3 Reasons Why AirPods Made It
A lot of people know and have heard about AirPods, they are basically everywhere we look around us, at any given point you can look around and see at-least one or two people using AirPods. We’re going to take a quick look into why AirPods made it, as opposed to other wireless headphone devices.
- Psychological
AirPods are cool, they’re the new big thing and the first sleek and good-looking attempt at wireless headphones. It was pretty similar to how the first iPod touch came out, before that, there weren’t really any good devices touch-screen devices that you could use to play music, game, etc. Ideas were already there, but no one executed it as well, or had the resources to pull it off.
Their marketing campaigns were so successful and showed off the product so well that it really launched Apple into fame, and as such, any new product that came out would be renowned for their perfection. Apple has developed this brand of simplicity and coolness that just drives everyone to buy a product. As such, when AirPods came out, people were raving to buy them and try them out, even if they were mediocre products, they were attached to the Apple brand, so there was just almost a requirement for people who loved Apple to buy it.
Even today, users of the AirPods laugh as knock-off companies make off-brands of AirPods that are bigger or bulkier, but still look like AirPods, as they couldn’t afford the real thing, almost like a gate-keeping ordeal. Personally, I have had friends joke around with my wireless headphones, which aren’t like AirPods, saying “Hands up, this is the AirPod police” and all. This is the kind of loyalty that Apple is going for, a brand they’ve developed where consumers will always choose AirPods.
2. Execution and Design
Just like already mentioned, the idea was already there to create the product, but no one had executed it as it could have been, and any product created never lived up to the full potential. When Apple came by and steam-rolled the market, they did so almost flagrantly. Yet, they did it with reason, they spent the time to engineer and create a product that fit seamlessly in your ear, like you could just put it in there and forget about it! It wasn’t built for an audiophile, but for the average consumer! That’s why the sound quality is mediocre, and the noise-cancellation isn’t great. Imagine if someone starts talking to you or calls your name and you couldn’t hear them because you’re wearing really good noise-cancelling headphones, that doesn’t happen with AirPods, that was it’s intent.
Yet with pros, there come cons. Even though the AirPods are built for the common user, they aren’t very well water-proofed. They also break or damage very easily, because of their small size. On top of that, they’re also super easy to lose if you aren’t paying attention, which for someone like me, where my attention to needs to move fast from one subject to the next quickly. In the end, usually these cons don’t matter to most people, because the Psychological Brand that Apple has created is what trumps other reasons.
3. Realization
Every now and then, it seems like technology just gets better and better to the point that it cannot get any better anymore. This was happening a little bit with Apple. Their phones got so good and were so up to date with Technology that it almost started to make sense to not release a phone every year anymore. In other words, it wasn’t worth buying a new phone cause there wasn’t anything new, it was getting stale. However, they were already two steps ahead, while they started to realize it could only get so good, they started to work and develop accessories for the iPhone, like the AirPods and the Apple Watch. These are new smart devices that are only just being developed, and by realizing that they could start here, and develop new generations and iterations of the devices every year, they could keep the Apple iPhone line fresh, updating watches and AirPods along with the iPhone and creating software updates that would work in conjunction with these devices. This way, the iPhone has become less of a main-line item, but the accessories have now become the big deal. They are also rumored to be working on stuff like Apple Smart Glasses, autonomous cars, etc. They know they can’t just stick with the phone industry forever, they’ve got to realize and see new markets and opportunities as they come, and that’s what they’re doing to build the brand further and connect the world further.
