Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

sammyman

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 21, 2005
998
66
Or will this always be an Apple / Beats thing? It would be great to see some more competition.
 
It's Apple's proprietary chip, and if other manufacturers wants to use it then they're going to have to pay a hefty price or make a deal with Apple to use & market it.

Unless a major manufacturer that has money, and it's a company that Apple feels like dealing with, we probably won't see too many choices of wireless headphones in the near future. But you never know.
 
The question I've asked and not been able to get a satisfactory answer to is not WILL other manufacturers use it but MAY they - i.e. is the W1 even available for licensing? If it is available, manufacturers will use it.
 
Pretty sure they showed some monster beats that will have it. I think now they will put it in their monster beat line. Didn't they mention that in the conference
 
I've been thinking a lot about this, I want to get a wireless speaker and I was really wondering if there might bring some nice pairing functionality to future speakers too!
 
- i.e. is the W1 even available for licensing? If it is available, manufacturers will use it.

Never.

This is the Apple advantage.

Siri depends on the W1 chip and evolving in the ecosystem.

The Airpods growth could be tremendous with 1B iPhone users.

The money is to be made in accessories & services to compensate for a slower iPhone growth.

 
Never.

This is the Apple advantage.


Could be selectively available for some premium brands' headphones, ditto speakers. Will be beneficial to Apple if premium brands have SIRI in their products.

But I agree that Apple would never license W1 openly.
 
They'll let anyone make and certify Lightning cables - why wouldn't they let a company like Bragi license the W1 from them for The Dash 2? Makes perfect sense. The work is already done at Apple; it costs them nothing to license as compared to development. They just provide the chips and an ICD to whatever manufacturer to integrate and away they go. It's a license to print money, and I suspect would be far more lucrative than sales of a few different headphone products.
 
They'll let anyone make and certify Lightning cables - why wouldn't they let a company like Bragi license the W1 from them for The Dash 2? Makes perfect sense. The work is already done at Apple; it costs them nothing to license as compared to development.

From your point of view, that's an option.

From a business standpoint, the money says to keep the secret sauce in a burgeoning AI industry.

Put the competition in a freeze state, and position to sell to a captive 1B iPhone users.

We'll know more in the next few years or sooner.

 
I actually hope it'll come to other Bluetooth devices in general, specifically the Beats Pill Plus speaker. I switch sources for that a lot, and it'd be soooo convenient to have the fast switching capability with that device.
 
I would imagine they're trying to establish a standard like FireWire, etc. So, it wouldn't be surprising to see more manufacturers getting license to tap into it, even if they hold it exclusive for a while.
 
At the moment, we only know that the Airpods and the PowerBeats 3 will have the W1 chip. Will others be allowed to use it? Most likely in the future, but not right away. For those who think they won't license forget how much Apple likes making money.
 
Unless a major manufacturer that has money, and it's a company that Apple feels like dealing with, we probably won't see too many choices of wireless headphones in the near future. But you never know.

You have THOUSANDS of choices for wireless headphones right now.
 
At the moment, we only know that the Airpods and the PowerBeats 3 will have the W1 chip. Will others be allowed to use it? Most likely in the future, but not right away. For those who think they won't license forget how much Apple likes making money.

Beats X and Solo 3 wireless.

I have the latter, damn thing is excellent listening to music. And my battery will run out causing me to sleep before this ever does. :)
 
That's NOT the secret sauce. The secret sauce is the fact that your headphones sync across your AppleID.

Yes, correct.

It's whatever they put and will put in that W1 chip, commanding Siri and easily working with all devices.

Revolutionary thinking companies like Human will be constrained without the W1 chip.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sound-by-human-audio-evolved-music-headphones/x/1772893#/

Perhaps, the answer is both.

Maybe not, I already have many BT devices that are mediocre.

Maybe the Airpods will be my best head computing devices for the next year.

 
Or will this always be an Apple / Beats thing? It would be great to see some more competition.

I would think, based on licensing of the 30-pin and lightning connectors, that Apple will license this to headphone and speaker makers (once they let Beats some for a while on their own), but NOT other phone makers. Surely their key interest is selling more phones rather than more Beats and Apple earphones? And it gives them a key differentiator to Android phones.

I hope W1 gives better audio quality when paired with an iPhone with a W1 chip!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.