It’s already early November, and in case you missed it, Apple’s AirPods are nowhere to be found in stores.
Originally introduced alongside the iPhone 7 in September, Apple’s new AirPods were poised to help usher in a new wireless era where the notion of connecting to a device via a cord would seem backwards if not downright antiquated. To that end, the unveiling of Apple’s AirPods came at an appropriate time, right next to the iPhone 7, which famously was designed without a traditional 3.5mm headphone jack.
Back in September, Apple said its AirPods would launch in late October. Yet October has come and gone, and the highly anticipated earbuds still lack a release date. Addressing the delay just ahead of the company’s special Mac event in late October, an Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch that the AirPods launch was being pushed back so that Apple could presumably address some lingering bugs and usability issues.
“The early response to AirPods has been incredible,” Apple said. “We don’t believe in shipping a product before it’s ready, and we need a little more time before AirPods are ready for our customers.”
One would assume, or at the very least hope, that Apple’s AirPods will be ready to go ahead of the upcoming holiday shopping season. Apple, however, has been surprisingly quiet on the matter. Indeed, Apple’s special Mac event came and went without so much of a whisper regarding the company’s new wireless headphones.
All of this, of course, begs the question: Why would Apple bother showing off a new product when it wouldn’t even be ready to ship two months later? It’s decidedly out of character for Apple and undoubtedly raises quite a few questions about when the headphones will actually see the light of day.
Incidentally, some early reviewers have had some time to play around with Apple’s AirPods, and the consensus seems to be that they’re pretty great.
