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Wireless Headphone Sales Soared After Apple Dropped Headphone Jack (fortune.com)
Apple's decision to remove the headphone jack from new iPhones last year prompted lots of consumers to switch to wireless headphones, according to a new report on holiday shopping. From a report: Three-quarters of all headphones sold online in December were wireless models, up from 50% a year earlier, according to shopping tracker Slice Intelligence. Apple was the biggest beneficiary of the shift, as both its new AirPods earphones and models from its Beats subsidiary led the sales charts. The $159 AirPods, Apple's first wireless model sold under its own brand, didn't go on sale until Dec. 13, but the product quickly dominated the wireless headphone market, Slice found. In the year prior to the debut, the Beats brand topped online sales of wireless models with a 24% market share, trailed by Bose with an 11% share and Jaybird at 8%. But after AirPods went on sale, they grabbed 26% of online wireless sales, Slice found. Bose was second at 16% and Beats dropped to third with 15% of the market during the period considered.
Bluetooth headsets are hardly "innovation" at this point and adding an incompatible proprietary chip "the W1 - oh, the courage" isn't good for anyone either. BT audio isn't good. It stutters, stumbles, pops, and cracks - even with "good" headsets. If they want to innovate - either fix BT audio or come up with some new standard as part of an open standards body and be the first to ship an implementation of that.
Despite all the whining on Slashdot, this will advance Bluetooth audio, driving lower cost for headphones and encouraging innovation to improve sound quality. Apple got this right, and the increase in sales proves it. Complain if you must, but Apple is still driving innovation while other companies prefer to keep the status quo.
No, this is not an "advancement". Recompressing compressed audio is not a good thing. Real audio is dying and so called innovators like Apple is accelerating it.
I absolutely loathe lossy compressed audio. I can't stand it. High frequencies sound like shit. Cymbals are garbled beyond recognition. It's worse than vinyl records with their RIAA equalization.
The iPhone 7 comes with wired Lightning earbuds.
From iPhone 7 Tech Specs
And yet Apple refuses to release sales figures for the iPhone 7. Which Apple only does when sales are really bad.
Then you have Apple slashing production of iPhone 7. There are also reports from resellers of large numbers of people choosing iPhone 6 over the equivalent iPhone 7, even when the iPhone 7 was cheaper.
Personally I know 4 people that bought the iPhone 7. Only 1 of those people didn't return it.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
You can plug in your old headphones using the adapter they include in the box (and sell replacements for $9), or you can use the wired Lightning Cable EarPods they also... include in the box. Heck, they sell replacements for those too.
I get that you're mad but your assertion that you can ONLY use wireless headphones is false in more ways than one.
And as for being mad that they bought a wireless headphone company and then did something to encourage usage of wireless headphones? That just says you don't understand how hardware companies work. Especially if you don't think every other phone manufacturer isn't about to do the same.
Schnapple