I made this comment before - the real value of the airpods is the foundational work for VR snd other things that go on your head. Wireless is critical. I have a hololens and DK2 beta, and the difference between untethered and tethered is hYOOOOGE. Airpods are v1.0 that will figure out latency issues, push the limits on bandwidth, push sensor capabilities, explore onboard DSP functions, gather data to feed into machine learning models for head and other behaviors, etc. It is the "scout" that is deployed deep in enemy territory to lay the foundation for the cavalry's entry into what will emerge as one or more multibillion dollar markets (e.g. VR, new interface paradigms, brain computers that plug into the cortex :).<p>Apple is fantastic about introducing a foundational technology that people puzzle over, and then follow that MVP with a set of killer, well understood features for the mass market that leverage it (touch id followed by apple pay). To summarize:<p>* v1: Introduce puzzling HW/SW enabling technology disguised as a feature / roadmap swimlane, to work out the kinks, de-risk the technology.<p>* v2: Introduce clear-as-daylight applications for the mass market that leverage earlier work.<p>Look at the early days of AirPlay. I recall streaming wireless music to my speakers back in the mid 2000s, and how buggy it was / how much latency there was. Lo and behold, many iterations later, and we have seamless audio and video airplay (ok, almost seamless). What makes me an expert on this stuff? Nothing, other than thinking about it and using it for many hours. This has nothing to do with jewelry.