The white cables were seen as uber-pretentious back in the day, and were a big target for muggers.[0] The very same way, 'hipsters' and techies are going to get mocked (and probably mugged) for wearing AirPods until — shock-horror — they become ubiquitous.
there's a huge difference between an ugly peripheral that's bundled with a ubiquitous device (ipods/iphones) and one that is overpriced and sold separately.
add to this difference apple's declining market share, and all the reasonable outrage over ditching the headphone jack, and good luck with ubiquity
When the iPod first came out, Apple had zero market share for MP3 players and just about everything else. This was the time when a big NYT journalist said Apple was close to going bankrupt because they couldn't design anything cool any more, and the iPod would be the failure which finally sank them as a company. So, no, I'm not going to write them off just yet.
The white cables were seen as uber-pretentious back in the day, and were a big target for muggers.[0] The very same way, 'hipsters' and techies are going to get mocked (and probably mugged) for wearing AirPods until — shock-horror — they become ubiquitous.
[0] - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/30/ipod_this_seasons_mu...