AirPods

The AirPods (1st generation) cost $159 and were Apple’s first earphones with no wire anywhere, not even between the two earbuds. They were shown alongside the iPhone 7, the first iPhone to go without a headphone socket.

Pairing was what set them apart from everything else on sale. Opening the case next to an iPhone put a card on the screen, one tap connected them, and the connection then followed you across to an iPad, a Mac or an Apple Watch signed in to the same account. A custom Apple chip inside, the W1, did that work.

Sensors in each earbud detected whether it was in an ear, so music paused when one was taken out and resumed when it went back. A double tap on the side called up Siri. Listening time ran to five hours, with more than twenty four hours in total from the case, and fifteen minutes in the case gave another three hours.

Apple said the AirPods (1st generation) would be on sale in late October 2016 and then missed that window. On 26 October it said it needed a little more time before they were ready for customers, and gave no new date at all.

It was announced on 7 September 2016 at the ‘See you on the 7th’ event. Orders finally opened on 13 December, while the earbuds reached Apple Stores six days after that on 19 December, priced from $159.

Read about the AirPods (2nd generation) that followed.