With Apple “courageously” removing the headphone jack in the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, they provided customers with a solution with the AirPods headphones, a pair of wireless earbuds designed and optimized for use with the iPhone. Unfortunately for some reason, Apple has delayed their release with no new release date in sight.
It was unclear what the reason for the delay was, but according to The Wall Street Journal, it has been speculated that it could be a technical issue. Basically how wireless headphones work is that one earpiece contains the Bluetooth technology used to receive a signal from the phone or device that the music is coming from.
In Apple’s case, it seems that they want to make both earpieces receive the signal, and it seems that they are having some difficulty in ensuring that both earpieces receive the signal at the same time to prevent distortion. However a report from John Gruber (via MacRumors) claims that the delay is due to a manufacturing problem, not so much a design defect.
Apparently these headphones are more difficult to manufacture at scale than previously thought, according to Gruber. In any case regardless of the reason, the AirPods are still delayed and last we heard, it could be launched later this month. Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen, but it would be a pity for Apple to have missed the Black Friday/Thanksgiving/Cyber Monday sales, and the end of year Christmas sales as well.
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