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Apple Delays AirPods Beyond Original 'Late October' Window (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple's new wireless, $180 AirPods have less than a week to meet their original shipping target of "late October," and now the company has confirmed that such a launch is officially off the table. A Wednesday statement, given to Ars Technica just one day ahead of the company's latest Mac-related press event, confirmed Apple's decision to delay the wireless headphones' launch. In the statement, Apple tells Ars that the company "needs a little more time before AirPods are ready for our customers." "The early response to AirPods has been incredible," the Apple statement reads. "We don't believe in shipping a product before it's ready." Apple declined to offer any estimate or release window information about when to expect the AirPods' official launch.
I know first hand. The battery tech isn't completed. Right now, the prototype EarPods only last 15 minutes. The right EarPod with the controller and button lasts only 10 minutes. These also heat up quite a bit during discharge specifically with phone calls.
We were hoping the new battery tech would be ready lipo2 but the fast charge capabilities of the battery greatly reduce the endurance.
We are now trying a much slower charging lithium ion tech but requires a change in the weight and form factor.
My theory is that the headphones are ready, but Apple is worried that when people realize Bluetooth headphones are fundamentally unreliable, it will hurt iPhone 7 sales. Better to wait until further into the holiday shopping season and prevent any bad press or YouTube videos from impacting phone sales, then drop the headphones closer to the holidays so bad reviews haven't had time to sink into the public consciousness to hurt the gift-giving headphone sales.
It's not that I think these are going to be bad headphones, as much as Bluetooth headphones just don't work a lot of places and a lot of people are going to be disappointed.
All the iphone owners I know (mostly my kids and their friends) get through many sets of earphones a year. They are always replaced with another set of wired headphones at minimal cost. I've not seen a bluetooth replacement being favoured.
As for the listening and charging issue - I didn't foresee that being a problem (I don't listen to music on my phone) but those users I have spoken to say that it's a deal breaker.
Not being able to listen with wired headphones whilst charging the phone is a real problem. I guess if you view the phone as your social and media hub, you need to be able to charge it whatever you happen to be doing. That's just not possible with the iphone 7 unless you are forced to use BT headphones. That's not the complete solution as your headphones are discharging whilst you are charging your phone which means you need a wired set for when the BT headphones die and your phone is charged.
Most iPhone users just use the ones that came in the box. And they'll do the same with the Lightning ones.
This right here is the rub. Apple made a huge deal about removing the headphone jack (COURAGE!) and suggesting the real replacement for their iBuds (or whatever) were to be these bluetooth headphones for $169. They manufactured an inconvenience to entice their customers to spend more money. It's really like getting that new shiny $2000 MacBook, then they say "Oh, you want to be able to charge it? well, we can sell you this $500 wireless charger because we did away with the charging port. We needed the space to put in this handy piece of plastic."
So now they are saying "Remember all that courage we showed when we removed the headphone jack and promised that these $170 headphones of the savior would be all you need? Yea... about that.... the headphones suck and we can't sell them to you yet".