Apple is rumored to release a pair of high-end headphones this year, and they will probably be a huge hit like AirPods (AAPL)

• Apple reportedly plans to release a pair of high-end over-ear headphones in 2019.
• These headphones would differ from Apple's Beats line of headphones, and feature Apple branding instead of the Beats logo.
• A pair of studio-quality Apple headphones is bound to be successful, for many reasons.

Buried in a January report from Bloomberg about Sonos was a nugget some might not have known about: Apple plans to release a pair of high-end over-ear headphones in 2019, to compete with the likes of Bose and Sennheiser.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo was the first to report on Apple's over-ear headphones back in February 2018. In his research note (published via MacRumors), Kuo said Apple's high-end headphones will be "as convenient as AirPods with better sound quality."

Last June, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that Apple's over-ear headphones would be separate from the Beats line. (Apple purchased Beats Electronics for $3 billion back in 2014.)

Gurman said Apple had initially planned to release its headphones by the end of 2018, but moved the launch date to early 2019 after "development challenges."

It's unclear what issues Apple may have encountered, as we don't know much about the headphones themselves. We know they would feature an Apple logo instead of the Beats logo, and feature an upgraded W1 chip, like AirPods have, to let them instantly connect to other Apple devices. But we don't know what the headphones will actually look like, how they'll work, or how much they'll cost.

Still, based on Apple's history with personal audio, this kind of premium over-ear offering is bound to be a hit.

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Even before its HomePod speaker launched early last year, Apple was already one of the biggest producers of speakers in the world.

As of 2012, Apple had already shipped more than 1.2 billion speakers in the form of its wired earbuds, which came packaged with every iPod and iPhone. And that was before Apple introduced its hit AirPods in 2016.

In other words, Apple is no stranger to personal audio. Apple's hardware designs for its earbuds, from the wired earbuds that shipped with the first iPods to the fully wireless AirPods, are iconic.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Contributer : Tech Insider https://ift.tt/2ThhQCu

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