Could Apple’s next major product be a hearing aid?

Earlier in the industry, there have been predictions that Apple’s new product line will have a sudden turn, and it will throw a bombshell on a solid but uninspired industry. However, the facts we see are often the opposite. Apple has been driving carefully like a huge ship. Don’t talk about hardware products entering new fields.

Recently, a blog post from AppleWorld made a point that Apple’s next important product may be hearing aids. The article believes that Apple has been preparing to enter the hearing aid industry, which can be seen from AirPods technology and several patent directions, but just like mobile phones, music, applications, tablets and PCs, any industry must accumulate sufficient conditions to Let Apple launch a new product line.

First of all, the new product line must have a large enough customer base, the market needs to remain stable, and even continue to expand under the premise of long-term sustainability.

Second, a product line must have sufficient gross profit to be financially significant.

Third, there must be a certain technical contribution to distinguish it from the existing new product line. This new invention must be patented.

Fourth, the demand for new products is synergistic with the industrial infrastructure and experience that Apple already has.

In addition, even if this new product has well-known deficiencies, consumers can almost instinctively understand the improvement of Apple products.

Apple’s existing AirPods coupled with directional microphone technology and noise cancellation technology have laid the foundation for hearing aid products. After some modifications and improvements, Apple ‘s disruptive hearing aids can be launched soon.

It is reported that there are 35 million people with mono- or binaural hearing loss in the United States alone. The US hearing aid market is worth about $ 7 billion in 2017 and is expected to grow at a rate of 7% per year by 2025. The global market may be three times the size of the US market. In reality, most people who need hearing aids can’t afford them, nor do they have hearing aids.

Most modern hearing aids amplify the sound, but they are terrible in terms of direction selection and noise cancellation. With AirPod and Beats products and patents on noise cancellation technology, Apple can solve the biggest problem that hearing aids have yet to solve.

Think differently

In fact, there are already some “designed for iOS” compatible products. They are similar in shape to ordinary headphones. They can be connected to an iPhone or iPad to listen to music, can make stereo calls, and have amplifying functions suitable for hearing impaired people. It’s just that these are very basic products, and Apple can do better than them.

The article also tells us that the “inferior” hearing aids currently on sale are extremely expensive. Each hearing aid on the market sells for $ 1,500 to $ 2,000 and is a consumable item that is easy to lose and damage. Imagine if Apple entered the hearing aid market through the established medical and health channels, even if the products were sold at a cheaper price, it would be enough to make money.

Of course, this expected “HearPods” is probably just a vision issued on behalf of the hearing impaired, but the content of the analysis is not without reason, especially Apple’s recent active exploration of assistive human-computer interaction technology and numerous patent applications, and This possibility is not ruled out. Earlier we had put a lot of wishful thinking about hearing improvement and health functions on the expectations of AirPods, but we did not expect that it would give birth to an independent and special new product.

However, even if HearPods is true, it will have little contact with the mass consumers. It has its own dedicated service direction. Although it cannot satisfy the vast number of fruit powders’ desire for new products, it is of great significance for health care and hearing aid device reform. Do you think it’s really possible for Apple to launch a hearing aid product?