EcoFlow’s Alternator Charger is a device you install in your pickup truck, van, or RV to charge the giant power station you carry to keep all your gear running.
Technology
What Hamster Kombat is teaching us about game marketing | The DeanBeat
Game marketing is changing, thanks to Hamster Kombat, a tapping mini-game on Telegram that has been downloaded more than 300 million times since March. It took only 73 days for Hamster Kombat to reach its first 100 million users.
Traditional marketing tactics are losing their power when it comes to attracting the attention of target audiences, said Tavia Wong, chief marketing officer at Credbull, a small private credit company in Asia with a dozen employees. The age of the viral game is back, at least on one platform. And many are starting to copy the formula like PiP World, Bondex, Gamee and Liithos.
In an interview with GamesBeat, she said that Web3 tap-and-earn games like Hamster Kombat are the unexpected inspiration for marketing professionals, and she believes every business can learn from their success, as well as how to leverage it for translating hype into revenue. Will it be a lifeline for Web3 games, which have struggled to get mainstream acceptance?
“When I first saw Hamster Kombat, I thought it was quite silly. It was going viral on Telegram and I thought it probably wasn’t going to go anywhere,” Wong said. “”But low and behold, the community has been growing really, really quickly. It’s one of the most successful games on Telegram, where there’s a cute hamster that a lot of people can just tap away on.”
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She added, “As a marketer, it really makes you sit up and go, ‘Okay, what’s there? Why is the community going so quickly?’ And it keeps growing.”
Hamster Kombat
Hamster Kombat is a tap-to-earn crypto game on Telegram, where you click or tap on the screen. Players take the role of a CEO at a cryptocurrency exchange. The creators said in May 2024 that they would launch a token on The Open Network (TON), a Layer-1 blockchain originally created by Telegram. Now the development is being handled externally by the community.
In the game, players start as a bald hamster under contract to be a CEO of a cryptocurrency exchange. Users can tap the hamster avatar to generate in-game coins, but the main gameplay mechanic involves purchasing exchange upgrades to increase the hourly profit. You can earn coins by referring friends to play the game on Telegram or by finishing harder in-game tasks like solving a daily Morse code cipher.
It’s popular for the moment. But things can change. Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France and is being held on charges that the platform doesn’t do enough to protect users from fraud, terror and other negative influences. It’s not clear how this will affect Telegram.
Marketing savvy
At a marketing agency, Wong ran ad campaigns for more than eight years and she sold the agency to a Fortune 500 company. She then joined an AI firm and later looked into crypto. Her current company Credbull is looking to engage with the retail community — the enthusiasts who will pay attention to such “tap and earn” games. So she really wanted to find out what was driving this game forward.
“One of the main reasons behind it is incentives (check out our recent story on the Benjamin app), and it’s almost like going to a casino. It’s a little bit of a gambling effect because people tap. They get more points when they refer their friends to the game, and they also get points to rank on the leaderboard. So they have to do it like a daily streak,” Wong said.
It could be viewed as addictive like gambling. Or like other more benign habits.
“Think about it like Duolingo. So every day you have to kind of log in and they are cool sound effects,” Wong said. “There are things that really keep you engaged within the app. And there are leaderboards to show you where you rank, so that you really don’t want to go down because it affects how many points you’re going to get. And it becomes this crazy, crazy game. And you would think that a user is probably going to get a huge amount of tokens or rewards — a financial incentive for being so active. But the fact is that most of this project has not even launched or released yet. So everybody is playing in anticipation of a future reward.”
It’s like any other speculative bubble in that respect. There’s a lot of word of mouth, and people are just really engaged within those communities, Wong said.
This bodes well for marketers because they lost virality after Facebook shutdown the game spam and after Apple hobbled targeted ads in favor of user privacy.
“It’s a very good thing for marketers because these games, as we get more sophisticated, can also introduce the idea of clans. And these clans compete against each other to see who gets the most,” Wong said. “That makes you feel a sense of belonging to a bigger club.” And the wining gets bigger.
Soon enough, there’s a domino effect that fuels the game’s momentum.
Growth hacking
Wong believes that Hamster Kombat leverages growth hacking. She said the game’s explosive growth isn’t a coincidence. It’s a winning formula fueled by social media buzz, word-of-mouth, and clever referral programs that create a self-sustaining wave of new users. Every victory, every success story, and every shared experience attract more players to the action. It’s a domino effect fueling the game’s momentum.
It’s also tapping into gamification on Telegram, a platform that doesn’t have a ton of hardcore games. She thinks Web3 games like Hamster Kombat are exploding with easy-to-play, gamified experiences that seamlessly integrate with crypto.
Telegram happens to have a lot of crypto fans, particularly those who are concerned about traditional government that they’re willing to put their money into cryptocurrency. Telegram also has a lot of people who therefore have their own cryptocurrency wallets — something that Hamster Kombat leverages.
Wong believes this is the future of user engagement, and it’s not just for gamers anymore. Think gamified loyalty programs or interactive marketing campaigns. Tap into reward-seeking behavior, a natural competitive spirit, and the classic fear of missing out to incentivize potential customers to engage with your communications.
Good old days of Facebook
Developers can still leverage network effects on Telegram, as it’s like the old Facebook before it cracked down on viral messaging. Being strategic about choosing a crypto native messaging app to launch a relevant tap and earn game or other gamified experiences is key to leverage the large user bases of apps like Telegram, Wong said.
For the moment, players are embracing the quirkiness of Hamster Kombat. These mini-games are fun, quirky, and full of surprises. Forget dry press releases. Think interactive challenges, gamified product features, or even a mascot that embodies your brand’s personality.
And community is everything, Wong said. Look at Hamster Kombat’s massive social media following, consisting of 300 million users; 13 million followers on Twitter/X, and their YouTube account of tens of millions subscribers. Web3 games foster strong communities through shared gameplay and rewards. Can your marketing strategy create a similar level of engagement?
Harnessing traffic
It’s important not to measure engagement just for the sake of reporting on success. Marketers need to ask themselves how they can harness the traffic and attention they’re receiving from successful campaigns to translate it into users, she said.
By making gamified experiences highly relevant to the end solution, companies can not only educate users on their solution, for instance as Monzo did by providing insights on spending habits, but by directly pushing communications aimed at customer onboarding within the experience itself and continually rewarding them with bonus points for following the user journey.
Each day, millions of new users are joining Hamster Kombat, making it one of the fastest-growing digital services in the world, according to Telegram. We’ll see what happens once the Hamster Kombat team mints its token on TON.
Loyalty
I asked Wong what’s the difference between this and regular loyalty programs that people are creating.
“With regular loyalty programs, you come up with a program, you try to engage your existing community, but people don’t really care much about your loyalty program unless you’re a really big brand,” she said. “So how do you build something like that from scratch? So I think the key is to go where the traffic is. Go out on Telegram, for example, where these tap to earn games are so popular. You can tap into the millions of people already using Telegram.”
Hamster Kombat is a hypercasual game where everybody can play. Brands can start moving in on the action to reach the players with various kinds of ads. The people are already there. Credbull launched its own tap-and-earn game that got off the ground.
“We’re leveraging on the hype of this, and then putting in all the psychology of good marketing and selling, where it’s like social rush,” she said. “You have speculation and future rewards and then create surprises within the game in a very simple way. It leads to really explosive in growth.”
“What’s cool is that the the benefits of this go past marketing. So our product team has also been loving tis as they can launch small product features and test them within the game. You can use it to test offers, product features and see how the crowd responds to it,” she said. “It becomes your focus group for your product team. You get immediate feedback on whether users love it or not.”
Wong compares this time, where the number of games is in the hundreds, to the early days of Facebook. She predicts the brands will come in. Credbull has experimented with its own Telegram game in various ways.
“I think there is a parallel with the game and metaverse brands, like how they want to engage with retail consumers and so they created shops on the metaverse,” she said.
These brands go where someone is succeeding in getting attention.
“I wouldn’t underestimate how effective Telegram has been at onboading users,” she said. “There are so many messaging apps out there. But Telegram is one of the top in the world.”
Leveraging popularity
Nothing lasts forever. But when you can leverage popularity for a purpose, you can grow.
When you’re planning loyalty campaigns, you’re trying to get people interested in the first place and then to retain that interest in the long run, she said. Big social media companies have studied what it takes to make people play. The details get very granular. Games like Angry Birds had memorable sounds that could serve as psychological triggers within your brain to keep playing, she said. A huge team comes together to understand the psychology, game mechanics, the tokenomics and more to start social engagement. In the case of Telegram, it’s so brainless that you create a game to tap.
The good question is at what point does the game with weak gameplay give way to a more sophisticated game with much better gameplay. The game can be simple, but it has enough sophistication to keep people playing. Gamification apps focus on motivating the player to stay engaged and use social techniques to retain them.
I noted one triple-A game company, Liithos, wanted to make an open world game. It couldn’t raise money in the current environment, so it took one piece of the intellectual property and made a character out of it. Then it launched it as a viral clicker game. It’s called Clickbait, a satirical game called Clickbait as part of its No One Is Safe franchise.
It’s trying to draw attention to its bigger mission and games through the Clickbait game, which revolves around mischievous chatbot called RantCPU. and it focuses on the anxiety around AI and a world where humanity has destroyed itself. It’s a new transmedia property set to launch as a game on Steam, a comic book series from Scout, and trading cards.
Wong noted some game companies raise money directly from the community. With NFTs, sometimes that worked and sometimes it went horribly wrong, with scammers stealing money.
“When I saw this tap and earn game, as a CMO, to be honest, I dismissed it because I was like, it’s so silly. I played so much better production games from big gaming houses. Why am I spending my time playing on this? But when I looked at the metrics, they were growing like crazy,” she said.
Wong added, “I understand why it’s so popular now, because it’s using all the effects of the psychology.”
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Technology
Couchbase launches database tools to foster AI development
Couchbase on Tuesday made Capella Columnar generally available on AWS in a move aimed at helping customers streamline application development by centralizing real-time data analysis and operational workloads together in a single location.
In addition, the vendor launched Couchbase Mobile with vector search so that users can conduct hybrid and similarity searches in mobile applications at the edge rather than just their traditional database environment.
Based in Santa Clara, Calif., Couchbase is a NoSQL database vendor that competes with other database specialists such as Redis and MongoDB, as well as tech giants including AWS, Google, Microsoft and Oracle that offer database platforms.
Despite a crowded database market, Couchbase has been able to differentiate itself with forward-thinking product development such as its launch of Capella Columnar, according to Stephen Catanzano, an analyst at TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group.
“Couchbase is seen as an innovative player,” he said. “Compared to its peers, Couchbase stands out for its ability to handle both transactional and analytical workloads in a unified platform. Columnar adds to this.”
Stephen CatanzanoAnalyst, Enterprise Strategy Group
Doug Henschen, an analyst at Constellation Research, likewise noted that Couchbase stands out despite strong competition, saying the vendor provides a leading NoSQL database.
Neither columnar capabilities nor vector search are new, he continued. For example, Couchbase first unveiled vector search in February. Meanwhile, MongoDB offered columnar capabilities as part of its Atlas Data Lake launch in 2022.
However, vector search for mobile is unique.
“The move makes sense, given the rise of edge applications and mobility demands,” Henschen said.
First known as Membase before a 2011 merger with CouchOne, Couchbase now provides Capella, a database-as-a-service platform geared toward cloud-based customers, which was first launched in 2021. In addition, the vendor offers Couchbase Enterprise for on-premises users.
New capabilities
Couchbase first unveiled Capella Columnar in preview during AWS re:Invent 2023. The service, which is only available on AWS at this point, aims to bring together operational database workloads with real-time analytics in a columnar format that analytics tools can understand.
Many developers, including Couchbase customers, use JSON — a data interchange format used to move data between web clients and web servers — when building enterprise applications. JSON, however, can be difficult to use with analytics systems that use different, more rigid formats for storage and analysis, the vendor noted.
As a result, unstructured JSON data often goes unused and lies dormant in a database. Meanwhile, with enterprises now developing generative AI applications that require huge amounts of proprietary data to understand the enterprise’s business and respond accurately to business-specific queries, unstructured data is becoming critical.
Unstructured data such as text, images, videos and audio files is estimated to make up more than 80% of all data, with the structured data traditionally used to inform analytics just a small part of an enterprise’s overall cache of information. Without accessing unstructured data, enterprises don’t get a complete view of their business, and AI applications trained on their data are more prone to deliver incorrect outputs.
Capella Columnar transforms JSON data so that it can be recognized by analytics tools, making previously inaccessible data accessible for informing decisions and training AI models and applications. The feature reduces the cumbersome extract, transform and load (ETL) process by supporting real-time data ingestion, using Capella iQ to automatically write SQL to calculate an analytical metric and writing back the metric to the operational side of Capella, where it can be used in an application.
Because Capella Columnar enables operational processing and real-time analytics in one database, its release is an important development for Couchbase users, according to Catanzano.
“The launch of Couchbase Columnar is significant,” he said. “It addresses a longstanding challenge of making JSON data useful for analytics, which has traditionally been difficult due to its unstructured nature.”
An added benefit could be cost reduction, Catanzano continued, noting that it adds expenses to do operational processing and real-time analytics on separate platforms.
Matt McDonough, Couchbase’s senior vice president of product and partners, said that while many enterprises are attempting to build more AI applications, including generative AI tools, such applications remain more an idea than a reality. Tools such as Capella Columnar aim to make it easier to develop AI-powered applications that can be used widely across organizations rather than by just data science teams.
“AI-powered apps have been a relatively abstract concept,” McDonough said. “With the availability of these new features in Capella, developers can bring AI apps to life because they’re no longer bogged down with rigid systems or complex ETL processes.”
Like Capella Columnar, Couchbase Mobile with vector search aims to speed and simplify application development.
Vector search has become a key component of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines commonly used to train generative AI models and applications. Vector embeddings are a way to give structure to unstructured data by assigning it a numerical value so that it can be searched and used in training. In addition, vectors enable similarity search that makes data discovery easier than the more limiting keyword search, helping users find enough data to properly inform AI tools.
Following its initial introduction of vector search capabilities in February, Couchbase is now extending those capabilities beyond its traditional database environment to edge devices in a move that stands to benefit customers, according to Henschen.
With Couchbase Lite, a document database that can be embedded into edge devices to enable real-time decisions, developers can build applications using mobile devices that can subsequently be consumed on mobile devices.
“The availability of vector information supports similarity search and improves search accuracy, so it’s nice to see in the mobile database as well as the core product,” Henschen said.
The impetus for developing both the new mobile feature and Capella Columnar came from Couchbase’s recognition that enterprises are struggling to build AI applications, according to McDonough.
Many organizations have complex data systems that include numerous different platforms that don’t natively integrate with one another. As a result, the pieces don’t always work smoothly together, leading to data quality issues. In addition, if different departments within organizations use different tools, data often gets isolated.
As Couchbase develops new features, one of its primary goals is to consolidate capabilities in a single database platform.
“For developers to evolve in the age of AI, they have to clean up complex architectures, which means consolidating platforms, eliminating data silos [and] making sure they’re working with trustworthy data,” McDonough said. “To do this, they need the right resources.”
Beyond Capella Columnar and Couchbase Mobile with vector search, Couchbase unveiled a new free tier that will be available starting Sept. 9.
Plans
Toward Couchbase’s goal of making it faster and easier to build AI applications, the vendor’s roadmap includes improving the developer experience through partnerships and integrations that create an ecosystem and provide key capabilities, according to McDonough.
Catanzano, meanwhile, said Couchbase’s focus on enabling users to develop AI tools is appropriate.
In particular, the vendor would be wise to concentrate on helping customers ensure trusted, high-quality data is used to inform models and applications, he said. Given the decision-making speed and scale generative AI enables, it is increasingly critical that the data used to inform generative AI tools is accurate.
“[Couchbase should] continue to innovate around bringing highly trusted enterprise data into GenAI models in a secure way, using RAG and vector capabilities to help create new and innovative solutions,” Catanzano said.
Eric Avidon is a senior news writer for TechTarget Editorial and a journalist with more than 25 years of experience. He covers analytics and data management.
Technology
PlayStation’s 30th anniversary PS5 and PS5 Pro consoles are so very pretty
The original PlayStation console, otherwise called the PS1, came out in Japan in late 1994. So we are quickly coming up on the console’s 30th birthday. To commemorate the occasion, Sony just revealed nostalgia-tinged redesigns of both the PS5 and the forthcoming PS5 Pro. They look like the original PlayStation, with that classic gray colorway and the old-school logo. Gamers of a certain age will have a hard time resisting these things. Sony did something similar in 2014 with the PS4 for the console line’s 20th anniversary.
This isn’t a quick and dirty redesign. There was legitimate thought put into this. The updated DualSense controller doesn’t quite match the original design, but does mesh with the overall aesthetic. Sony’s throwing in a retro-looking cable connector housing, PlayStation-shaped cable ties and a themed vertical stand. The box even looks like it came from a Toys “R” Us in the 1990s.
There are two bundles to choose from. The PS5 bundle ships with the digital version of the console (so no disc drive,) a standard DualSense controller, the aforementioned accessories and additional goodies like a sticker, a poster and, uh, a PlayStation paperclip.
The PS5 Pro bundle includes everything mentioned above, but includes both a standard controller and the DualSense Edge. It also includes a retro cover for the optional disc drive and the charging stand. It’s easy to dunk on that costly PS5 Pro when it looks basically the same as a regular PS5. It’s much harder to do when it looks like it stepped out of a 1995 fever dream.
Even the bizarre pseudo-portable PlayStation Portal is getting a themed refresh, which features the iconic gray exterior. Sony fans can even pick up redesigned controllers without springing for an entire console.
Preorders start on September 26 at participating retailers and via the company itself. These items will be released on November 21. That’s just a couple of weeks after the PS5 Pro launches. To that end, Sony’s only making 12,300 of the PS5 Pro retro consoles, so we recommend getting that preorder in early. The company hasn’t released pricing information, unfortunately, and it’s likely that the PS5 Pro bundle will absolutely obliterate bank accounts. We reached out to ask about pricing and will update this post when we hear back.
While we wait for the pre-orders to start, Senior reporter Jessica Conditt got a brief glimpse of the 30th anniversary edition PS5 Pro and DualSense controllers, which you can see below:
Update, September 20 2024, 2:00PM ET: This story has been updated with photos of the 30th-anniversary PlayStation 5 Pro console and its controller.
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Technology
This little box provides on-demand power when off the grid
While your vehicle’s on, the Alternator Charger produces up to 800W. That’s about eight times more power than you can typically extract from a 12V cigarette lighter jack, and it’s enough to charge EcoFlow’s new 1kWh Delta 3 from zero to full in a little over one hour of driving. It takes five hours if you’re traveling with EcoFlow’s larger 4kWh Delta Pro 3.
It’s also clever enough to reverse the flow of electrons, using the power station to maintain your starter battery with a trickle charge or jump-start it back to life. When you return home from the job site or vacation, those big-ass portable batteries can be connected to EcoFlow’s $200 balcony solar kit to help offset your energy bill and provide emergency power during a blackout.
EcoFlow’s Alternator Charger is far from an industry first, and it uses proprietary connectors that only work with Ecoflow’s own batteries. But the company brings simplicity, elegance, and a superior user experience to a product usually designed for electricians and mechanics.
After 3,700 miles (6,000km) of testing, I can say that the $599 Alternator Charger could be a game-changer for many. It allowed my wife and I to live and work carefree from a Sprinter van this summer, comforted by all the modern conveniences afforded by so much on-demand power.
It’s fairly common for RV builders to install aftermarket DC-to-DC chargers on a vehicle’s alternator. They’re incredibly adept at keeping stacks of leisure batteries charged to power off-grid luxuries like e-bikes, projectors, 3-in-1 refrigerator-freezers with ice makers, coffee makers, and air conditioners. Some basic chargers cost less and others are more powerful than EcoFlow’s, especially when built around a secondary alternator — but those offer fewer features and require professional installation.
To avoid overloading the vehicle’s alternator, EcoFlow’s charger regulates itself so that only surplus power, which can be less than 800W, is sent to the power station. (The Alternator Charger can pull a maximum of 76 amps.) In my case, the Sprinter’s beefy alternator has enough capacity to easily deliver a near-continuous 800W even with the A/C running and the wipers and lights on.
I also travel with 420W of solar panels installed on the roof for an extra boost, resulting in just over 1,100W of simultaneous real-world charge when driving on sunny days. This combo also works while the van is parked and idling if I ever need the Sprinter to act like an emergency diesel generator.
Installation
EcoFlow’s installation qualifies as a DIY project for many Verge readers, though in my case I turned to an expert for help: Fabian van Doeselaar, who was already outfitting my stock cargo van with his Solo interiors and previously helped out with my review of the EcoFlow Power Kit.
EcoFlow offers a few helpful videos showing the Alternator Charger being installed in a Ford F150 pickup and another showing it installed in an older Sprinter-based RV.
Installing the Alternator Charger requires wiring it back to the starter battery, not the alternator itself. The specific steps for each vehicle will vary, but in the case of my Sprinter, we ran the thick 16-foot (five-meter) cable up to the busbar in the auxiliary battery fuse box, which meant removing the driver’s seat. The cable was long enough to reach the Alternator Charger box mounted inside a cabinet in the back where I manage my electricity.
My Sprinter van is designed from the ground up to be powered by any portable solar generator, which is just a large power station that includes an MPPT charge controller for solar panels. For this review, we connected my van’s circuitry to EcoFlow’s original Delta Pro which in turn was connected to the Alternator Charger using a proprietary EcoFlow cable and adapter.
The Delta Pro keeps my laptops, phones, drones, and headphones charged, in addition to powering my Starlink internet, lights, fridge, water pump, induction cooktop, and rooftop ventilation, as well as EcoFlow’s Wave 2 air conditioner and heater combo I just reviewed. So having a way to reliably charge it was critical this summer since I wanted to live and work as remotely as possible.
Performance
After a straightforward installation, it was time to configure the Alternator Charger in the excellent EcoFlow app, which makes monitoring performance both fun and addictive.
The Alternator Charger only sends power to the power station after two conditions are met. First, the charger has to be turned on with a button on the unit itself or from a “start working” toggle in the EcoFlow app. Then, the voltage measured at the starter battery has to surpass the “start voltage” threshold you set in the EcoFlow app. If left on, it should automatically charge the attached power station when driving — but that didn’t quite work for my setup.
I initially went with the app’s default 13.0V start voltage. Starting the van causes the starter battery’s voltage to jump from about 12.6V – 12.8V to beyond 14V, thus triggering the 800W charging session. But my van’s fitted with a smart alternator which causes the voltage to fluctuate over time, occasionally dipping below that 13.0V threshold. This causes the Alternator Charger to shut off and on repeatedly, thus reducing the speed at which the Delta Pro is charged.
To “fix” this, I lowered the charger’s start voltage to 12.5V (it’s limited to 0.5V adjustments) in the app with a predictable side effect — when I arrived and shut off the motor, the Alternator Charger began depleting my van’s battery and would have continued doing so until it reached the 12.5V threshold and stopped.
That’s not the end of the world, but it is below the 12.6V resting threshold considered healthy for a lead-acid starter battery. EcoFlow does make it easy to manually move that stored energy from the Delta Pro’s battery back to the Sprinter’s by switching the Alternator Charger into Reverse Charge or 100W Battery Maintenance modes — but this is far from ideal.
Ideally, all this would work automatically, so that every time I drive I know that 800W is being fed back into my power station, and I don’t have to worry about the health of my starter battery after I park. Lacking those assurances, I decided to play it safe, and leave the start voltage at 12.5V but toggle the “start working” switch in the app manually every time I started and stopped driving.
Still, after testing EcoFlow’s Alternator Charger, I can tell you $599 is a small price to pay for the peace of mind of having all that power available any time I needed it for two months this summer — rain or shine, even in the middle of nowhere. Shame that it has to be turned on and off manually in my case, and only works with EcoFlow’s own batteries.
EcoFlow’s products can often be found on sale throughout the year with reductions also found in bundles. An $848 bundle that includes the Alternator Charger and new $649 Delta 3 Plus looks pretty compelling for a 1kWh solar generator that can grow with your needs.
All photos by Thomas Ricker / The Verge
Technology
After 8 years, Apple’s original AirPods design is finally gone, and I won’t miss it – but I love its legacy
It didn’t really occur to me until now, but Apple has been selling AirPods with the same design as the original launch, back in December 2016, continuously for the eight years since then.
When AirPods 2nd Gen came out, they upgraded the internals and sound, as well as added new features, but they kept essentially the same exact design for the buds and case.
It’s only now, with the arrival of AirPods 4, that this design is finally heading off for a well-earned retirement, having massively influenced and kickstarted the world of the best true wireless earbuds.
I never got on with this design at all, so I’m not exactly sorry to see it go – but it does feel like the end of an era, and I have to acknowledge that some of the best earbuds on the planet, including the ones I actually do use every day, owe a design debt to them.
AirPods were not the first Bluetooth true wireless earbuds by any means. The Bragi Dash and Earin earbuds basically fight for that honor around 2015 (it appears Bragi announced first, but Earin released first, so take your pick for the winner). I should also mention the Sennheiser MX W1 as an early pioneer in this area from back in 2008 (but those used a custom transmitter, and each earbud was the size of a gerbil).
Throughout 2016, it was clear to those around the tech world that true wireless earbuds could be a big deal. Good ol’ Apple rival Samsung had beat AirPods to the punch, releasing the Samsung Gear Icon X several months before AirPods arrived.
But none of these early earbuds really mattered to the public at large. Bluetooth’s standard hadn’t been updated for this kind of dual transmission, so companies were using fudges to make it work. (One technique, for example, used hearing-aid transmission tech to beam from one earbud to the other, which was latency-free but was prone to interference.) Connection reliability and battery life were poor, and people weren’t into the rounded bud design that was common with the early models.
AirPods were both a step forward and a step backward compared to them, and in both cases, that was an advantage.
The step forward was that they offered rock-solid connectivity compared to the competition, practical battery life, and Apple’s use of its ecosystem to avoid any hassle around pairing. They were as easy to use as Apple’s famous EarPods (introduced in 2012), but without the cable tangle.
And speaking of EarPods, perhaps Apple’s masterstroke was using nearly the same design for the AirPods as its wired earbuds. Other companies were designing something that looked new, which can be intimidating and concerning to people. How can you be sure they’ll be comfortable? Or that they’ll stay in reliably? It would be a gamble to buy them as an early adopter.
So, Apple took a step backward compared to those earbuds. It made them look like older tech – like the earbuds people already owned, but with the cable cut off. You could infer how well they would fit if you’d already tried its earbuds, so no gambling was required. It enabled Apple to create a long, thin case for them that had a familiar vibe – with their white stick-like design, it was like sliding a cigarette out from a packet. You could be the audio equivalent to James Dean pulling out a smoke and slouching against a wall.
As I mentioned above, I didn’t actually like using this design. It rubbed my ears pretty quickly and became uncomfortable. At the time, I also felt that the stick design looked silly – it was only in retrospect that I saw how smart it was. I wanted something with the cool, new, rounded designs we saw elsewhere; my first true wireless earbuds were the Bang & Olufsen E8, released in 2017.
But AirPods delivered a massive boost to the whole world of true wireless earbuds. They became the best-selling model of headphones in the world, and their visibility normalized the idea of going true wireless. The standardized technology available to other earbuds evolved rapidly in order to beat what AirPods could do and turn wireless earbuds into the dominant form of headphones. We got competition from the likes of Samsung and Sony, but also from hi-fi specialists such as Master & Dynamic and Bowers & Wilkins who simply couldn’t be left behind.
And the stick design… uh, stuck around. AirPods Pro were a great improvement on the design, and a huge number of competitors took inspiration. Even in 2024, we’ve just had Samsung actually adopt the stick design in its Pro buds for the first time in the Samsung Buds 3 Pro, and it’s being used in the fantastic Nothing Ear (a), among loads of other buds.
The oddest thing about this original AirPods design is how popular it remained right up until the end, considering how far other earbuds have surpassed the AirPods 2nd Gen for value and comfort. The best cheap earbuds provide way better sound, more features, better battery life and a more comfortable fit than AirPods 2nd Gen did, for a lower price – the Nothing Ear (a) being the prime example of that.
And yet, every time we covered a sale event on TechRadar where AirPods dropped under $90, we’d discover that they were usually the most popular product we’d feature or in the top three at the least. We’d give specific examples of other earbuds we think are a better buy, but AirPods would remain the hot thing.
Maybe it’s that safety and reliability I talked about before. Eight years is an incredibly long time for one design to stick around in the tech world, but you knew exactly what you were getting with them, and people at large liked them. Sure, I won’t miss the design, but there’s no doubt we’re saying goodbye to a true modern tech icon.
Technology
Supremacy review: Riveting exploration of how AI models like ChatGPT changed the world
Supremacy
Parmy Olson (Macmillan Business (UK); St Martin’s Press (US))
For most people, ChatGPT appeared to materalise out of thin air. Within weeks of OpenAI’s quiet launch of the AI chatbot, it had become the fastest-growing app of all time and, almost two years later, it is nearly as well known as Google or Facebook. In the meantime, companies worldwide have gone gaga for the technology, with little time to pause to consider the wider societal consequences. So how did we get here and who was responsible?…
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