Disclaimer, I’m not a fan of Apple, and will roast and criticize Apple at every opportunity, including their ludicrious move to no longer provide chargers with their iPhones, which is solely for profit.
By iBra I mean the Airpods Max, whose case resembles a bra (just look at all these memes roasting them). First of all, these things cost $549. Such a high price tag is reserved for ‘audiophile’ grade headphones; and Apple’s headphones have never been suited for Audiophiles, due to their unclean sound signature and with cheap sounding bass. The thing that’s supposed to be special about these headphones is their noise cancellation, but it’s 2020: There are plenty of much better and cheaper noise cancelling headphones, including those manufactured by name brands such as Sony and Bose.
If anything, the Airpods Max are just overpriced Beats headphones, which is troubling, because Beats headphones are already overpriced as is. So, it’s Beats (which is owned by Apple by the way), but with an Apple logo on it. Other than having no redeeming features, Apple believes the price is justified by its “premium build”, spatial sound, and 20 hours of battery life. Oh Apple, I just love it when you try to brag about battery life, build quality, and promote features that have already existed for a decade. Spatial sound is supported by almost ALL headphones; you need only have music or movies that utilize it. (Example video here. Spatial sound is just more advanced surround sound!).
So, what does Apple mean by premium build quality? Well, by its weight, and metal. The heavier and shinier something is, the more attractive it is. This may sound like a dumb way to measure quality, but it’s almost always applied to diamonds and gold. It even applies to ordinary objects like mice (not the animal), TVs, and phones. TVs adorned with metal just look great (and usually, the heavier they are, the better they are, simply because of their huge screen size, speakers, display technology, and so on).
However, despite the weight and the obvious shiny metal on Apple’s products, it doesn’t make them high quality. The headphones are nearly a pound; much heavier than any other similar headphones out there, and for something that’s supposed to be portable and sit on your head for a long time, that can reduce comfort and be more difficult to lug around. Also, Apple intentionally adds hidden weights, (at least for their Beats headphones.), just for the sole purpose to make their cheap and finnicky products have a bigger price tag and be more appealing.