Apple introduces new headphones
In this economy? Plus media job losses this year. Hoo boy.
Two items today on my mind.
Apple AirPods Max
Businesses don’t do things by accident. Yes, companies often make mistakes, but everything leading up to that mistake is a decision—or a series of decisions. With this frame, I am curious as to why Apple is introducing expensive ($550) headphones just 10 days before Christmas?
(Let alone a terrible name. It could only be made worse if they added a ‘plus.’)
Set to hit stores on December 15, the tech company announced today that its new high-end headphones are riding the coattails of its AirPods.
In a statement on its website, Apple said:
“AirPods are the most popular headphones in the world, beloved for their effortless setup, incredible sound quality, and iconic design. With AirPods Max, we are bringing that magical AirPods experience to a stunning over-ear design with high-fidelity audio,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The custom acoustic design, combined with powerful H1 chips, and advanced software enable AirPods Max to use computational audio to wirelessly deliver the ultimate personal listening experience.”
Getting beyond the gobbledygook, I’m interested less in the mechanics of the product, but in the marketing and media strategy. How much money is Apple planning on marketing this product? One would imagine a lot! And they’d have to flood the zone now as we’re a stone’s throw away from Christmas (and just two days before Jewish Christmas, Hanukkah!).
I also wonder if Apple is reading economic indicators that others aren’t. Rolling out a $550 headphone set when:
The unemployment rate is 6.7 percent;
There are 10.7 million unemployed Americans;
Millions face evictions on January 1;
Nearly 1 in 4 households experienced food insecurity this year;
Food lines grow as 26 million people say they don’t have enough to eat.
Apple is the richest company on the planet, and I know it needs to create products to appease everyone from shareholders to customers. And I know many other companies put out and market big-ticket items every day. But there’s something that doesn’t sit right about introducing a high-end headphone, one that will ostensibly cannibalize several of its other headphone products (Apple owns Beats), at a time when many Americans are struggling for the basics: food, shelter, clothing.
Or maybe Apple just created a product for people who continually lose AirPods.
Media Job Losses
Before we go, a depressing number hit my inbox today, courtesy of Axios’s Sara Fischer (sign up for her newsletter, it’s the best media newsletter in the business):
This chart sucks. Thirty thousand media jobs, including 16,000 newsroom jobs. We talked about the hollowing out of American journalism back in May, and the following months have only gotten worse.
It’s hard to not take this personally, as I am a number in this chart, after getting laid off in April and 8 months later, still looking for a newsroom home.
It’s becoming increasingly frustrating, if not increasingly clear, that I won’t be able to be a journalist much longer. It’s next to impossible to get a job interview, let alone a job offer once I manage to break through the HR software or even a conversation with a hiring manager. And this chart signifies that there are literally thousands of others like me, attempting to find work in this field, but can’t.
So where do we go? PR, marketing, advertising; that seems to be the areas that line up. And since I’ve already done PR and branded content, I know my way around. But that’s not what we want to do. We didn’t get into journalism to be wealthy, but instead because we love to talk with people, to write, to ask questions. But we can’t get jobs doing that now, so we’ll become a different statistic: six public relations people for every reporter. This has a deep impact on how society understands, well, everything.
In a new report today by Pew Research Center:
Additionally, as news consumers navigate an information environment that includes news aggregators and social media feeds, confusion abounds regarding the original source of reporting. Only 9% of U.S. adults are very confident that they can tell if a news organization does its own reporting, and, when asked to identify which of six sources do this (See Chapter 1), nearly a quarter (23%) could not identify any of them correctly.
And these numbers will only get worse with fewer journalists out there helping to put context to the news of the day; fewer media people coming up with new products and ways for readers to get the information they need.
Thank you for allowing me in your inbox, today and every day. If you have tips or thoughts on the newsletter (or want to hire an experienced reporter, editor, newsroom manager) drop me a line. Or you can follow me on Twitter.Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you tomorrow!
Bobby McFerrin, “Don’t Worry Be Happy”
Some interesting links:
For advertisers:
Spotify 2020 Wrapped for advertisers (Spotify)
For digital strategy:
How Joe Biden’s Digital Team Tamed the MAGA Internet (NYT)
Trump Was Our First Social Media President. And It Was Awful (Medium)
For newsletters:
Can Substack CEO Chris Best build a new model for journalism? (The Verge)
For the King of All Media:
Howard Stern Extends SiriusXM Radio Deal for Five More Years (Variety)
For facial recognition:
Huawei tested AI software that could recognize Uighur minorities and alert police, report says (Washington Post)
For platforms:
Mark Zuckerberg threatened to pull UK investment in secret meeting with Matt Hancock (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism)