Why are so many companies copying air pots?

So about four years ago in 2016 Apple got on stage and announced the iPhone seven to the world, which was the first iPhone ever with courageously no headphone jack.

And during that same presentation on the same stage 27 minutes later, they unveiled their newest creation, Air Pots, a pair of completely wireless headphones one year.

But in each year in this convenient magnetic case that pairs instantly with the iPhone and solves everyone's headphone jack problem see on stage, they explained that if they want to get to their vision of this totally wireless future, where we don't need cables records anymore, they had to get rid of the headphone jack and eventually all the other rest of the ports, like the lightning port, too, in theory.

So this was the first brave, courageous step towards that future.

But it really comes down to one word.

Courage, the courage to move on, do something new that betters all of us.

But what they had also actually just conveniently rediscovered was that selling people the solution to a problem that you just created 1/2 an hour earlier was a brilliant way to make a ton of money on top of already making a ton of money like it's no secret that Apple makes most of its profit from the iPhone and then things connected to the iPhone.

We've talked about the ecosystem before.

They're smart.

They've made service is like I cloud drive, Apple pay, Apple care, All these things that capitalize on the massive customer brace that is the iPhone to make significantly more money from it.

It's a smart business, so this isn't a new concept for Apple.

We're just now adding dangles and wireless headphones to that list.

But of course it doesn't all work unless it's at least a pretty good product.

And it was People love air pots.

They were definitely not the first wireless ear buds ever, but the combination of the convenience and the little case they came in and putting them right next to the iPhone and, of course, how well they worked with it.

Instant pairing That whole thing made them an instant hit.

And of course, they were the number one selling headphones in the world a year later.

And so now today, it's estimated that with AirPods, too, and now Airpods Pro and the Wireless Charger, and with the tens of millions of sales, Apple has made around $8 billion from Air Pots eight 1,000,000,000 dollars.

That might not sound like a huge percentage of Apple's business, because it's not.

But just for some perspective, if you broke that off into a separate company and incorporated a new headphone company, AirPods ink, separate from Apple, that company's revenues by itself would be enough to be a Fortune 500 company and probably somewhere in the middle of the pack more than the bottom two or 300 of those.

And plus, they're expected to jump up again in 2020 as iPhone five s and iPhone six owners continue to upgrade and the headphone jack continues to disappear.

So now Airpods sales are taking off and going to orbit.

Ah, lot of the companies that were ridiculing Apple for getting rid of the headphone jack along with you and me.

Well, they took a look at this again and saw that they kind of wanted a piece of that pie like this would be a silly business decision not to get involved in this huge new market that's basically being created in front of their eyes.

So they did the same thing.

Google Well, they made a commercial calling out the headphone jack a year after Apple got rid of theirs.

Then, literally the next pixel that came out had no headphone jack and pay.

What do you know?

Google pixel buds now exist.

One plus has been known to take the occasional jabs at Apple.

They made their remarks, but two years after Apple, their new one plus 60 had no headphone jack and their new wireless bullets.

Headphones appeared as a convenient solution.

While WAY flagships don't have headphone jacks anymore, either, but they'll gladly sell you their new wall way free buds to set you free of wires.

Razors.

Phones also don't have headphone jacks, but you'll see their new hammerheads wireless earbuds.

I feel like I've seen that shape before.

Amazon will sell you echo buds.

Microsoft has announced their surface buds, even the essential phone from a company that popped up on the map for one year and made one phone with no headphone.

Jack also happened to make ah $150 attachable HD headphone jack adapter that is still listed on their site to this day actually has nothing to do with their pot clones.

That that's just funny.

But even Samsung has been one of the last major holdouts with headphone jack in the galaxy s.

But sure enough, they got rid of that headphone jack on the galaxy.

Note 10 and the S 20.

I'm afraid to say it, but that's next.

And they've been pushing galaxy buds that conveniently charge right on the back of the phone that you obviously got them for.

And all these are various different prices and have slightly different form factors and feature sets to differentiate them.

But they all basically do the same thing, which is solve a problem that was just created.

The headphone jack is quickly disappearing.

It's becoming like an enthusiast feature.

You see headlines about one.

A new headphone jack is included in a phone because it's sort of a noteworthy thing to see that again.

And of course, you now see pretty much every major headphone company in the world scrambling to make their best wireless earbuds toe also compete here.

So audio Technica makes a pair.

Sony makes a pair.

I just got back from C s where I saw TCL is making a pair.

This is It's got the connection button on the back and flips open like that.

And there's magnets that hold the earbuds and like, this is their airpods competitors.

Even these companies that don't have a smartphone to connect it to are just trying to sell you something that you'd reasonably consider buying over Airpods for some reason, because this is a pie they got to get in on.

And then on top of all that, there's the whole world of airpods clones.

If you're thinking No, no, no, wait a minute.

These aren't clones.

They're all you know.

They have their differentiating features and they're slightly different.

No, I'm talking about the ones that literally try to make themselves look exactly like Airpods in an effort to basically convince you that you're getting the same thing for less money.

These are the ones that are not so well intentioned.

You might have seen these black airpods floating around or some variant of them.

Or if you just Google airpods clone.

There's a whole world of T W s I five hundred's being sold or drop ships from various online retailers, and there are even companies out there right now.

You might already seen the singer feed that are using stolen footage from my AIRPODS pro review and using them in instagram ads to try to convince you to buy their fake drop shipped air pod clones.

It's everywhere.

So the bottom line is everyone.

Pretty much everyone capable of making headphones in some way is now making small pocketable, completely wireless ear buds that seal up in a case and connect to your phone.

So this has some pros and cons.

Of course, we all know the downsides.

Which are You wanna listen to music through wired headphones.

You need to carry a dongle everywhere, and often the quality is substantially worse over Bluetooth audio, then wired but also wireless audio is just not great, yet it's getting there.

But if you've ever tried to edit a video or music with wireless headphones, you know how bad the latent see and the lag can get and you know we're talking about.

It's just not quite there yet, but because of all that, the upside is the same thing that created the downside, which is that now everyone is trying to make the best possible wireless audio solution the best possible wireless headphones to try to beat air pots.

And we see this in the forms of all different types of features.

The reverse wireless charging on phones, the razor hammerheads focusing on minimizing Leighton.

See Sony's W F 1000 x m three doing active noise cancellation better than any other earbud I've ever heard.

And they pretty much all feature and assistant now to their Syrian air pods, which means there's Google assistant and pixel buds and many others Bixby in galaxy buds and cortana and surface butts.

In theory, anyway, when those come out, it means everyone's working towards a better world of wireless, so that maybe this wireless future we've dreamed of isn't so far off after all.

Now I have no excuse for their like shameless, blatant airpods rip offs like these air, just clearly trying to make a buck, shamelessly trying to take advantage of people looking for a deal.

But the truth really is Airpods are Apple's most impactful and successful product since the original iPhone.

And who wouldn't want to copy that?

Thanks for watching.