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Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls AirPods 'a Runaway Success' (cnbc.com) 214

Posted by msmash from the runway-success dept.
It turns out the $159 AirPods Bluetooth earphones are selling well, or so CEO Tim Cook would have us believed. Cook dropped by the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday while on vacation, and talked about the AirPods sales. From a report on CNBC: In comments to CNBC, Cook declined to talk specifically on Apple's outlook, but he said it has been a "great holiday." He added that the company's new wireless earbuds, AirPods, are "a runaway success." When asked if more would come into stock, he said Apple's "making them just as fast as we can." AirPods debuted at September's splashy event, but saw shipping delays through most of the fall and finally hit shelves just days before the crucial Christmas shopping rush. The limited shipments were sold quickly -- ship dates are now six weeks out on Apple's website.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls AirPods 'a Runaway Success' More

Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls AirPods 'a Runaway Success'

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  • Slashdot's editing process is working well (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spy Handler ( 822350 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @01:44PM (#53566591) Homepage Journal

    or so Taco would have us believed.

  • Yeah, as in... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BronsCon ( 927697 ) <social@bronstrup.com> on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @01:44PM (#53566597) Journal
    They literally run away from your ear so you have to buy another pair.

  • Apple's recent performance: Let's review (Score:5, Insightful)

    by popo ( 107611 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @01:46PM (#53566615) Homepage

    1) iPad Pro: Meh.
    2) Apple Watch: Meh.
    3) MBP 2016: Meh
    4) iPhone 7: Meh
    5) Airpods?

    I'm going to go with "Meh".

    • Re:Apple's recent performance: Let's review (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lgw ( 121541 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @01:55PM (#53566669) Journal

      Courage!

      Apple took away the headphone jack, and now $160 headphones are selling quite well? I can certainly believe that. I can believe it's the only reason they removed the headphone jack. I can believe that no matter how badly Apple treats it's faithful, they'll just keep giving Apple money.

      • So bad (Score:1, Insightful)

        by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

        Apple took away the headphone jack

        Or you could, you know, use the adaptor included WITH EVERY iPHONE...

        I can believe that no matter how badly Apple treats it's faithful

        Yes, giving people free adaptors is certainly "treating them badly", right up there with setting your pants on fire with a defective phone. Wait, pants on fire, that phrase... it reminds me of you somehow... hmm.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by eddy ( 18759 )

          Free adaptors? Where do I go to get my free adaptors? I'll take 100.

          Maybe you meant something other than 'free'?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by lgw ( 121541 )

          And yet people are shilling out that $160 for the upsell. Probably because it's annoying to juggle a dongle just to listen to music on your phone.

          I should start a betting pool on the next port eliminated. Though I think it ends with no ports at all: wireless charging, Bluetooth, and courage.

          • And yet some people like Bluetooth (Score:5, Insightful)

            by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @02:25PM (#53566851)

            And yet people are shilling out that $160 for the upsell.

            SOME people are paying that because they like bluetooth headphones.

            I don't; I just use the headphones included in the box. You know, the wired ones that plug directly into the phone? I have a set of noise canceling headphones too; I just leave the adaptor on that set, so to me there's no difference as I just grab a set of headphones and plug them into the phone.

            What is your damage hating on people who like wireless headsets? They could use anyone else's you know, not just Apple's - as usual the Apple ones are just really well designed and so some people chose to buy them even though they are expensive.

            • What is your damage hating on people who like wireless headsets?

              It is legitimising the reduction in choice to the wider community. No one is criticising people who use bluetooth headphones. Everyone is criticising people who buy bluetooth headphones because the must has iPhone 7 needs them and the prophet has spoken.

              I want these to be a huge failure for Apple for no other reason than as a non-Apple customer I'm afraid for my future choice on other platforms.

              • It is legitimising the reduction in choice to the wider community.

                WHAT REDUCTION OF CHOICE????

                You can use any headphone made with an iPhone seven, right out of the box.

                Come on.

                who buy bluetooth headphones because the must has iPhone 7 needs them

                I don't use Bluetooth headphones with an iPhone 7 because IT DOES NOT NEED THEM.

                I want these to be a huge failure for Apple

                Who is so retarded that they care if a COMPANY lives or dies? That is sick and you are a sick person for wishing failure on anyone. Do you k

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by lucm ( 889690 )

                  WHAT REDUCTION OF CHOICE????

                  You can use any headphone made with an iPhone seven, right out of the box.

                  This one made me chuckle.

      • Considering the quality of bluetooth headphones I've seen, these $160 AirPods deliver worse sound than 1.20PLN ($0.28) wired buds I saw in a kiosk.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by GNious ( 953874 )

          Try Bragi's "The Headphones", or "The Dash" - I have the latter, been quite pleased overall with audio-quality

        • Bluetooth supports a number of codecs, but most of the cheap ones only support extremely lossy formats.

          I think the airpods support AAC for digital transmission - and if the music you're listening to is already in that format, you might not have any additional quality loss. If you have lossless audio files, the difference might not be all that noticeable.

          • But why would I want to lossily encode something then decode it back if a dumb piece of wire can transfer that without any quality loss? The end result is that $0.28 buds deliver better sound than $160 ones, don't suffer from downtime due to charging, require no extra attachments to ensure they don't get lost, need no expensive connectors to any standard gear, and so on.

            So a $0.28 product is already better from any side than a $160 one. And, you know, I can pay a bit more than $0.28 to have any quality

      • re: Apple EarPods and "no headphone jack" (Score:5, Informative)

        by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @02:49PM (#53566987) Journal

        I think what many people aren't aware of (because Apple sure doesn't go to any effort to market it) is that the new Bluetooth EarPods use a proprietary "W2" chip which adds a number of proprietary extensions to the Bluetooth standards.

        The iPhone 7 has the W2 chip functionality embedded in it for any devices able to support it, and defaults back to standard Bluetooth support for everything else.

        The additional W2 functionality is supposed to address some of the glitches and hassles inherent in regular Bluetooth headsets and provide a better experience.

        If you're a customer who prefers using wireless Bluetooth headsets with a cellphone to begin with (and MANY people I know do), the EarPods and iPhone 7 combo promises one of the better usability experiences you can get out that combo today. Yes, it may be at the expense of giving you a traditional headphone jack. But how much that matters to you really does depend on your use case.

        • Re: Apple EarPods and "no headphone jack" (Score:5, Insightful)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @06:27PM (#53568177) Homepage Journal

          The W2 chip isn't going to help at all with the two biggest flaws in the earpods:

          1. Crap battery life
          2. Easily lost

          The only thing you can do about the battery life is remember to turn them off and carry the charging case around with you. Preventing loss will no doubt create a market for expensive bits of string to tie them together. Might as well just have had a band and stuck a bigger battery in it, solving both problems and costing a fraction as much.

          Apple seems to love these anti-features. 0.01mm thinner phone so you can wrap it in a chunky case for protection and it will still bend in your pocket. Take away the headphone jack because ha ha fuck you, chump.

          • Any battery operated device is going to run out of battery.

            Any earbuds are easily lost. I lost my Bose QC20s. It's because they are small, not because they are Apple products.

        • Fantastic. What's better than forcing bluetooth on customers? Forcing fragmentation into the market place with a proprietary standard in devices. Who doesn't love this company.

      • I own Bluetooth earbuds. They cost me $25CDN on Amazon. I like them a lot.

        I own an iPhone 6.

        Apple owners don't NEED to buy the apple earbuds if they don't want to. There are plenty of cheap options. If people are buying these, it's because they think they're worth the money. (For completely wireless earbudsâ"without a cable connecting both sidesâ"they're actually price and feature competitive, in addition to being easier to pair. There's no such thing as cheap earbuds in this category.)

    • 1) iPad Pro: Meh. 2) Apple Watch: Meh. 3) MBP 2016: Meh 4) iPhone 7: Meh 5) Airpods?

      I'm going to go with "Meh".

      Less bass than over-the-ear phones. Wireless. Lame.

    • 1) iPad Pro: Meh. 2) Apple Watch: Meh. 3) MBP 2016: Meh 4) iPhone 7: Meh 5) Airpods?

      I'm going to go with "Meh".

      That's unfair, the MacBook Pro is doing really well [google.com].

      • That's unfair, the MacBook Pro is doing really well [google.com].

        Doesn't matter. The haters make up their own reality where everything Apple sells is crap, and people only buy it because they are somehow hypnotized by the shiny. I predicted that the average user will be quite happy with their iPhone 7, and won't care about the jack. I predicted that the average user will be quite happy with the new MacBook, and don't care that it's not cutting edge enough. No matter what Apple creates or sells, or how well it sells, the complaints are the same. So no, reality doesn'

        • Doesn't matter. The haters make up their own reality where everything Apple sells is crap, and people only buy it because they are somehow hypnotized by the shiny. I predicted that the average user will be quite happy with their iPhone 7, and won't care about the jack. I predicted that the average user will be quite happy with the new MacBook, and don't care that it's not cutting edge enough. No matter what Apple creates or sells, or how well it sells, the complaints are the same. So no, reality doesn't matter.

          At some point it will catch up. For instance, I'm likely going to get the new Macbook Pro via my company. But I wouldn't pay for it myself and I'm already considering what machine to jump I might jump ship to in two or three years time if Apple continue as they are.

    • 0) iPod: No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

    • Airports aren't so much "meh" as they are "WTF Where did they go. Hey guys I dropped a small white thing!"

    • 1. Make a new iPhone without headphone jack
      2. Make new Bluetooth headphones
      3. Profit!

  • Runaway (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @01:47PM (#53566623) Journal

    Sell a car without a steering wheel (or with an awkward extension bar), then sell the steering wheel later at a premium and claim "our steering wheels are a huge success!"

  • Because for the price of these earbuds one can buy a decent ... smartphone and wired earbuds which won't sound any worse.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )

      Decent smartphone for $150. you are hilarious.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by harrkev ( 623093 )

        Well, halfway-decent for $150. My smartphone has a $35 128GB micro-SD card in it with my entire music library, and a big chunk of my movie library in it, with about 40GB to spare. How much would 128GB cost you from Apple?

        The sole reason that Apple exists is because some people don't care about price -- it is all about status. That is why nearly every single case for a iPhone has a cut-out in the back so that the Apple logo always shows. Fanboys would hate it if they pulled out their iPhone and nobody no

        • Getting into Apple v. PC fights is a little 80s, but I really dislike this line of thought for cell phones. All the flagship phones sell for around the same price, and if you keep cell phones for two years they all amortize to about $1/day, for something people use ALL THE TIME.

          Even if iPhones were an extra 15%, why cheap out on something that you are constantly using?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        Times have changed. A $150 phone is going to do everything the average user wants, and more, without a problem.

        I picked up one for less than that a few months back so my wife could use it in place of her phone (used heavily for work) for music, games, social media, etc. It's worked out incredibly well. Her important phone stays charged and her work and fun are completely separated. She couldn't be happier.

        If you have kids, you'll find that even sub-$50 phones can do everything they want and more without

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by lucm ( 889690 )

          Times have changed. A $150 phone is going to do everything the average user wants, and more, without a problem.

          This is correct. My main phone is a $150 Moto G (factory unlocked) and I can't see a difference when I compare with more expensive devices. Built-in storage is small but it has a sd card slot so it doesn't matter. Fully encrypted, good battery life, good gps, good wifi.

          I'm not a mobile phone gamer though, so I can't tell if would work for everyone, but it does everything for me perfectly, including watching netflix or streaming it to ChromeCast. Camera is decent (a lot better than iPhone one) but the device

      • CUBOT Cell Phones [amazon.com] - all less than $150. Many Xiaomi models including their competitors Oppo and Vivo have numerous models in the $50 - $150 price range. My own phone, a Xiaomi 2015 model (with microSD) [aliexpress.com] is still about $150.

  • He's the CEO of Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @02:06PM (#53566753)

    Maybe they're popular, maybe they aren't... but what else is the CEO going to say?

  • Rubaway success (Score:3)

    by Anomalyst ( 742352 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @02:12PM (#53566783)
    How many runaways have the money to purchase an apple product?

  • Misleading? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @02:25PM (#53566855) Journal
    Are they selling well because they're great, or are they selling well because people don't have much of a choice, with no headphone jack? I'm not an Apple guy nor am I an Apple hater, but this seems almost as disingenuous as Microsoft bragging about Windows 10 'adoption rate' when they fooled, lied, tricked, or literally forced their way onto people's computers. False news much?
    • If only I had mod points left.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      > Are they selling well because they're great, or are they selling well because people don't have much of a choice, with no headphone jack?

      iPhone 7 comes with an adapter to attach your standard headphones to the lightning jack.
      iPhone 7 comes with a set of headphones that attach directly to the lightning jack.
      iPhone 7 works fine with standard bluetooth stuff that works everywhere else

      The actual answer is this: they are selling well because *they are novel* and because *they are Apple*. Each earpiece bein

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If you aren't an apple hater you clearly don't know much about the issue. It is completely unnecessary to buy Air Pods and its only the idiots on this message board, which are presumably shills or Android fanbois, that are making it seem like you have no other choices.

      You have three other choices, all of which are better:

      1) Use lightning wired headphones (INCLUDED WITH ALL PHONES)
      2) Use regular headphones with the adapter (ALSO INCLUDED WITH ALL PHONES)
      3) Buy *third-party* Bluetooth headphones for $10+ (or

      • Yeah, never mind that it's inconvenient and can't be used with anything else. By comparison, if I have a $0.25 adapter, I can use my normal headphones with basically every headphone jack made in the last 50 years.

    • To be fair, the new iPhone comes with standard bluetooth so you can use whichever wireless headphones you want. There's a lot of wireless headphones that are a lot cheaper and better sounding than the AirPods. Also, you could use ear buds that were included in the box. And last but not least, you could buy the dongle and use whatever wired headphones you want with the iPhone. There are a lot of other alternatives for people who don't want to shell out $160 for the AirPods.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      In other news, Tim Cook was overheard stating: "The customer beatings will continue until morale improves". Next version of iPhone was rumored to remove the charge port, instead placing hand-crank.

    • Are they selling well because they're great, or are they selling well because people don't have much of a choice, with no headphone jack?

      Well, there are/were two choices: buy a more practical phone or use the adapter.

    • You know that other Bluetooth headphones exist, right? Apple even sells other models in their own stores. I have a $25 pair that I've owned for a year that I like a lot, that I use with my iPhone 6.

      If you search for Bluetooth earbuds on Amazon, you're buried in choice. If AirPods are selling wellâ"and right now we have to take Cook at his word, as the CEO of Appleâ"it's not because people just can't find anything else.

  • Proof positive that Apple fanboys will buy literally anything Apple puts up for sale, no matter how inane it is.

  • Nope nope nope (Score:5, Informative)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @04:00PM (#53567349) Journal

    "It turns out the $159 AirPods Bluetooth earphones are selling well, or so CEO Tim Cook would have us believed."

    I didn't believed it then and I don't believed it now.

    Editing faux pas aside, the only thing they've been a "success" at is 1) making Apple mo' money and 2) locking users into ever-more-expensive gadgets that cannot be repaired.

    iFixit gives the Apple AirPods a '0' out of 10 on the repairability scale, also known as the "worst possible score achievable". In other words, they can't be repaired, period. It appears that even Apple can't repair them, which is kind of amazing when you consider that they're the ones who built the fucking things.

    AirPods make iPads look positively consumer-friendly in terms of service, and we all know what a total shit show it is to open an iPad....

    • Did you actually look at how much stuff is IN those things? Even without the glue, I suspect they'd score a 1 or 2 tops. Those are incredibly specialised parts; I don't know what anyone would even be able to break without annihilating them entirely, let alone repairing them.

      • Did you actually look at how much stuff is IN those things?

        Yep, it's some amazing engineering but we all know that they could have made the battery assembly removable so the batteries could be replaced.

        A simple bit of screw threading or some clever twist-n-turn lock would make that possible...but we can't have that, now can we? Letting people or a repair shop replace the batteries wouldn't be courageous.

  • I'm sure we need no further proof, since Cook says so. I'm sure Bill Gates nor Steve Balmer said anything positive about Windows ME or Vista shortly after their releases.

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