Every time I see someone here dismiss this success as status symbol-oriented marketing, I just shake my head at how much that signals a deep misunderstanding of how the world works or what most of the human race wants in a product. Nobody wants the Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds because Sony doesn't even give a shit enough to give them a name people can remember. Nobody wants Bose earbuds because nobody wants to open a buggy spyware-laden app to turn on/off noise cancelling. These products are destined to fail because they make simple things complicated, untrustworthy, bothersome.
People are whole-experience buyers, not single-feature buyers, and the experience nearly every person on earth wants is the magical 'I put it in and it works' experience. What people want is all the upside of the magic of technology and none of the cognitive overhead associated with it. The specific choices that make up a product offering - aka the product marketing - reflect the inherent desire of the customer. Any luxury / status symbol aspects come AFTER that.
You fool! The WF-1000XM5 is the worst model of the line! You should buy the WF-1010XN5, it is far superior!
Apple tends to name things in an odd way, e.g. sometimes you need to remember whether your laptop came out in "early" 2014 or "late" 2014, but they have a remarkably flat, but consistent, product line.
I mean, honestly, if somebody just tossed you a random Macbook from the Apple store, it may not be the exact model you want but you wouldn't complain. All of them are pretty good, even down to the bargain basement Neo.
Airpods? I have nothing bad to say about them, but nothing good either (I rather take the Sony's with better NC and battery life on a flight, better audio quality and painless equalizer).
> Or is it more likely that some consumers judge the utility differently from you?
That's possibly the case, so help me, what I am missing?
Does owning the same phone as every 16 year old in America really fit that description?
Like what? In the true wireless camp, the Sony's are much less comfortable (and more expensive), the Bose are not as good (and more expensive)...
There's cheaper options, sure, but you're sacrificing build, ANC, battery life, etc.
This statement only has any merit if your usage pattern is 100% limited to Apple devices, otherwise it falls apart.
It would be fine if they fell back to "at least as good as the competition" in a mixed use case, but in the mixed case they are worse than what even low-budget BT buds often offer (no BT Multipoint, no ear recognition, etc., hell, not even a battery level over BT...and even pairing/reconnect is often a crapshoot reminiscent of the state of BT Audio 10-15 years ago). It was honestly a really disappointing realization.
Why? Why should we consider an advantage that doesn't exist anymore?
IMO the airpods vs the rest of the industry is kinda like the iphone vs blackberry.
