> AirPods Max are available to order starting today for $549 (US) from apple.com and in the Apple Store app in the US and more than 25 other countries and regions. AirPods Max will begin shipping on Tuesday, December 15.
Edit: After AppleCare, optional 3.5mm cable, and tax, it comes out to just over $700 USD.
"Hey, cool, something not in-ear, this could be just what I was looking for."
See's price: Nope... I'll stick with what I've got for now.
Those are some of the most expensive headphones I've ever seen and I thought Bose's QC3's at $350 were overpriced. This kicks it up a notch further. I'll be curious what the reviews show for sure, but too rich for my blood.
Oh, I know there's more expensive out there, I should've been more clear, when I said "Some of the most expensive" I actually meant outside of the crazy cans that people buy that call themselves audiophiles lol.
Guess it’s going to at least somewhat depend on how important spatial audio turns out to be. My QC35s are on their last legs, and I’m certainly pretty curious about these having just ordered some AirPod Pros...
Just a heads up, Bose often give you a discount, or did when I last worked for them about a decade ago, if you trade in your old headphones for new ones.
If it's just the ear pads, those can be replaced for like $20.
if you are looking for an over the ear, top notch, bluetooth headset, i would recommend the Sony's XM4. i have a pair, they are amazing -- the noise cancelling is so good, it kind of gives me a bit of vertigo.
I'm fairly confident I've reached my own personal peak for Apple pricing. As a spectator I've no doubt these will sell massive numbers but I'm curious to learn what the market will bear for Apple's products.
Especially if you consider the inherent issues with Bluetooth call quality. No matter how good their microphones in them are, they will mangle the audio back to the 90s.
$549 seems entirely detached and I am baffled, even as an ANC enthusiast.
I did hear Rumours (I never looked into it) that there will be an upcoming feature in bluetooth that will allow for higher quality. I believe currently the tradeoff is audio quality vs latency. My bluetooth headphones (Sony) switch between high quality but ~500ms latency (guess), to low quality but no noticeable latency when doing calls.
True, Bluetooth 5.2 is introducing LE Audio that will use a new codec (LC3) and should enable higher audio quality also for calls when microphone from the headset is in use.
Yeah, they use their own proprietary protocol over Bluetooth Low Energy (which you can basically use as a raw packet transport).
For some reason the Bluetooth consortium was years behind the ball in standardizing a high quality bidirectional audio transport, versus the phone-quality "Hands Free Profile" and "Headset" Profile using 90s era codecs (uni-directional is fine since it uses a higher quality "Advanced Audio Distribution" profile).
The consortium launched Bluetooth Low Energy audio last year (or maybe this year?), but I'm not sure if it's actually shipping in anything yet.
Yeah, whenever I use Bluetooth headphones that have a microphone with my PC I have to be sure to disable all of the headset profiles so it doesn't switch to dial-up quality as soon as an app requests microphone access.
I'm skeptical if the protocol makes that much difference, the experience with Beats X basically felt the same as any normal BT headphones, AirPods definitely felt less fussy and more seamless despite them both using the same W1 chip.
My theory is the AirPods start getting ready for syncing as soon as you open the case/detects you touching them, while the Beats X had a traditional on button and were entirely unimpressive to me.
I was referring more to audio quality. Airpods seems to be able to act in headset mode (audio + microphone) without killing the quality of the audio you are listening to. Most headphones switch to a very low bitrate mode when you activate the microphone.
Have you used Bluetooth headphones this decade? And airpods in particular? There’s not really any problem with audio quality they sound pretty much indistinguishable from wired headphones in real world use (sure if you’re sitting alone in a quiet room with an audiophile setup listening to FLAC files because 320kbps mp3s aren’t high quality enough, then you may want something else).
This is just demonstrably not true. Bluetooth Hands-Free mangles the sample rate to 16 / 24 kHz. See this video for a collection of pretty much all common devices from "this decade". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifmGS_WWk7o
I use FaceTime Audio for calls to family because it sounds so much better than VoLTE. FT Audio sounds like you're in the same room as the person, even over non-Pro Airpods.
I have a co-worker who moved from Bose to AirPods. I wish he still had the Bose headphones - he sounded better, and they filtered out his swallowing noises.
For comparison, Sony's WH-1000XM4 which are currently widely considered the state of the art in the active noise cancelling over-ears, will cost you anywhere between $300-$400 depending on where you are.
(I was very surprised the price can vary that widely, actually. On Sony's US page they're $279, while in the EU they're €380 which is about $460.)
i had both the sony wh-1000xm4 and now use the sennheiser momentum 3. via bluetooth i have the same problem on both my macbook pro and iphone: they lag. i watch a youtube video (on ios in the app; on osx browser or a video app) and the sound is a few ms behind (very noticeably though).
any idea what's going on there and/or if apple would solve this somehow with airpods max?
I think that's some iOS peculiarity, or non-standard latency compensation implementation. On Android all bluetooth headphones I've tried seem to work fine for non realtime applications, and many (like Sony's great wf-1000xm3) have none or barely perceptible latency in games.
I’ve been hovering on the XM4s waiting for these to be announced. I very much like my regular AirPods, but at £549 I’m definitely going to get the Sonys for £349.
I’m sure the AirPods will be more convenient in some ways, but as I’ll be using them almost entirely inside the house, I’m willing to forego that considering the huge price difference. I much prefer the visual style of the Sonys too; not that that matters all that much.
I’m interested to see reviews of the AirPods to see what they’re like on the sound quality front though.
The only real inconvenience is Bluetooth connecting and disconnecting. It's clunky on my WH-1000XM3's compared to my AirPods Pro, and I often find myself hunting for the device the Sonys were last connected to so I can reconnect to something else. But, unless the AirPods Max (terrible name) turn out to be stunningly good, the added convenience isn't worth the massive price difference to me.
I bought the M3 right when they came out for about 320€ (I think they were 380 but there was a deal). And got a reimbursement about a year later because of technical problems. Because I really liked them I bought them again and the price then was about 180€.
And I’d say the M4 don’t add so much to warrant the difference over the M3 at their current pricing.
In any case, Apples product will never see deals remotely close to this. (Maybe 50€ off if the stars are perfectly aligned)
~always. It's illegal to quote prices to consumers for most things ex VAT in the EU (you're allowed show the ex VAT price, but you must show the inc VAT price as the primary price).
Thanks for this insight, I was not aware of this difference. As far as I can see though, this doesn't account for the drastic difference, given the average sales tax in the US is roughly 7% [0][1]. On top of the $279, the price would then end up at about $300.
Depends on where you live. Some states don't have VAT ("sales tax" in the US), others do, still others have higher sales tax depending on the city you're in.
My experience with the WH-1000XM3 was awful. Sound cancel feature wasn't that great, couldn't pair with multiple devices at the same time and have the audio switch seamlessly between the two, and I also didn't want to have to trust Sony with my listening data. Call me paranoid if you'd like, but smart headphones are basically pumping out information about what we're listening to or hearing around us, and if I was going to trust any corporation to be user-centric on privacy in this regard it'd be Apple.
If Apple's headphones have high audio quality and a seamless experience across multiple devices and cool features prepping the way for VR/AR (the way other comments have suggested) then I'd buy a pair.
I'm not expecting anything to happen, but advocating for user privacy isn't about having anything to hide or expecting anything to happen. As far as I'm concerned, the most rational position is to expect user privacy as a primary feature of any services/products we use, particularly if they don't need to be relaying any data in the first place.
I mean, perhaps if Facebook made a pair of headphones would you accept that it's not quite tinfoil hat stuff to be interested in user privacy? We should never trust any centralized authority or corporation with data if we can help it.
Yep. Time and time again I see people abuse their credit cards to buy iPhones or Galaxy Notes. And then complain when unexpected events throw then into an evergrowing interest snowball.
Financial education should be taught in elementary school.
$549 today isn't as much as $549 was 10 years ago or even 5 years ago. The world is getting wealthier. Money is getting cheaper. We've just printed trillions of dollars this year to keep the good times rolling baby. We live in an era where people would rather pay $549 for a set of headphones than save it in a bank account or save for a house, cuz there's no way in hell they'll ever be able to afford a house. So why not blow it on experiences and shiney stuff instead of clinging on to a dream that can never be realised? That's the mentality of a lot of Apple's target market.
meanwhile the last time the federal minimum wage was raised was in 2009, to $7.25 an hour. At that rate, you'd need to work ~76 hours to afford these headphones.
From a company that priced a monitor stand at $1000, this is at least more functional. But for most people, a pair of $30 headphones will be just as good, albeit without the status symbol element.
I'd agree regarding the $1000 monitor stand not being targeted - but they're wireless headphones - Apple sells consumer electronics. of course they're targeted, at least for desirability (not so much price point)
And my reply was mainly to highlight the parent comment of
> The world is getting wealthier. Money is getting cheaper. We've just printed trillions of dollars this year to keep the good times rolling baby
does not actually reflect the reality of most workers; who's purchase power has only decreased.
When the mention of the magnets came up, I figured this was a bit more than I wanted to spend. What a bummer, but I hope it ends up being real audiophile grade hardware.
I'm secure enough with my masculinity that I don't mind carrying something that looks like a purse if it were useful.
But I'd never want to carry my headphones in my hand. When not in use, when I'm out (say I'm about to check-out at the grocery store and don't want to be rude), they hang on my neck. I'm not going to want to carry around an empty carrying case at the same time that I'm using my device so that I can neatly put it away when NOT in use. Maybe overnight, if there's some benefit?
I suppose if they were in a suitcase, it could prevent damage? But airports are one of the main places I love over-the-ear headphones, so they wouldn't be in my bag. Also, if in a bag, you wouldn't want the carrying strap because it just adds bulk.
$500 for headphones is fine, if they would last 20 years.
AirPods look like flimsy plastic stuff. For portable heapdhones they are not water resistant, do not fold and not even come with hard case.
And given apple, there will be no spare parts and manuals.
Right - I gifted a pair of MDR7506s to my girlfriend the other day.
I love that they include an insert telling you exactly how to take the entire headphone apart - I don't think I've owned a pair like that before.
But, I broke out my B&O H6s to do an A/B test after giving them to her, and I think it was a mistake? The H6s are of course in the next higher price price bracket, but the 7506s did not compare musically to them at all.
As much as I appreciate the repairability of the 7506s, I think would recommend something a bit more musical as a daily driver.
The Sony is basically flat (by mass-market standards), with a little emphasis in the "presence" area, 3-4.5KHz.
The B&O adds a bass boost from 20-50Hz, and then an upward curve from 400Hz up to 3.5KHz, then a bigger bump from 6.5KHz and up.
From that, I expect you found the B&O to bring a deeper thumping bass and a sparklier sound to cymbals. It's almost certainly more exciting than the Sony.
Including the Digital Crown from the Apple Watch demonstrates the power of Apple designing their hardware in house and amortizing new components over many products.
It’s not that it’s innovative in its function. It’s innovative in the speed of design and ability to leverage parts in their supply chain they already have.
I thought these looked familiar, but it was just the metal frame reminding me of jabra elite/ evolve.
Usually when apple creates a new product they are very careful to give it a distinct look that is immediately identifiable from competitor products.
---
Entirely off-topic: Looking forward to seeing people who make 1/3 of what I make (and my salary is pretty average) telling me they are a winner because they snagged one of these babies on release day. We are so easily fooled...
The implication there is that if someone made twice as much as you did and made a similar brag, that they wouldn't be foolish. You may not think these are a good value purchase. I don't either. But flaunting your income as a sign of being a winner is an ironically similar fallacy.
Thanks I’ll stick with my Sony WH 1000 XM 3s, but I’m curious to see how they hold up and how can they justify the almost 200$ difference between the current lineup from Sony and Bose
I worry this will drive up prices in the headphone market. Sennheiser and other players may see that there's way more money to be made by simply marking up what they have.
1. You are assuming these don't offer a better experience than Sennheisers et al. and that the only reason they are more expensive is "because Apple". Maybe true, but also hard to justify contextually given Apple just released the best bang-for-your-buck laptop on the market.
2. The audio market is pretty competitive. If Sennheisers up their prices without improving anything, someone else (with equivalent quality) will come along at Sennheiser's old price point. I know I just bought some $50 noice-cancelling headphones that work for my purposes (and have USB-C fast charging).
These look magnificent. I’m Looking forward to a couple of years when the battery is dead and you can’t change it without breaking the glued case. This is similar to the reaction I have to announcements of new Google services due to notorious discontinuation.
Edit: judging from the explosion view, it does look to feature actual screws, so I'm cautiously optimistic they might last longer than 3 years, although you never know if they didn't add authentication to the battery to prevent it from being user-servicable.
One of the things I criticise the most of Apple, the whole AirPod line is a disposable product. If the battery dies you can throw it away.
I like Apple products but I will never own any pair of AirPods or any other product where you can dispose of it when the battery is done. This is a shareholders dream, but an environmental nightmare.
"After the one-year warranty on AirPods Max has expired or the up to two-year AppleCare+ coverage has come to an end, Apple will charge a $79 fee for battery servicing."[1]
If you are not from that time, airpod looking ugly and weird was the common theme among most the reviews. Then somehow they became status symbol. There was some video or some blog which argues that Apple making weird looking products intentionally, as they want to use that as symbol rather than some other competition like product.
Eh... airpods look weird, but they're also fairly discrete. You notice the little stems, but they're easy to ignore. This is a pretty big honking device.
I'm not sure I buy airpods are a status symbol either in most people's eyes either. I like airpods, but does anyone really make a judgement based on choice of earbud? I doubt it.
If I buy these, it’ll be in addition to my “stuff in pocket and go” headphones. I listen to music while working literally all day, and my needs for the item that provides that is pretty different from what I want at the gym or if I am meeting a friend and want something for the journey.
"Ugly" was my immediate impression too. The band looks like a 1980s era idea of futuristic, with a pair of oversized Apple Watches stuck on each end.
I wasn't a fan of the Airpod aesthetic either, but they made a bit of sense, because they seemed like a reasonable evolution from 15 years of marketing around their iPod/iPhone headphone cables.
For anyone having doubts about the design and maybe attributing it to Apple tendency to predate or establish trends, just look at the case that these come with. It looks absolutely hideous and just... tacky. TACKY. This isn't Ive's product, that's for sure.
There's something about the colors that made me fell ill to my stomach. The rose color, it's just too much Apple. And I like my rose colored iPhone. What next, Apple t-shirts? How much and how large Apple branding are we expected to flout?
At least the iPods are rather small and the phone fits in the pocket.
I have a similar feeling about some of the other design features such as the carrying case and the watch style "winder". They seem overly fussy and lack cleanness IMHO.
I simply conclude these are not designed for me. I think I prefer my current QC35s
I do note though that they are not really branded as such. It's just that Apple's styling is very distinctive. My Bose headphones for instance feature an embossed Bose logo on each ear.
I don't see a mention of any socket, mini jack or micro jack; this is predictable but still unfortunate. I wish it was possible to use these with non bluetooth gear.
Update: I see a mention of the lightning connector (for charging) at https://www.apple.com/airpods-max/specs/ . I wonder if lightning to mini jack adapter would work with this product.
> AirPods Max require Apple devices running iOS 14.3 or later, iPadOS 14.3 or later, macOS Big Sur 11.1 or later, watchOS 7.2 or later, or tvOS 14.3 or later.
E.G. when I open GarageBand, and hit a piano key - is there still a bloody whole second delay before I hear it in my ‘AirPods Pro’ with a ‘custom’ W1 chip on a device supposedly made for creatives?
No, really. For creators, this might be the worst value proposition I’ve ever seen. $550 USD for headphones that can’t operate without latency.
If it wasn’t for the wheels or the stand on the Mac Pro, I would say this is the worst value proposition I’ve seen, period.
I’ve seen mock-ups of an iPhone 13 without a headphone jack. Will they just stop offering GarageBand, or any other music creation apps?
All Bluetooth headphones have some delays. If you want no delay, then you should really be looking at other options. But maybe the Apple ones have a larger delay.
>a ‘custom’ W1 chip on a device supposedly made for creatives?
According to Apple Bloggers creatives are a small market and really Apple is about serving the 99% not you and the Pro doesn't really mean for Professionals and all the other arguments that get wheeled out when this stuff starts to fall short.
That is a problem. That it is continually brought up to the point that you're bringing it up in advance in attempt to dismiss it means it's so much of a problem that it shouldn't be dismissed.
The branding is just wrong. No, it's not an 'iPad Pro', if I can't run 'Logic Pro', Apple's own 'Pro' software on it. It's not a 'MacBook Pro', if it has the same goddamn SOC as the MacBook Air. (You can order an Air with the identical 8-core processor as the Pro)
A consumer could easily make the mistake of buying an iPad Pro, reasonably thinking it could run Logic Pro, only to find out that it can't.
If latency is a concern, you can actually switch to using these via a wired (non-Bluetooth) connection as well. There's bound to be some minimal latency due to the DSP, but an order of magnitude lower than via Bluetooth.
I have no idea why people are downvoting you.
I think these headphones look awesome but BT latency is beyond ridiculous - i can currently game on a server in 4K 60hz that's a about 600 miles away with 16ms of latency via WIFI from button press to "already decoded 4k video on my screen" on an old laptop (Shadow-PC, stadia like service).
That you can't get low bitrate audio decoded in less than 300ms less than a metre away is absolutely absurd above taken into consideration.
I totally agree that the pro headphone market, for actual content production ie. music, timed editing etc. needs to have below - i would say 20 ms.
Personally i think it's the BT standard though as i have been looking far and wide for actual good "live performance" headphones.
If anyone knows why Bluetooth is so horridly bad i'm all ears, my previous post taken into consideration where i can literally stream 10MBps video with 16ms latency including decoding over a normal WiFi router.
Remember the days when Apple was breaking new ground, pushing the limits? The iPod was fundamentally a game changer in the music space. The iPhone caught Blackberry with their pants down and they never recovered. Macbooks were a level up in so many ways to their competitors.
It was worth paying extra for the device Apple was selling because everyone else was years behind them.
Now it's wireless headphones with technologies that have all been done before, for more than $500. Or the same iPhone as last year, with a slightly better processor. Why pay more for that? I mean, sure, they seem high quality enough- but $549 level high quality?
Come on Apple, surprise me. Make me feel like the iPod announcement again.
And (at least in my recollection), Apple's devices - like the ipod mini / nano - weren't THAT expensive, compared to the rest of the market and what they offered in terms of storage space and the like.
The new generation of Macs are also err... reasonably priced for the performance? I think? I mean if they really do beat high end Macbook Pros on the same (real life) workload, they're offering a ton of value for money.
What's exciting about the M1 Macs? Personally, I've never been excited about anything from Apple. Everything always seems to be about locking you into their stuff. If it excites you, good for you. It is not for me and it is not for a lot of people.
A significant change in PC processor architecture, with seamless translation of legacy apps and huge gains in both performance and battery life seems pretty cool.
Airpods are a pretty big deal. The Apple Watch and iPad continue to be basically uncontested in their markets as well.
It's difficult to have an iPod or iPhone moment these days. Some of those products I mentioned sell more than the iPod did in its day, they just seem small in the face of Apple's $2T business, and the much larger selection of products in the consumer electronics space.
I guess my point is that it's not binary. Apple can do exciting things and also release overpriced niche headphones. The latter doesn't mean nothing they do can be interesting or have a big market impact.
For... the very little that it’s worth, these must have been in development for a long time given that I remember reading a patent 4 years ago from Apple that was for over-ear transparency mode.
As much as it’s an evolution of the AirPods Pro and doesn’t do anything completely new, you can’t say that innovation wasn’t driven here.
1,919 comments
[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 429 ms ] threadEdit: After AppleCare, optional 3.5mm cable, and tax, it comes out to just over $700 USD.
See's price: Nope... I'll stick with what I've got for now.
Those are some of the most expensive headphones I've ever seen and I thought Bose's QC3's at $350 were overpriced. This kicks it up a notch further. I'll be curious what the reviews show for sure, but too rich for my blood.
You should hang around head-fi sometime if you think these are expensive...
If it's just the ear pads, those can be replaced for like $20.
I'm fairly confident I've reached my own personal peak for Apple pricing. As a spectator I've no doubt these will sell massive numbers but I'm curious to learn what the market will bear for Apple's products.
For some reason the Bluetooth consortium was years behind the ball in standardizing a high quality bidirectional audio transport, versus the phone-quality "Hands Free Profile" and "Headset" Profile using 90s era codecs (uni-directional is fine since it uses a higher quality "Advanced Audio Distribution" profile).
The consortium launched Bluetooth Low Energy audio last year (or maybe this year?), but I'm not sure if it's actually shipping in anything yet.
An update to that spec would be much appreciated.
My theory is the AirPods start getting ready for syncing as soon as you open the case/detects you touching them, while the Beats X had a traditional on button and were entirely unimpressive to me.
(I was very surprised the price can vary that widely, actually. On Sony's US page they're $279, while in the EU they're €380 which is about $460.)
any idea what's going on there and/or if apple would solve this somehow with airpods max?
I’m sure the AirPods will be more convenient in some ways, but as I’ll be using them almost entirely inside the house, I’m willing to forego that considering the huge price difference. I much prefer the visual style of the Sonys too; not that that matters all that much.
I’m interested to see reviews of the AirPods to see what they’re like on the sound quality front though.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_Stat...
[1] https://www.aarp.org/money/taxes/info-2020/state-sales-tax-r...
If Apple's headphones have high audio quality and a seamless experience across multiple devices and cool features prepping the way for VR/AR (the way other comments have suggested) then I'd buy a pair.
This is tinfoil hat stuff. What are you expecting to happen?
I mean, perhaps if Facebook made a pair of headphones would you accept that it's not quite tinfoil hat stuff to be interested in user privacy? We should never trust any centralized authority or corporation with data if we can help it.
The lower class uses luxury products as signaling. It's why iphones sell despite being lower quality. Impracticality is necessary in luxury products.
(Agree that “working class” is generally less offensive though)
Financial education should be taught in elementary school.
“One touch set up” is just not a feature anywhere on my Venn Diagram of excitement.
/s-sortof.
From a company that priced a monitor stand at $1000, this is at least more functional. But for most people, a pair of $30 headphones will be just as good, albeit without the status symbol element.
And my reply was mainly to highlight the parent comment of > The world is getting wealthier. Money is getting cheaper. We've just printed trillions of dollars this year to keep the good times rolling baby
does not actually reflect the reality of most workers; who's purchase power has only decreased.
Please don't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImageWriter
Interestingly, it looks like the usual Bose folding method, just stopped halfway through.
Reflecting on your comment made me realize I'm never going to be driving a fancy car, I feel like I've lost something today.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/airpods/standa...
But I'd never want to carry my headphones in my hand. When not in use, when I'm out (say I'm about to check-out at the grocery store and don't want to be rude), they hang on my neck. I'm not going to want to carry around an empty carrying case at the same time that I'm using my device so that I can neatly put it away when NOT in use. Maybe overnight, if there's some benefit?
I suppose if they were in a suitcase, it could prevent damage? But airports are one of the main places I love over-the-ear headphones, so they wouldn't be in my bag. Also, if in a bag, you wouldn't want the carrying strap because it just adds bulk.
I wonder if they'll end up sounding like beats?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23826070
AirPods look like flimsy plastic stuff. For portable heapdhones they are not water resistant, do not fold and not even come with hard case. And given apple, there will be no spare parts and manuals.
Get Sony, much better value.
I've replaced the pads twice, at a cost of about $10 each time.
I love that they include an insert telling you exactly how to take the entire headphone apart - I don't think I've owned a pair like that before.
But, I broke out my B&O H6s to do an A/B test after giving them to her, and I think it was a mistake? The H6s are of course in the next higher price price bracket, but the 7506s did not compare musically to them at all.
As much as I appreciate the repairability of the 7506s, I think would recommend something a bit more musical as a daily driver.
The B&O adds a bass boost from 20-50Hz, and then an upward curve from 400Hz up to 3.5KHz, then a bigger bump from 6.5KHz and up.
From that, I expect you found the B&O to bring a deeper thumping bass and a sparklier sound to cymbals. It's almost certainly more exciting than the Sony.
If I had a component in house that already fit the spec, then I 'd consider that before sourcing a new component or designing a new one.
Usually when apple creates a new product they are very careful to give it a distinct look that is immediately identifiable from competitor products.
---
Entirely off-topic: Looking forward to seeing people who make 1/3 of what I make (and my salary is pretty average) telling me they are a winner because they snagged one of these babies on release day. We are so easily fooled...
I expect Apple wants to market these to people looking for fancier Beats.
1. You are assuming these don't offer a better experience than Sennheisers et al. and that the only reason they are more expensive is "because Apple". Maybe true, but also hard to justify contextually given Apple just released the best bang-for-your-buck laptop on the market.
2. The audio market is pretty competitive. If Sennheisers up their prices without improving anything, someone else (with equivalent quality) will come along at Sennheiser's old price point. I know I just bought some $50 noice-cancelling headphones that work for my purposes (and have USB-C fast charging).
Edit: judging from the explosion view, it does look to feature actual screws, so I'm cautiously optimistic they might last longer than 3 years, although you never know if they didn't add authentication to the battery to prevent it from being user-servicable.
https://www.firstxw.com/view/235586.html
And that with space left over. If Apple really wanted to make this product sustainable, they could.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/08/everyon...
"After the one-year warranty on AirPods Max has expired or the up to two-year AppleCare+ coverage has come to an end, Apple will charge a $79 fee for battery servicing."[1]
[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/12/08/79-airpods-max-battery-...
I'm sure they work well but I don't see them one-upping airpods. Airpods have a key feature in that they can be put in one's pocket or purse.
I'm not sure I buy airpods are a status symbol either in most people's eyes either. I like airpods, but does anyone really make a judgement based on choice of earbud? I doubt it.
I wasn't a fan of the Airpod aesthetic either, but they made a bit of sense, because they seemed like a reasonable evolution from 15 years of marketing around their iPod/iPhone headphone cables.
At least the iPods are rather small and the phone fits in the pocket.
I simply conclude these are not designed for me. I think I prefer my current QC35s
I do note though that they are not really branded as such. It's just that Apple's styling is very distinctive. My Bose headphones for instance feature an embossed Bose logo on each ear.
Update: I see a mention of the lightning connector (for charging) at https://www.apple.com/airpods-max/specs/ . I wonder if lightning to mini jack adapter would work with this product.
Not even standard bluetooth.
E.G. when I open GarageBand, and hit a piano key - is there still a bloody whole second delay before I hear it in my ‘AirPods Pro’ with a ‘custom’ W1 chip on a device supposedly made for creatives?
No, really. For creators, this might be the worst value proposition I’ve ever seen. $550 USD for headphones that can’t operate without latency.
If it wasn’t for the wheels or the stand on the Mac Pro, I would say this is the worst value proposition I’ve seen, period.
I’ve seen mock-ups of an iPhone 13 without a headphone jack. Will they just stop offering GarageBand, or any other music creation apps?
Apple’s hit a new low. For real.
It's honestly just embarrassing.
According to Apple Bloggers creatives are a small market and really Apple is about serving the 99% not you and the Pro doesn't really mean for Professionals and all the other arguments that get wheeled out when this stuff starts to fall short.
That is a problem. That it is continually brought up to the point that you're bringing it up in advance in attempt to dismiss it means it's so much of a problem that it shouldn't be dismissed.
The branding is just wrong. No, it's not an 'iPad Pro', if I can't run 'Logic Pro', Apple's own 'Pro' software on it. It's not a 'MacBook Pro', if it has the same goddamn SOC as the MacBook Air. (You can order an Air with the identical 8-core processor as the Pro)
A consumer could easily make the mistake of buying an iPad Pro, reasonably thinking it could run Logic Pro, only to find out that it can't.
That you can't get low bitrate audio decoded in less than 300ms less than a metre away is absolutely absurd above taken into consideration.
I'd be alright with 200ms. That they prioritized going wireless so, so intensely, and completely; fully ignored this issue is absolute tripe.
These are about as useful as those $900 Mac Pro wheels that have no lock and thusly are only even effective if you have a flat floor.
Similarly, these headphones only work if you want to listen to audio - for any creative use whatsoever any given pair of headphones is better.
I just don't get Apple anymore.
Personally i think it's the BT standard though as i have been looking far and wide for actual good "live performance" headphones.
If anyone knows why Bluetooth is so horridly bad i'm all ears, my previous post taken into consideration where i can literally stream 10MBps video with 16ms latency including decoding over a normal WiFi router.
However if they can really deliver on quality, battery life and comfort for me $549 is worth it now days with WFH and using my AirPods constantly.
It was worth paying extra for the device Apple was selling because everyone else was years behind them.
Now it's wireless headphones with technologies that have all been done before, for more than $500. Or the same iPhone as last year, with a slightly better processor. Why pay more for that? I mean, sure, they seem high quality enough- but $549 level high quality?
Come on Apple, surprise me. Make me feel like the iPod announcement again.
The new generation of Macs are also err... reasonably priced for the performance? I think? I mean if they really do beat high end Macbook Pros on the same (real life) workload, they're offering a ton of value for money.
Airpods are a pretty big deal. The Apple Watch and iPad continue to be basically uncontested in their markets as well.
It's difficult to have an iPod or iPhone moment these days. Some of those products I mentioned sell more than the iPod did in its day, they just seem small in the face of Apple's $2T business, and the much larger selection of products in the consumer electronics space.
I guess my point is that it's not binary. Apple can do exciting things and also release overpriced niche headphones. The latter doesn't mean nothing they do can be interesting or have a big market impact.
I'm letting my pessimism get the better of me (and am rightfully being downvoted for it).
As much as it’s an evolution of the AirPods Pro and doesn’t do anything completely new, you can’t say that innovation wasn’t driven here.
The price point is pretty dire though.
Done before because they put it in their AirPods?
And people buy their stuff, so they're doing something right (mostly marketing heh).
I've been looking at the Magic Trackpad, which is pretty niche and doesn't get much attention.