What you need to know
- A new report from Wired goes behind the scenes of AirPods.
- Apple's Greg Joswiak talks about the runaway success of the wireless headphones.
- The report also dives into how Apple created the fit of the headphones.
Apple's AirPods are one of the company's runaway successes. A new report from Wired takes us behind the scenes and talks about how AirPods took over the world.
Greg Joswiak, Apple's Vice President of Product Marketing, says that the company did not expect its most recent headphones, the AirPods Pro, to take off as quickly as they did.
"It was almost like wildfire how quickly it spread ... It's done even better than we could ever imagine."
According to Joswiak, Apple has been thinking about a completely wireless future for a long time, and wireless headphones became an obvious step for the iPhone.
"(We) had a vision for our wireless future for many years ... We had this incredible wireless product, the iPhone ... And yet, what began to feel odd is when you saw somebody using wired headphones. Right then you thought, why would you attach the wire?"
The design and fit of the AirPods align with Apple's EarPods, which the company spent years in research to provide a fit that would work for as much of the population as they could. With AirPods Pro, they took it even further, and, with the inclusion of three different interchangeable tips, the headphones now fit "an overwhelming percentage of the worldwide population."
"We had done work with Stanford to 3D-scan hundreds of different ears and ear styles and shapes in order to make a design that would work as a one-size solution across a broad set of the population ... With AirPods Pro, we took that research further – studied more ears, more ear types. And that enabled us to develop a design that, along with the three different tip sizes, works across an overwhelming percentage of the worldwide population."
Just today, a new rumor has surfaced that claims Apple's upcoming over-the-ear headphones will be called "AirPods Studio". The company is also expected to be working on new generations of the AirPods and AirPods Pro with possible release dates in 2021.
