A former Apple designer recently revealed that the company started working on AirPods Max and why there was no Apple logo on the product.
The original AirPods came out in 2016 and the AirPods Max didn’t launch until 2020, so it’s easy to assume that Apple only decided to make AirPods Max once those initial tiny white earbuds proved to be a success.
Then it took so long for the AirPods Max to be updated that it must have felt like they weren’t considered important. This is especially true since their eventual update mainly consisted of switching them to using USB-C for charging.
However, according to designer Eugene Whang, he was working on AirPods Max five years before their release. Talk to Highsnobiety magazine, Whang described the work as actually working around three products.
These were the headband, case, and cushion that together hold the AirPods Max comfortably against people’s ears. It would have been particularly difficult to get the padded section right as you had to try to accommodate as many different sized and shaped heads as possible.
The process involved experimenting with “hundreds and hundreds of variations,” he said.
According to Whang, there weren’t just practical or technical issues to consider, or what to add to the product. Instead, there were deeper issues, such as how the AirPods Max intentionally omit something that every other Apple product has: an Apple logo.
“We didn’t want to mark your head,” says Whang.
As part of the design team
AirPods Max would have been one of the last products Whang worked on during his 22 years at Apple. And throughout this period, Apple has always ensured that it is disciplined in its approach to design.
“We would huddle around a table for hours,” Whang says. “Everyone is equal. Your worth depends on your ideas. We have been very direct with each other.”
“No one had an ego,” he continued. “You don’t criticize the person, you criticize the idea.”
Jony Ive has previously spoken about the importance of detail and how the care put into a product is felt by the user. Whang believes it too.
“If it’s not good on the inside, it won’t be good on the outside,” he says. “We literally designed from the inside out.”
“The interior details would require as much design work as the exterior,” he continues. “The shape of the PCB. The placement of the components. Constant shuffling and Tetris of the internals.”
Hundreds and hundreds of variations have been tried to determine how AirPods Max should fit comfortably
Whang is quick to say that Apple designers “literally shaped culture through our products.” But he seems to be saying it factually, rather than out of ego, because he then says that immediately after launch, the whole team is constantly worried.
“There’s always a defense mode,” he says. “What’s going to go wrong that we haven’t thought of?” »
He was also able to talk about this incredible impact of Apple products and the pressures that come with it to continue to perform well. “When you’re in the eye of the storm, it doesn’t seem so crazy. You just do the job,” he says.
Whang left Apple shortly after Jony Ive and was one of the designers who went to work for Ive’s startup, LoveFrom. Ultimately, he didn’t quit anytime soon to care for his ailing mother, but says that during his time at LoveFrom he worked on a huge range of projects from technology to interior design.
“It was amazing, the work was inspiring,” he says, “the people were inspiring.”
Furthermore, LoveFrom recently presented its technology and interior design with the Ferrari Luce electric vehicle.