Airpods were handed to Cook on a platter, honestly. It doesn't take a market savant to realize apple can make a killing selling the ever popular and sexy earpod in bluetooth form. Once the battery technology was available to resell the same earpod but with bluetooth it would have been made no matter who was CEO.
In retrospect, every invention is obvious. I think it's fair to say that Apple went a bit beyond just slapping bluetooth onto their existing headphones. The instant pairing experience alone makes them stand out against the standard competition.
I remember the release and all of the reddit and HN comments were to the tune of “this is stupid” “you’ll lose them” “they look dumb” “now I have to buy a cable to connect the two”
The idea that you could have two, disconnected pods seems to have been quite bold.
iPhone was handed to Jobs on a platter, honestly. It doesn't take a market savant to realize apple can make a killing selling the ever popular and sexy iPod in touchscreen form. Once the battery technology was available to resell the same iPod but with cellular it would have been made no matter who was CEO.
If you have a case that Tim Cook in particular made the unilateral call on the airpod and not market pressure from samsung and others in this product segment, then lets hear it out.
It looks like so obvious in retrospect, but it wasn't sure. Bluetooth audio was somewhat a niche until Apple removed 3.5mm.
Maybe noise cancelling boom is another reason. NC also requires battery and amp so why don't make it wireless? IIRC until Sony MDR-1000X sold well (that's sold in 2016, same year as iPhone 7!), noise cancelling market was minor Bose's market for airplane user.
“When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.”
