The Necessity of Earbuds
Do you ever leave home without your buds?
When did earbuds become an essential piece of tech?
Sure, we’ve always had headphones for listening to music on public transportation or wherever. But something changed in the last decade or so. The earbuds (likely in their cute little charging case) have become a regular part of our everyday carry (EDC) ensemble.
Most people wouldn’t leave the house without their phone, keys, or wallet. Yes, I do think that keys are going the way of the dodo and your phone can more or less already act as your wallet. More and more people are adding another item to this essentials list.
What are they?
I won’t get into the debate over which earbuds are best, although I do have a surprising opinion on that I can share at another time. Let’s just look at the earbud as a generic product that serves a single purpose. It sends audio into our ear holes whenever we want it.
Sounds simple right? It’s just a way for us to listen to something whenever we want. It may be music, audiobooks, podcasts, you name it. The magical earbud will give it to us to replace the sound of whatever mundane chore or ambient noise we’d otherwise be hearing.
They come in all shapes and colors. They may rest over our ears, they may hang down past our earlobes, they may get shoved deep into our ear canal to better block everything else out. The important thing is that they are small enough to be easily carried in a bag or a pocket in case they’re needed.
Did Apple do this?
It’s easy to associate Apple with tech trends, whether it’s true or not. The Apple AirPods were and still are an extremely popular product for the brand.
Analysts estimate Apple sold between 14 million and 16 million AirPods in 2017. In 2018, AirPods were Apple's most popular accessory product, with 35 million units sold. 60 million units were sold in 2019.
Like many Apple products, they weren’t the first to market, but they were the most impactful. Other companies had tried the earbuds within a charging case model. Apple figured out how to make it cool, but also how to make the experience actually enjoyable for the user. Even the first generation of the AirPods had decent audio quality and battery life that has only gotten better with each new iteration.
It quickly became a status symbol to have these white pieces of plastic hanging out of your ears at all times. People often keep them in even when there is no audio being played. Or they just waited for their phone to ring so they could answer the call easily with just a tap of the earbud.
The future of the buds
We’ve reached somewhat of a critical mass in my opinion. Pretty much everyone who needs a decent pair of wireless earbuds has bought a pair. They have become entrenched in the lives of many, including your humble author.
So what’s next for the earbud? Well, active noise canceling (ANC) technology is starting to become more prevalent in even the tiniest buds. I can attest that this is a fantastic feature. We no longer need to wear large tin cans over our ears to get decent noise cancelation! A simple tap can shift us from noise-cancelling mode where we hear nothing to hear-through or ambient mode where we hear everything. It’s pretty incredible.
And yes, the obvious improvements will come. Sound quality will improve. The buds themselves will become smaller and/or more comfortable to keep in your ears for longer. Even the cases will take on new form factors with charging speeds that are faster or wireless, or something we haven’t thought of yet.
Then eventually we’ll just be able to implant the sound chip directly into our ears. I don’t mean to end this on a scary dystopian note, but it seems like a logical next step doesn’t it?
At least then we’ll never be tapping all of our pockets searching for those earbuds that we left at home. Progress right?