Looks like Apple's new Airpods will arrive in time for the winter holiday shopping binge after all. On Tuesday morning that the wireless earbuds became available for purchase online with a ship date of Wed Dec 21.
Apple introduced AirPods in September alongside the headphone jack-less iPhone 7, touting them as a technically superior alternative to wired earbuds. Packed with a custom-designed Apple chip, accelerometers, optical sensors, beam-forming microphones, and antennas, Airpods are diminutive in-ear computers and a big part of Apple's vision for the future of audio. "These are as advanced a project as Apple Pencil," Apple SVP Phil Schiller told BuzzFeed News back in September. "We started this project when we started the Watch project. We knew we needed a great wireless solution for audio. We said, 'What if you could design what the future of headphones should look like?' That's what we asked the team to do."
When it announced Airpods in September, Apple said the $159 headphones would begin shipping in October. But on October 26, with the month nearly concluded, the company said it was delaying their retail availability. "We don't believe in shipping a product before it's ready," an Apple spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. "We need a little more time before AirPods are ready for our customers." Apple did not provide an explanation for the postponement, its first big delay of a new product since the white iPhone 4 in 2010.
Asked to explain the issue behind Airpods' delay, Apple declined comment. But a person familiar with the product's development said it required additional "fine-tuning" related to sound performance and battery life.
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