TALKING TECH
Apple has really done it this time, with £550 super-futuristic AirPods Max headphones
Duncan Bell discussing why Apple’s latest headphones warrant Maxing out your bank account
“Apple has mastered the art of making people pay a bit more for a product”
The expense of products is such a relative thing. This Morning – which is some kind of TV show, my butler tells me – was recently flooded with complaints because it featured some £89 pyjamas. I could afford £89 PJs, if I wanted them, but obviously to many people, not least in a recession, that amount for jim-jams is TOO MUCH.
A few months ago, I wrote about an Oral-B electric toothbrush that was £500. That seemed a little rich to me, but as they were at great pains to point out, on Amazon and at Boots it’s usually going to be about half that. Which makes you wonder, why not just make it £250 in the first place. Then it won’t seem like TOO MUCH.
In the world of headphones, the most popular devices in the world right now are posh, noise cancelling headphones and Apple AirPods. Apple’s true wireless buds seem quite reasonably priced to me. Of course, to many people that is not the case, and that’s why you can buy those buds that look exactly like AirPods for £3.50 at places such as the dodgy end of your local street market, and on Amazon.
A lot of noise cancelling, overear headphones are probably what a fair few people would consider TOO MUCH. I’m thinking of the really nice ones from Bose, Beats, Bowers & Wilkins and other brands beginning with B (and Sony).
This style of noise-cancelling cans was originally aimed squarely at business-class frequent flyers, back in the days when people went on aeroplanes – remember them? Brands then realised that you can actually experience noise in places other than the business-class section of planes and began to market them to a broader market, with massive success.
On the whole, these are headphones that have an RRP of about £350 and may retail for anywhere from £200-£250 thanks to the miracle of online retail competition.
Before the rise of true wireless buds – driven largely by Apple AirPods – noise cancelling headphones made up the largest share of the headphones market by monetary value.
So of course, what many people – including the makers of all those very successful headphones – have been thinking is: ‘when will Apple make some over-ear noise cancellers?’ And the answer is… NOW and the price? It’s TOO TOO MUCH! How much? £550, to you.
With most brands I would now be saying: these guys are out of their trees. Who is going to pay that when you can get marketleading, noise cancelling headphones from Bose, Sony and the rest for less than half that? TOO MUCH! However I am not going to say that too loudly, because if there’s one brand that has mastered the art of making people pay a bit more for a product, it’s Apple. Even if they’ve called it wrong, it’s hard to imagine them ever admitting it and slashing the price, and they won’t ever reveal sales figures in all probability. So we’ll never know.
You have to ask what Apple can bring to the noise cancelling table to justify that extra moolah. The Max look quite distinctive, in the usual Apple way, so everyone will know you are wearing Apple headphones. But the noise cancelling and the sensors that ‘automatically detect when they are on a user’s head’ – so the audio can be paused when you take them off – surely can’t be that much better than anyone else’s noise cancelling or pause button.
That suggests that their ‘spatial audio’ – which allows for surround support all the way up to Dolby Atmos – is intended as the killer feature here. It’s certainly true that an increasing number of people want to use headphones for watching movies on their laptop, phone or TV, and nobody else has really addressed this up to now.
Nonetheless, my gut feeling is that AirPods Max will be more of a HomePod level of success than an AirPods-style triumph. Except in one area. I confidently predict AirPods Max will be 2021’s product with THE most moans about it being TOO MUCH. It’s nailed on.