Hahaha, one of the actual coolest, most fashionable people I’ve known had nothing nice to say about AirPods. She said, “Steve Jobs would have never allowed that to happen.” And to be frank, they don’t look any better than the Bluetooth headsets that were around for years before, so I have to agree with her assessment. Personal taste, of course, but I’ve also never heard anyone say that AirPods look “cool” ever.
The only upside is they’re branded, so you can make yourself look like you’re the type of person who owns Apple products. Wow.
Straight from the basket of pretentious people who think they know what Steve Jobs would have wanted. They don't. Even Steve from year Y would not know what Steve from year Y+1 would want.
Like I said, personal taste, but I definitely took her opinion of it more seriously given her job is to sell fashionable clothes to fashionable people, and throw in some confirmation bias because I don't like AirPods.
I'm not even sure what standard anyone here could use to claim that AirPods (or anything) are cool. Apple products are a status symbol, and sure they have potential to be cool, but glorifying bluetooth earbuds as such looks more, to me, like we're just conflating whatever cool means with the idea of status.
I'm not saying they're mutually exclusive, but I am saying I require some actual definition of terms and proof beyond sales or people wearing them to take the claim seriously on HN. Otherwise, it just looks like a fanboy being a fanboy.
But yeah, anything sticking out of your ears that has a lower profile than wired headphones falls into this goofy uncanny valley of man-melding-with-machine, at least in my view. And this is why I believe that Steve Jobs had the design-sense to see that and not allow it. But hey, maybe not, maybe the way I have articulated it is completely wrong, and this goofy uncanny valley is actually really cool.
I wouldn’t say they are cool either. But I remember the time when landlines without wires were “cool”. Nobody thought putting the cord back was a good idea.
The only upside is they’re branded, so you can make yourself look like you’re the type of person who owns Apple products. Wow.