Key Takeaways
- Apple may add a touchscreen to AirPods cases, but it’s unnecessary and could lead to quite a bit of frustration.
- The addition of a touchscreen would likely increase the price of AirPods, offering no real improvement.
- The same controls already exist on phones and Apple Watches, making it redundant on the AirPods case.
Never let it be said that Apple rests on its laurels. Sure, some of the updates and changes it makes to its products don’t always come fast enough or drastic enough from one iteration of its devices to the next. But the company doesn’t release a product like the Apple AirPods and then just sit still.
Apple is one of the biggest and most popular companies because it tends to offer improvements and changes to things like the AirPods rather than rolling out several different kinds of earbuds. However, there is one change that Apple could be planning that might be a bridge too far for me, a change that would be a solid “no” from me. If the AirPods get a touchscreen on its case, that would be a big reason for me to look elsewhere for my earbuds.
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No point to Apple AirPods case with a touchscreen
It just doesn’t make a ton of sense
The biggest problem with the idea of a touchscreen on the Apple AirPods case is that it’s simply unnecessary. The idea is that the controls would allow users to play, pause, stop, fast-forward, and rewind whatever song or podcast they’re listening to at the time. The big question is, why would someone look to do that on their headphone case?
The easiest and most popular way to do any of those things is and will always be, to actually go to your phone or iPad or computer or whatever you’re listening on, and hit any of those commands there. There’s the added bonus that when you are controlling your music on your phone, you can also go a step further and choose another song or change the podcast, or audio book you’re listening to with the touch of the phone’s screen.
Why would I want another place to control my music that offers less control overall? What would be the point of that? It seems like something that simply isn’t needed at all, and would in fact, just become a problem that could lead to accidentally fast forwarding or rewinding when I didn’t want to do any such thing.
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Accidents will happen and get more annoying
You’ve heard of pocket dialing, but what about pocket pausing?
When I think of the things that could go wrong with Apple AirPods coming complete with cases that sport a touch screen, the biggest thing is that the controls will somehow be activated when the case is in my pocket. Maybe I’m on a walk out in my neighborhood. Maybe I’m on the treadmill. Either way, it’s simply too easy to imagine that with each stride, the case being told to fast forward, or rewind, or pause what I’m listening to. And it certainly seems the same thing could easily happen even if I was walking or running holding the case in my hand.
It seems likely of course, that Apple would put some sort of safeguards in place to stop that from happening too often, but as I sit here, I can’t think of a way where I could be be totally confident it would never happen. It’s an annoyance I’d rather just avoid entirely by not having a touchscreen on my AirPods case.
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The price will almost certainly go up
Paying more for a useless feature is a bad idea
The biggest reason I don’t want the feature that already exists on the phone and even on your Apple Watch, if you happen to have one of those, is that the price of the AirPods and the already pretty expensive AirPods Pros will almost certainly increase if the case gets touchscreen controls.
On the norm, I’m looking at spending about $250 if I buy a new pair of AirPod Pros. I would think the price will get a boost of at least $30 per pair should the case have this brand new technology that isn’t remotely needed. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that it could add another $50. Drive the price of the Pros all the way up to an even $300. But there will almost certainly be some kind of price increase.
Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Gen)
- Battery Life
- 6 hours
- Charging Case Included?
- yes
- Brand
- Apple
- Bluetooth
- Yes
- Case battery
- 30 hours
- Weight
- 1.79 ounces
- Compatibility
- iOS and Android
- Noise Cancellation
- Yes
And of course, sooner or later, should Apple make the move to this kind of design, it will almost certainly be the only design. Because we’ll see Apple shift to AirPod cases with touchscreen controls the same way it shifted from the lightning to standard USB-C chargers.
I say this from a place of love. I’ve bought multiple sets of Apple Airpods since they were first released into the world. There are definitely ways to improve what the earbuds have to offer. Putting touch screen controls on the case won’t offer any improvement and will just lead to frustration. And even if there’s no frustration, it’s simply not a useful feature.
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