When you enter the building that houses Apple's audio labs at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, you're greeted by a pair of giant MartinLogan Monolith III electrostatic speakers standing in the small lobby, almost looking like sculptures. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs donated the speakers to Apple's Audio and Acoustics Design team, "as inspiration for the successor to Apple's first high-fidelity loudspeaker system, the iPod Hi-Fi," according to a plaque that sits between them. That successor turned out to be the HomePod, which was announced in 2017, almost five years after Jobs' death.
On the plaque is an iconic photo from 1982 by Time photographer Diana Walker that shows Jobs, age 27, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his sparsely furnished home with a pair of "similar but less advanced" Acoustat Monitor 3 electrostatic speakers and his stereo and vinyl collection behind him. "Steve Jobs was well-known for many of his passions, though less well known that high-fidelity audio reproduction was among them," the text underneath the photo reads.
Enlarge Image Close-up of the plaque. David Carnoy/CNET
Apple's HomePod speakers have had mixed success, but its AirPods, first released in 2016 and initially mocked for looking like Q-Tips, are the best-selling earbuds worldwide (with Beats buds), according to market researcher Canalys. AirPods have helped spur the massive proliferation of headphones and earbuds, turning them into essential accessories for iPhones and other phones, while profoundly impacting how people navigate their worlds.
The original AirPods had an open design and lacked the greatest sound quality, particularly in terms of bass. Those were the early days of true-wireless buds, when just having a hiccup-free Bluetooth connection and good voice-calling performance were competitive advantages.
With each iteration of the AirPods, Apple has made performance improvements, and the company's latest flagship noise-canceling earbuds, the AirPods Pro 3, feature upgraded sound quality and noise-canceling that takes them to another level.
Steve Jobs didn't live to see the release of the AirPods. In many ways, the latest version, even more so than the pricey and bulkier AirPods Max, represents the fulfillment of his ultimate audio aspirations for Apple. You can even hear echoes of his 2006 iPod Hi-Fi introduction in Apple's marketing language for the AirPods Pro 3.
"What is home stereo quality, you could ask?" he said then. "Well, if you were an audiophile, what you'd say is four things. One, if you close your eyes, there's a soundstage around the speakers, the speakers disappear acoustically, and there's like a stage around the speakers where you can hear the performers performing; it's much larger than the speakers. So a large sound stage." He then goes on to list the other three things: precise imaging and separation, a wide frequency range and room-filling power without distortion.
Now, jump to the AirPods Pro 3's product page, and you'll see this near the top of the page, listed as the first highlight: "An exceptional spatial listening experience with high-definition, three-dimensional audio."
Discontinued after just 554 days, the iPod Hi-Fi didn't live up to its lofty expectations. Apple ceded the concept of an iPod speaker dock replacing your home stereo to third-party iPod accessory manufacturers, choosing instead to focus on the iPod itself and the just-released iPhone, which arrived in 2007 along with the single-bud Apple iPhone Bluetooth Headset, the precursor to the AirPods.
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