Much like the Apple Watch or iPad, the 2016-released AirPods were not legitimate industry pioneers, following in the footsteps of plenty other true wireless earbuds from other companies, but they undoubtedly changed the game for good, rapidly taking charge of a fast-growing market segment that’s still expanding at an essentially unrivaled pace.
Given
Apple’s incredible “hearables” dominance, it’s hard not to compare every single new TWS (true wireless stereo) product that comes out with its relative equivalent from the
AirPods portfolio, but while most companies try to steer away from being too obvious in deriving inspiration from the Cupertino-based market leaders, one brand seems unusually keen on embracing any and all comparisons.
Unsurprisingly, we’re talking about
OnePlus, which is actually one of the world’s very few major smartphone vendors that has yet to unveil a single pair of trendy true wireless earbuds. Rumor has it
that’s on the verge of changing, and according to some fresh information dug up by the always resourceful folks over at
XDA Developers, the company’s presumably affordable rookie TWS effort might be called the OnePlus Pods.
That means the unconventional Chinese brand will once again swim against the tide, snubbing a trend set and followed by everyone from
Samsung to
Google,
Amazon,
Microsoft, and
Huawei by opting for a name likely to cause a bit of controversy (and generate some free publicity) instead of going the predictable OnePlus Buds path.
Of course, Apple doesn’t own every small part of the AirPods moniker (we think), so OnePlus is unlikely to get sued if it does end up using a name that’s far from etched in stone for the time being. Besides, we’re a lot more interested in how the OnePlus Pods will look and sound, both details of which are largely up in the air. The images we do have of the upcoming true wireless earbuds are pretty generic, obviously not telling the full story of how much the company will “borrow” from the world’s most successful manufacturer of “hearable” devices.
