$79 for the wireless charging case. Apple is effing crazy. I picked up a case at the local Apple reseller for $30. I could see paying more if it offered more and still the sound quality of the AirPods is fair to partly cloudy. But to each his or her own.
Well, if you look at the price difference, it's actually $40; when AirPods originally came out, it was $69 to replace the plug-in case, so their pricing is at least consistent. Whether being able to charge your AirPods wirelessly is worth that much of a premium is up to you; it's at least nice that they make the case available separately.
These strike me as a bit of an evolutionary upgrade to the AirPods. The W1 chip was revolutionary, the H1 chip is just better. Many people use AirPods primarily for listening and don't talk much so the additional talk time is nice, but not much use for them. It kind of strikes me like an 's' upgrade for the phones. If you're getting AirPods anyway then the newer ones are nicer. If you already have AirPods that work fine it's probably not worth the money to upgrade. The article doesn't mention if you can buy just the AirPods separately. If you have a pair that's aging and don't care about the wireless case, it would be nice to be able to get just the AirPods.
I agree that it's puzzling that the article doesn't comment on sound quality since that is the primary purpose of AirPods - making sound.
Kinda hard to do that without listening to them. Apple’s marketing dept isn’t going to say “20% better audio” or anything like that.
$79 for the wireless charging case. Apple is effing crazy. I picked up a case at the local Apple reseller for $30. I could see paying more if it offered more and still the sound quality of the AirPods is fair to partly cloudy. But to each his or her own.
These strike me as a bit of an evolutionary upgrade to the AirPods. The W1 chip was revolutionary, the H1 chip is just better. Many people use AirPods primarily for listening and don't talk much so the additional talk time is nice, but not much use for them. It kind of strikes me like an 's' upgrade for the phones. If you're getting AirPods anyway then the newer ones are nicer. If you already have AirPods that work fine it's probably not worth the money to upgrade. The article doesn't mention if you can buy just the AirPods separately. If you have a pair that's aging and don't care about the wireless case, it would be nice to be able to get just the AirPods.
Iterative product development, at Apple? You don't say... Gruber wrote about this almost a decade ago.
Anyway, I doubt very many people are going to spontaneously upgrade their AirPods, until the time comes that the batteries are depleted. Which is about 2-years of frequent daily use, judging by my pair and all the recent articles on the same. Then, when the time is right to get another pair, the even-more-polished product will be even nicer.
My AirPods 1 are still going strong despite being gnawed on several times by my toddler and several head-height drops... so I’ll probably wait for a more significant upgrade. Personally, wireless charging of the case out-of-the-box isn’t a major “want” at all. I’ve yet to run the case down to near-depleted.
My personal bet is the black matte version will release at or close to the same time as a newer iPhone, which possibly could have a similar color-coating to make them less slippery as well. Would be nice for a fall 2019 release but I could wait until 2020 or even 2021 since my launch iPhone X is just fine and the A12X in my iPad Pro’s have proved to me that the 2018 iPhones- and possibly this years iPhone’s, won’t have anything significant for me to upgrade.
What I’m really wishing for sooner rather than later is an upgrade to my ‘17 MBP15 that has an e-sim! Maybe when 5G becomes ubiquitous?
Almost forgot: I wonder what Apple will do when it comes time for me to perform a “battery replacement” on my AirPods 1? If I wait long enough for their inventory to clear out, perhaps they will replace them with the new H1 variant???
$79 for the wireless charging case. Apple is effing crazy. I picked up a case at the local Apple reseller for $30. I could see paying more if it offered more and still the sound quality of the AirPods is fair to partly cloudy. But to each his or her own.
You picked up a proper functioning and Fitting made by Apple wireless charging case for $30.00, when the case and AirPod refresh happened yesterday ? Either your full of shit, or you need to return that stolen merchandise hahaha come on...
Outstanding!... My first generation were really getting tired, down to about an hour battery life, less if on the phone. Black would have been nice, but I'll take 'em! Ordered
Devices that are throw-away simply because the batteries are dying really irk me.
Apple really should address this kind of waste.
Totally agree - it would have been really nice if they had some means of making a cap that you could unscrew at the end of the post to replace the battery. Having a high-end device like AirPods that is designed to throw away in 3 years with no other options (and limited to no options for recycling) is poor design.
How do you know that Apple won't properly recycle or dispose of them if you give to Apple?
With ever smaller wearables (which are very element resistant), do you really expect to have a replaceable battery? Its one thing to say "wouldn't it be great if", vs "Apple is so bad for not doing this"...that no one else can do...
$79 for the wireless charging case. Apple is effing crazy. I picked up a case at the local Apple reseller for $30. I could see paying more if it offered more and still the sound quality of the AirPods is fair to partly cloudy. But to each his or her own.
You picked up a proper functioning and Fitting made by Apple wireless charging case for $30.00, when the case and AirPod refresh happened yesterday ? Either your full of shit, or you need to return that stolen merchandise hahaha come on...
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https://www.macworld.com/article/1151235/macs/apple-rolls.html
Anyway, I doubt very many people are going to spontaneously upgrade their AirPods, until the time comes that the batteries are depleted. Which is about 2-years of frequent daily use, judging by my pair and all the recent articles on the same. Then, when the time is right to get another pair, the even-more-polished product will be even nicer.
My personal bet is the black matte version will release at or close to the same time as a newer iPhone, which possibly could have a similar color-coating to make them less slippery as well. Would be nice for a fall 2019 release but I could wait until 2020 or even 2021 since my launch iPhone X is just fine and the A12X in my iPad Pro’s have proved to me that the 2018 iPhones- and possibly this years iPhone’s, won’t have anything significant for me to upgrade.
What I’m really wishing for sooner rather than later is an upgrade to my ‘17 MBP15 that has an e-sim! Maybe when 5G becomes ubiquitous?
With ever smaller wearables (which are very element resistant), do you really expect to have a replaceable battery? Its one thing to say "wouldn't it be great if", vs "Apple is so bad for not doing this"...that no one else can do...
Third party...