[emcq]

It feels like we are seeing the result of diminishing returns with technology advancement.

To make a product that Apple believes is significantly better than the competition they had to design a very intricate solution that includes:

* High end look and feel not similar to the bulk of their products with lots of textile webbing and memory foam ear cups. These get way more wear and tear than normal electronics being exposed to sweat, sunscreen, etc. On top of that these must be safe for long skin exposure and comfortable across many head shapes and sizes. * High quality magnets with custom speaker design for low THD and large frequency range. * 2 custom ASICs built for sound processing and low power bluetooth and 10 audio cores each. * 10 microphone array for ANC and wind noise cancelation. * Multiple accelerometers + gyros head tracking with spatial audio.

It you remove one of those components, I'd be surprised if Apple still shipped this. At least 40 people worked on designing and engineering this new headphone. There are not many companies in the world with the right kind of talent for this and Apple happens to be one of them.

[enos_feedler]

I don't understand the point you are trying to make. You lead with a statement that sounds like disappointment, but then build up to the engineering complexity involved. What are you trying to say? That this doesn't add up to a great product? How long have you been using them for?

[birdyrooster]

I think the parent commenter is saying that in order to make a superior product these days, you need an extraordinary amount of investment for R&D which can only be made up by selling it at volumes that someone like Apple can achieve. I think their comment is about bang for your engineering buck.

[0x1F8B]

I don't know how you read a negative or judgmental tone into that comment... GP is basically saying that consumer technology has advanced to the point where you need large teams doing complicated or deeply technical (and somewhat incremental) improvements on existing technologies.

It's not a judgment on the product. It's just a lament that the days of individuals or small companies innovating in the consumer electronics space are (long?) over.

[mcdevilkiller]

I think GP means that in the near future, significant tech advancements will only be able to be done by the tech giants.

[mempko]

I think he means headphone tech is already complex and they needed to raise complexity a lot, lets say 10x to get something that maybe has 1.2x better sound. At least that's what I understood. In other words, you get diminishing returns.

[auraham]

I understood the comment like you. After reading the thread, I got the idea of the OP.

[krick]

You sound like you are selling these headphones. Yeah, making wireless headphones with active noise cancellation is complicated, what else is new. Same as making a smartphone, or a laptop, or a car. "Significantly better than the competition"? Sure they are if you listen to (or are) Tim Cook or some Apple fanboy, but really buying an iPhone is mostly a matter of preference, not really being "better than the competition". And "preference" is the best case scenario, because quite more often that's a matter of being victim of aggressive marketing.

I mean, AirPods Max may be actually better than the competition (unlike regular AirPods, which are a bestseller anyway). But they were just announced, why the hell would you assume that they are any good at all?

[dvt]

> But they were just announced, why the hell would you assume that they are any good at all?

I'm not an Apple fanboy, but people said the exact same thing about the M1, which basically blew everyone away. So the track record pretty heavily favors Apple here.

[davewritescode]

You could've made the same argument 15 years ago about the original iPod and its scroll wheel.

The difference between a good product and a premium product are the experience. Sometimes that experience is the most expensive part of the product.

[benhurmarcel]

> At least 40 people worked on designing and engineering this new headphone.

You're probably off by an order of magnitude. 40 people is nothing for a largely produced product.

[chris_st]

> and comfortable across many head shapes and sizes

I have what is, evidently, a pretty large head, given the fact that I've only been able to find one hat ever that is large enough to fit me.

And yeah, lots of high-end headphones are painful to wear, because they went for the "standard-size" head.

[georgeecollins]

I like that they are working on spatial audio. The AR applications are interesting.

[suyash]

the smaller AirPods will have the same feature of spatial audio

[rorykoehler]

I balked at the price but if they've solved the wind noise problem I'd think about getting it. I love to walk outside when I have calls but the wind makes it impossible most days.

[jordache]

spatial audio is utterly useless, terrible sound effects.