As my colleague Nilay Patel wrote recently, the future of headphones is shaping up to be a realm divided by the wireless tech that was once our liberator. Try using them with a Google Pixel, a Chromebook, or a Windows PC, as I did, and you’ll find most of their strengths diminished. They work fantastically well with other Apple products - seamless syncing, stable Bluetooth connection, long battery life - but only with other Apple products. Say hello to the $350 Beats Studio 3 Wireless, the latest update to the Beats line to feature Apple’s superb W1 wireless chip as well as newly upgraded noise canceling.
We’re now living in the sort of topsy turvy world where the latest wireless tech actually locks us in more than it frees us. The shedding of wires has always been a literal and symbolic liberation of the user from a layer of technological friction. That’s what we are promised by headphone makers, wireless charging evangelists, and even gaming mice specialists. Whenever you hear or read the word “wireless,” it’s most often followed by the word “freedom.” Wireless freedom.
