Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) promised a costly solution to its iPhone 7 without the regular audio 3.5mm jack and with a single USB Type-C port: Wireless earbuds. The AirPods had to come out in October for $159, but they are still missing from the store shelves.
The company delayed the AirPods in October and, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Apple is struggling to ensure that both earbuds receive the Bluetooth signal simultaneously, something that would help if the wireless connection goes down.
The AirPods are a wireless set of earbuds with a 5-hour battery and a built-in voice recognition system to respond voice commands via Apple’s AI assistant Siri.
The company said it would be a revolutionary technology destined to become the ultimate wireless audio solution.
Samsung could learn something from the AirPods’ delay
Three months after the Silicon Valley giant trumpeted its next revolutionary piece of technology, Apple still has not made the AirPods available. The company says the peripherals need some time before consumers can get them.
Apple stated that they did not believe in launching incomplete products and that the AirPods needed more time before they were ready to hit the stores. The argument is valid and reminds of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 disaster.
Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller hailed the AirPods as the doorway to a wireless and simpler future without any plugs, but so far, the iPhone 7 lineup needs a lot of dongles and adapters to work with the regular pieces of hardware around.
It is the first time Apple has postponed a product since the release of the iPhone 4 in 2010.
What do the AirPods promise?
AirPods would allow the user to listen to music or answer phone calls wirelessly. The pieces have a set of infrared sensors to detect when the earbuds are in the ear, so they would stop the music when they are not.
A W1 chip inside the hardware allows voice recognition. According to Apple, users only need to double tap on one earbud to access Siri and control the music or make a phone call with the AI assistant.
The AirPods aimed to compensate for the lack of the headphone jack. In an early test, a technology columnist from the WSJ (Geoffrey Fowler) said the peripherals worked well, but that the audio quality was not the best.
Source: Wall Street Journal
