Well, yeah I guess there’s room for improvement. Cool, this could take our brand to a new level! When should we get started?

Apple: Actually, you guys can sit this one out.

Beats: ...
 
WannaGoMac said:
I called Apple support. Their great suggestion was I reset my settings which i refused to do as that never does anything. They next suggested I restore my iphone, which again i refused. These magic two things support suggests for last 10 years never fix anything.

Maybe try to get apple to let me see a genius. Nowadays they make you go through support first before they let you make an appointment. The other challenge is it takes some period of time for the bug to appear, then i restart the iphone, and the problem goes away for a couple days or so.
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I guess you're stuck then, not being willing to do what Apple suggested.

Sorry to hear you're having problems. I've yet to encounter any issues with my iPhone X, including making and sending photographs every day.
 
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BvizioN said:
Yes Apple. Just drop everything else. Please? Have everyone work on core products. Prefereply just Macs. And just forget about the rest.
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And what's the problem with that? You don't see Ford building bikes just because they know how to build automobiles or just because they have so many people working in the company. A company that moves away from the core products will be the loser in long run.
 
I recently picked up the bowers and Wilkins PX. They are on a different level than the other wireless sets I’ve used (bose and Sony)
 
CLS1 said:
I love my QC35's as well. I am not a big fan of Bose, but this particular set of headphones are a must when traveling by air.
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I have a pair of Bose corded noise cancelling headphones. I don't use them very often cuz I'm not much of a headphone guy, and cords just get in the way for me. But whenever I put them on I'm astonished how well their noise cancellation works. And they're super comfortable, too.

Hopefully Apple can come up with something wireless that's at least as good. While steering around Bose's noise cancellation patents and IP.
 
I hope they don't tune them as bass heavy as the HomePod because they will rattle your brain.
 
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