[OJFord]

Successful for the business no doubt, but they are an example of 'par with the rest of the industry' aren't they? Nothing market leading about them (except perhaps the price, heh) and not the first in the category, just one of a bunch of good options.

[audunw]

Nothing market leading about AirPods? I find it telling that it’s one of the only Apple products that LTT Linus is using, despite not working as well with Android as with iOS. And they have around 30% market share in their product category

[OJFord]

You find it telling that some YouTube 'influencer' uses Airpods? You only noticed because of Apple's distinctive white branding, they have market leading marketing, I'll give you that!

[joseda-hg]

Not GP, but I also find it telling that Influencer with a free pick at any sound equipment at any price point, famously not super onboard with the ecosystem (Bar recently with the Neo) still does pick them

Linus is not an audiophile by any means, but he's also exposed to more and better equipment than even most of the already significant outliers in HN

[basisword]

Their ability to connect and move between devices is 100x better than any competitor. They were also the first to make truly wireless earphones that didn't suck. Judging it now, when the market has finally caught up in most areas doesn't make sense.

[dahauns]

>Their ability to connect and move between devices is 100x better than any competitor.

This statement only has any merit if your usage pattern is 100% limited to Apple devices, otherwise it falls apart.

It would be fine if they fell back to "at least as good as the competition" in a mixed use case, but in the mixed case they are worse than what even low-budget BT buds often offer (no BT Multipoint, no ear recognition, etc., hell, not even a battery level over BT...and even pairing/reconnect is often a crapshoot reminiscent of the state of BT Audio 10-15 years ago). It was honestly a really disappointing realization.

[abujazar]

I have no problems using my AirPods across two Macs, an iPhone and Windows. I have to manually reconnect on Windows if I have an active Apple device nearby which I recently used the AirPods with, but apart from that it's quite seamless. This worked fine in 2020 already.

[dahauns]

How is having to manually reconnect each time when switching between, say, an IPhone and a Windows laptop every time fine or even remotely seamless?

I do not have to that even with my ~30€ JBL buds.

[joseda-hg]

> Judging it now, when the market has finally caught up in most areas doesn't make sense.

Why? Why should we consider an advantage that doesn't exist anymore?

[basisword]

Because we're judging innovation. At the time it was innovative.

[Kon5ole]

Less space than a nomad? ;-)

IMO the airpods vs the rest of the industry is kinda like the iphone vs blackberry.