Apple has one more thing for the holiday shopping season: over-the-ear, wireless headphones that will test how much people are willing to splurge on for high-quality sound.
The headphones, called AirPods Max, will cost $549 — far more than similar products from Bose and Sony that offer many of the same features, such as noise cancellation. The lofty price is more double what it costs to buy Apple’s in-ear wireless headphones.
Apple began accepting orders for the AirPods Max on Tuesday, but they won’t be in stores until Dec. 15.
The announcement of the long-rumored headphones caps one of Apple’s busiest autumns in years, despite a pandemic that has kept most of its engineers at home to help fight the spread of the novel coronavirus. Since September, Apple has rolled out its next generation of smartwatches, four new iPhones and Mac computers that will run on its own internally designed processors instead of chips made by Intel.
Some of the new products have included lower-priced options likely to appeal to consumers struggling to make ends meet during a pandemic-driven recession that many experts may worsen in the U.S. without more financial aid from Congress to help support the economy until vaccines are widely distributed.
But the AirPods Max are clearly intended for Apple’s more affluent customers looking for the best in acoustics. The over-the-ear headphones are aiming to expand upon the popularity of the wireless ear buds that Apple first released four years ago after eliminating the headphone jack from its iPhones. The in-ear AirPods sell for $159 to $249.
Apple overestimated how much its loyal fans are willing to pay for high-quality sound when it released its internet-connected speaker, the HomePod, in 2018. The HomePod originally cost $349, far more than other internet-connected speakers from Amazon and Google. Apple eventually reduced the HomePod to $299 and last month released a smaller version of the speaker that sells for $99.
(AP)
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3 Responses
I don’t buy Apple headphones anymore. I bought multiple pairs of Beats and Airpods, and none of them worked for more than a couple of months. We have Apple Care (which we pay for) and they do replace them, but what a pain in the neck.
In fact, we have never had a pair of Apple headphones that did NOT break. I once bought three sets of Beats for my daughters, and all three sets lasted a couple of months and then broke the same week as each other. Coincidence?
Fast forward to today. I have been buying the cheap knockoffs on Amazon. I was not looking to save money, but aggravation. And guess what? They all work. Months later, the cheap headphones all still work. Good-bye Apple.
“Apple overestimated how much its loyal fans are willing to pay for high-quality sound when it released its internet-connected speaker, the HomePod, in 2018.”
No, I think Apple overestimated our loyalty, after having that loyalty be met with inferior products for far too long.
Apple “fanboys’ [and fangirls} will pay anything for Apple products. Its sort of like paying a gazillion dollars for a Calabrian esrog just to be mehader mitzvah (along with being mehader your own ego ). At some point, product quality begins to be a factor as well as functionality. When subway riders began dropping the early vintage Apple earbuds on subway tracks (and some risking their lives to recover them rather than pay the replacement costs) some began to question their “investments” and go for Brand X which worked as well and cost 1/5 to replace.