I am traveling (I’m the kind of person you expect to travel in a pandemic, wear a mask!). And I have Gruber’s comparator: the Bose QC35 II. I carry mine in their case hooked to a carabiner hooked to my briefcase, so the APM’s highly exposed wrapper of a case is not my cup of tea. I can also see the utility for movies at home so I appreciate the MacBook/Apple TV problem. Those are 2 of my 3 main use cases (The other of course being VTCs like everybody else). I don’t think that I will be running out to replace my current headphones but when they get long in the tooth I might consider the second generation of this APM design. It’s not a retina MacBook where I would buy it pre-order as soon as the announcement is out. It’s a 2008 unibody MacBook. It has a compelling future but I want to see what version two is.
I also think it is super super likely that Apple is about to hit Bose and other higher-end headphones makers by surprise with how good these sound. We'll have to wait for some real world usage tests and whatnot, but most $500 headphone makers are pretty hidebound / kinda into the woo-woo world of audio. These could be pretty disruptive -- especially if, in year or two, they introduce a lower-end model (AirPods MaxSE?).
Rumors indicate an AirPods (Max?) Sport in the coming months. I'd guess that those will be a lot more competitive with the XM4s/QC35s/etc., and likely will cost $299-399. I'm interested in how they'll differ from the AirPods Max, though -- a crappier speaker? More plastic and less aluminum? I think the trouble is that the AirPods Max (to me) seem more like $350 headphones than $550 headphones, so it's difficult to imagine what they'll do to hit the price point I actually have in mind.
