Apple’s Airpods: A Step Away from the Screen

At Apple’s recent WWDC conference last week, the company announced the new fleet of iPhones — the iPhone 7 and the IPhone 7s. And — big surprise — these two models do away with the traditional auxiliary head phone jack. Although you can still plug in headphones through the “lighting” port of your iPhone, the move signals Apple’s industry-defining transition into wireless audio, supported by their new product “Apple Airpods”. Both the removal of the headphone jack and the announcement of Airpods have been a major targets of media criticism — causing many people to say apple is losing their vision and originality. Airpods (priced at 129) have even been subjected to meme treatment…

While I agree the price tag is a bit much, Airpods aren’t what they appear to be at first glance. While a first impression the product can come across as an apple version of the classic Bluetooth headset — the unofficial trademark of the slimed smooth talking business man — the earpiece actually is the first ear computer. These earbuds are as much headphones as the iPhone was a phone [add link]. Beneath the familiar exterior is a Apple’s first wireless chip (the W1), voice accelerometer, optical sensors, and a focus noise-cancelling beam-microphone. Although these things are under-the-hood and prefer not to be discussed by mass-media-criticism, they allow for some incredible improvements that will pave the way for the Apple’s future — and with Siri’s help make the entire computing experience more human.

First, the W1 chip — with the help of the iCloud — allows for seamless integration between devices. Gone are the days of restless and frustrating bluetooth pairing. The chip makes the airpods automatically moves between the devices to provide audio from whatever you would like — from your watch, to your phone, to your computer. This may just seem like a feature, but with Siri as the backbone for all apple devices (and Siri becoming open to developers in iOS 10) the airpod becomes the quiet connector between all of apples ecosystem, freeing the user from hardware through an in-ear personal assistant.

This decision is important to recognize, and appreciate, as the next wave of the User Interface is approaches. Augmented reality. With company’s like magic leap, meta, and Hololens (all valued 500+ mil and up) developing the AR headsets — Augmented Reality, overlaying digital information and interface over your real world view (think google glass, but good) — its critically important to not develop an experience just for the sake of being “new”. While it may look cool to have your directions to a destination show up as digital hovering arrows above the road, it may not be the best way to display that information. When it comes down to it, many of the interactions and interfaces made theatrical in AR are still best suited, and most fluid, as a conversation.

With apple’s rumored R&D into the AR space, and Tim Cook quoted saying they are “high on AR in the long run”, predicting “it will be huge”, the company — which has always valued user-experience above all — seems to have found that the audio interface is a critical supplement to AR, and all future technologies for that matter. While the past 20 years have been a mad dash of developing new devices as singular products, focused on specs and hardware performance — the next 20 will hopefully be about connecting all of them, and getting them to disappear to behind our lives, assisting us when necessary and fading away when not. With this vision in mind, the Airpods are much more than another bluetooth headphone, they are a step away from the confines of the screen and in the right direction.