Go to the profile of Omar Jalalzada
Omar Jalalzada
Product Designer
And now, by exploiting that same relationship, Apple is doing it again: offering a sexy fashion statement, an expensive luxury item, an entertainment accessory, which will usher in the era of voice-controlled intimate computing. Apple won’t sell the AirPods by enumerating their tech specs but by evoking an emotional, aspirational response—which is an approach vividly different from nearly anything else that comes out Silicon Valley’s burgeoning nerdtopia.
Why Silicon Valley is all wrong about Apple’s AirPods
Chris Messina
4.8K367

Fun read!

Apple has always aspired to design their products with human’s emotional response in mind. If its a phone, tablet or a PC tower. But IMHO the AirPods are not sexy enough to be considered a jewelry or a fashion statement. They are “OK” looking (it bugs me that the cylinder shape ends abruptly, feels unnatural). That being said, all Apple *branded* products does have their own sex appeal, gravitas and act as a status symbol.

I think of Airpod’s true values in three categories:

  1. Fixing Bluetooth. Apple’s approach gave new life to how Bluetooth devices should work. Pairing and charging has been the biggest pain points but Apple took care of both with a charging pod and effortless connectivity. Oh and seamless switching between devices! fixing another huge pain point. Even my mom can use these bad boys… and thats saying something. (love ya mum)
  2. A voice input to tomorrow’s voice activated technologies. I’m looking forward to how this integrates with Home Kit. Or when Apple launches a 3G enabled watch, you can potentially complete most of your mundane tasks using Siri + Pods + Watch combo.
  3. Sitting right next to your noggin, there is the potential of adding sensors in these pods. More sensors (including the watch sensors on your wrist) can very accurately monitor almost all the activities in your body. That’ll be the perfect Health Kit.

As you kind of mentioned, Apple thinks ahead. In small and super cycles. Every current decision has some application in 1 or 2 years from now. So I’m really excited to see how this little device integrates itself in the Apple ecosystem.

So I’ll conclude by saying: Apple is a technology company that makes really sexy products which makes you feel almighty fabulous. :) But still a technology company.