In today's video I review Apple's AirPods and provide unique insights into the product itself as well as what it says abut the future of Apple.
TL;DR
My Opinion
I like the AirPods and think they will be a very successful product for Apple going forward.
The Key to Understanding the Apple's Method
I believe the key to understanding the AirPods is that they are designed to remain in your ears all day. That's why they're tight enough (and light enough) to remain in your ears, while loose enough to enable you to still hear the world around you as well as anyone talking to you. This might seem like a bad thing to people, but remember that Apple isn't trying to design the best headphones, they're trying to design a product that you can wear for as long as possible that enables you to interface with your computers in an efficient and pleasurable way and makes you more committed to their brand and their range of products. To that end, the AirPods are a great product.
What the AirPods Say About Apple's Future
The AirPods prove that Apple understands that in the very near future (probably 5-10 years) our eyes and ears will be constantly connected to computers. The AirPods are far and away the largest step toward that (inevitable) destination than any other company has so far released by quite a lead. Once other companies like Samsung begin to grasp this, they will more closely mimic Apple, however, as usual they will be playing both catch up and Apple's game.
No Such Thing As Bad Press?
Believe it or not, people's polarizing reaction to the AirPods is a good sign for Apple stock. Apple has never delivered a successful product that wasn't polarizing when it was first announced. Even the iPhone, arguably the most successful product in history was almost universally ridiculed. What Steve Jobs managed to infuse into the company was that it didn't matter what people said about your product when it was released, but whether they would buy it and keep buying it for years. People are constantly complaining about how little Apple changes its designs and components and how high their profit margins are, while simultaneously deriding their products the moment they are released. What they miss is that the reason that Apple can charge such high margins is because they slavishly adhere to this strategy.
The Apple AirPods are very good at addressing 90% of modern headphone use-cases. They have good enough audio, they're good enough at making calls, Siri dramatically increases the feature set of the headphones (with practically infinite room for improvement in future generations), and the battery life is great. They've managed to do this in a very small form factor (fewer raw materials) with very few components (processor, gyroscope, speaker, microphone), all of which can be incrementally improved while lowering their cost as production is made more efficient and increased sales improve economies of scale.
In Conclusion
People can complain about the AirPods till the cows come home, it will only help them sell. Why? Because people don't complain about crappy products. People don't talk about crappy products because they're irrelevant. People complain about Apple products because of the cognitive dissonance which is created by them believing that Apple makes bad products, despite their popularity (which they describe as "irrational" as if they are the arbiters of "reason"). They tend to be people who are fixated on specs and believe that human beings make their purchasing decisions based on "rationality." Humans don't care about specs, they care about whether things work, feel good, improve their lives, and signal to others that they are intelligent, creative, successful, competent, etc. people. The more people complain about Apple and the more shrill they become as sales and profits increase, the more free advertising Apple gets out of them.