Apple is reportedly working on high-end, over-the-ear headphones
Apple might be planning to dive into the high-end headphones market, possibly even this year.
This is according to a new Bloomberg report, which claims these headphones will have noise-cancellation and be wireless, with pairing likely being as easy as with Apple's AirPods.
We've heard the same thing a week ago from nearly-always-accurate Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who said the headphones will have an "all-new" design and be more expensive than AirPods.
The Bloomberg report adds a few new details, though. It says that Apple's headphones are likely to use similar audio tech as seen in the company's smart speaker, HomePod, but no further details are provided. Furthermore, the report claims that Apple has been working on the headphones for at least a year, and that the development has been hampered with undisclosed issues which could push the release date into 2019 (the company currently plans to launch them at the end of 2018).
Apple launching its own line of headphones sounds like a risky proposition, given that the company already owns Beats, a hugely successful brand that produces several types of headphones, including over-the-ear models. Its most expensive model is Beats Pro, which retails for $400; it's unclear whether Apple's new headphones would be more or less expensive than those.
On the other hand, Apple did recently bet big on audio by launching the HomePod, a smart speaker with a hefty price tag that focuses on audio quality. Before HomePod, Apple already sold a speaker under the Beats brand, the $180 Beats Pill Plus.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
