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Over-Ear 'AirPods Studio' Will Reportedly Be Assembled in Vietnam in Mid 2020

Glad to see Apple beginning the transition out of manufacturing in China. They’re making me nervous these days with their growing hostility towards US-based companies. Manufacturing is pretty much the only thing they have going for them, and not having that anymore would just cripple them economically, so it’s funny to see them behave as if they have any leverage, when in fact it’s the rest of the world with leverage over them. Besides, I think this is the dawning of huge, new opportunities for nearby countries like Vietnam and India.
 
tkermit said:
Hopefully the studio suffix indicates a reasonably flat frequency curve, support for lossless compression and/or the possibility of a wired connection...
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Wired connection how, though? It's only a matter of time until the 3.5" jack is omitted from Macs too :(
 
Machead2012 said:
By the look of the photo you might as well just call em AirBeats. Beats with minor upgrade, adjustments and an Apple logo?
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I expect that is a Photoshop job of a pair of Beats Solos with an Apple logo, so that would explain why they look like a pair of Beats Solos with an Apple logo. :)


calzon65 said:
With the profit margin Apple makes on its products, they should be able to move more product manufacturing to the USA and still make a good profit, but cheap labor is a drug even Apple can't resist.
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It's more existing production capacity than labor costs - especially for something like the iPhone. Building out the production infrastructure to make hundreds of millions of iPhones a year all-over again would be ridiculously expensive. Also, many Apple products are cyclical in their production cycle so employment levels vary significantly. Consider how many iPhones Apple sells in the Fall when the new model is released so over the Summer they need multiples of workers to produce them, but then by Winter and Spring production rates "collapse" so those workers are released. But those workers do not become unemployed - they stay with Foxconn and others, just moving to make other products until they are needed back on the Apple "surge lines". And most of the iPhones parts are made in China so they'd all need to be shipped to the US, anyway. And those parts are likely made near the Chinese factories for "Just in Time" delivery. So the overall "carbon footprint" of a Chinese-manufactured phone shipped to the US will be less than having one assembled in the US from Chinese-sourced parts.

All of the above being said, Apple is starting produce at least some iPhones in other markets (India, for example) so they could start some new product lines in the US, but I would expect they would want to do so with products that have relatively stable monthly production rates to maintain stable monthly employment. They have long built some Mac models in the US and the EU, and these products do not see huge swings in production rate over the year.
 
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Sp00k said:
I don't think it will. Apple wants AirPods to be known as their wireless headphone/earbud title, kind of like a Beats rebranding. Even more variations of the AirPods lineup will be coming, completely phasing out Beats. Besides, the 'Pod' suffix they use is mean for music (iPod, HomePod, EarPods). I could even see the HomePod being rebranded as the AirPods name.
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AirPods Home?
 
Can this site skip the artists mockups of the future headphones product? I mean, give the assignment to a third grader you would get a more interesting image idea. They would probably at least put a tiny readout (will it be OLED or Micro-LED???) on each ear so people can watch a music video of what you are listening to, instead of a line-drawn Apple logo.
 
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I’m not an audiophile but If Apple can do something great with the sound, like HomePods, then I’m 100% in.

Otherwise not really that interested at that speculative price point. I’m not that interested. You can get GREAT sounding headphones for half that price.
 
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AirPods is not the right name for these in my opinion. EarPods and AirPods ( wireless EarPods ) have always been synonymous with in-ear buds, at least to me
 
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1. I hope they are not bass heavy like so many Beats headphones seem to be.

2. I hope they are more comfortable than the Beats Solo3 Wireless.

3. I hope they have better battery longevity than my AirPods.

At home I use my AirPods at my desk, and my wired Sennheiser HD598 headphones with my stereo for watching movies when the kids are asleep. My Beats Solo3 headphones are unused.
 
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I guess for Apple anything is better than USA.
Pathetic.
And, yes, I'd be happy to pay another 100 bucks for the headphones if they were made here in the US.
 
what is pictured are on-ear headphones, which are terrible for audio. Over-the-ear headphones would interest me.
 
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konqerror said:
It's often more efficient to build things in one place. For example, have you seen the bulk packaging for electronic devices? They are many times bigger and heavier than the chips themselves.

View attachment 916702
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Precisely my point. Need to build all the components and the entire unit in one place, where it's consumed.
Stop killing the planet with all that shipping material and fossil fuel burning in the oceans.
 
Williesleg said:
Precisely my point. Need to build all the components and the entire unit in one place, where it's consumed.
Stop killing the planet with all that shipping material and fossil fuel burning in the oceans.
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That doesn't make sense either. You're going to need multiple chip fabs all over the world, which have huge energy consumption just sitting there because of the need to control the air, not to mention the idle power of all the fab equipment. For example, a lot of US chip fabs are in Oregon where they have cheap hydro power. But where are you going to get copper for the headphone speaker coils? Most copper is mined in Arizona. You have none of this in say, Florida.

If you look at a lifecycle analysis, you'll find it's often better to ship than to localize. A good example is the carbon impact of shipping a tomato from Spain to the UK is less than growing the same tomato in the UK, since heated greenhouses are needed in the cold climate. Likewise, people who live in hot places use a lot more energy in air conditioning. Therefore, there is a natural separation of growing from living.

Transport energy use is highly visible causing people to overlook hidden aspects. People understand what it costs to drive a car; they do not know anything about the power consumption of a chip fab.
 
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Even though I’ve spent like over $600 on ‘over the ear’ headphones in the last month, I’ll probably still jump at the opportunity at Apple‘s version coming. This has been rumored for like two years now and there’s no doubt they have a huge market cache already with the Beats brand, and if they have their own branded/proprietary headphones, I think these will do very well For a specific demographic at what they will likely charge at a very high premium with specific features, and we already know how seriously they take Audio giving all the R&D invested into the HomePod testing.
 
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Vietnam is such an amazing place. The people deserve all the business and economic boost they can get.

If you haven't been go there. I spent 3 weeks there in 2019 traveled the entire country South to North and had amazing time. Pro Tip: Stop in in the UNESCO world site the village of Hội An outside Da Nang for at least two nights.

All I want to do is travel now.
 
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cosmic68 said:
I’m not an audiophile but If Apple can do something great with the sound, like HomePods, then I’m 100% in.

Otherwise not really that interested at that speculative price point. I’m not that interested. You can get GREAT sounding headphones for half that price.
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You’re right. Like AirPods, these have to bring something different To the table.
The_Martini_Cat said:
Can this site skip the artists mockups of the future headphones product? I mean, give the assignment to a third grader you would get a more interesting image idea.
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Whenever they use this mockup there’s always a few comments saying “they look just like Beats Solos”
 
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Puppuccino said:
Why AirPods Studio? AirPods are synonymous with the small little buds in ear. That will definitely confused consumers.
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What will be confusing about it? Are you expecting to see customers presenting to casualty after hours of trying to insert these in to their ears?
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Williesleg said:
It's easier to build in the country you are selling them in.
Why not?
Need to save the environment. Ships pollute the water big time. All their exhause gases get vented into the ocean. That kills the reefs and fish.
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I don’t even know where to begin.
 
Based on the relative size of the pads and the speaker hole the picture looks more like on-ear headphones.
 
calzon65 said:
With the profit margin Apple makes on its products, they should be able to move more product manufacturing to the USA and still make a good profit, but cheap labor is a drug even Apple can't resist.
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Of course they are able to but why would they? There is no incentive other than potentially a little positive public sentient in the U.S., which has been proven to not be a significant factor in moving units.
 
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