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The AirPods are Tim Cook’s most underrated achievement
Tech Close Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Tech Apple Close Apple Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Apple The AirPods are Tim Cook’s most underrated achievement Cook and incoming CEO John Ternus made a computer company the most important audio company of the 21st century. by John Higgins Close John Higgins Senior Reviewer, TVs & Audio Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by John Higgins Apr 21, 2026, 5:49 PM UTC Link Share Gift The AirPods changed the direction of true wireless earbuds and became Apple’s most important accessory. | Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Tech Close Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Tech Apple Close Apple Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Apple The AirPods are Tim Cook’s most underrated achievement Cook and incoming CEO John Ternus made a computer company the most important audio company of the 21st century. by John Higgins Close John Higgins Senior Reviewer, TVs & Audio Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by John Higgins Apr 21, 2026, 5:49 PM UTC Link Share Gift Part Of John Ternus is taking over from Tim Cook as Apple’s CEO see all updates John Higgins Close John Higgins Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by John Higgins is a senior reviewer covering TVs and audio. He has over 20 years experience in AV, and has previously been on staff at Digital Trends and Reviewed. Apple Silicon chips . The iPhone’s dominance. Apple Vision Pro. During Tim Cook’s 15-year tenure as Apple CEO there were highs — and in the case of the Vision Pro, maybe a low — that helped define Apple as one of the most dominant forces in tech even without Steve Jobs. But one product doesn’t get the recognition it deserves, as evidenced by The Verge ’s Apple Top 50 products, where the original AirPods don’t even crack the top 10. Before AirPods, almost all earbuds were still wired back to your phone or iPod. Apple’s ads leaned into the aesthetic with vibrant neon backdrops to frame dark, dancing silhouettes connected by the iconic, stark white earbud wires. But in 2016 that all changed. Suddenly there was Lil Buck, filmed in black and white, pulling a white case out of his pocket , flipping open the lid, putting earbuds without wires into his ears, and dancing down the streets and across the walls of Mexico City. It was a moment that reshaped an industry and turned Apple into the most important audio company of the past 25 years. At Apple’s special event in September of 2016 , Phil Schiller praised the “courage” it took Apple designers to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. A few minutes later, the other shoe dropped: Jony Ive announced the AirPods. Sure, there was a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter included with the phone so people could still use their wired headphones and earbuds, but the future was wireless. Removing the headphone jack — which, for the record, I and The Verge hated at the time — was instrumental in moving the audio world forward, whether anyone wanted to or not. The AirPods weren’t the first true wireless earbuds — the Bragi Dash , Onkyo W800BT , and Earin wireless earbuds were all available in 2015 — but there’s a reason we’re not talking about the ubiquity of the Dash right now. Apple sold an estimated 14–16 million AirPods in 2017 , and the number kept growing every year. Untethering yourself from your iPod or iPhone was a game changer. Headphone wires got caught on everything: watchbands, backpack straps, collars, or worse if you ever commuted to work through a big city. Eventually, once people got over looking stupid , AirPods became a fashion statement in their own right. They suggested the wearer was already living in the future, a place where earbuds could be neatly stored in a case, a charging case, without the need to coil a cable that would inevitably unravel in a bag. I’ll admit that when I got them in my ears for the first time, I was not an immediate fan. The open-ear, one-size-fits-all design wasn’t the most comfortable for me, it never felt totally secure, and the sound quality was merely fine. But it was the integration and ease of use, thanks to the W1 chip, that made the AirPods so attractive. No need to hassle with Bluetooth connections. Just bring the earbuds near your iPhone and they paired, and not only with your iPhone but your other Apple products, too. Related The Mac is in good hands in Apple’s post-Cook era Wearable health tech might be Tim Cook’s greatest legacy John Ternus’ first big problem is AI The
- Tech Close Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
- Follow Follow See All Tech Apple Close Apple Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
- Follow Follow See All Apple The AirPods are Tim Cook’s most underrated achievement Cook and incoming CEO John Ternus made a computer company the most important audio company of the 21st century.
- by John Higgins Close John Higgins Senior Reviewer, TVs & Audio Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
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