Retracing the Steps of Headphone Development

In 2017, Apple became the face of modern headphone technology upon the release of AirPods. Before this, Dr. Dre impacted global culture with his Monster Beats in 2008. Today, Americans spend more than 32 hours per week listening to music - about the equivalent to a full-time job. In fact, 55% of Americans even use headphones on the regular at their job to boost productivity. How did we get here? Let’s retrace our steps along the timeline of headphone history.

Seven years before the Beats by Dre phenomenon, the iPod dominated the listening scene with their famous smooth, white earbuds. In fact, 400 million iPods were sold from 2001-2015. The iPod saw many generations after its original release: the Mini, U2 edition with pre-loaded music, Shuffle, Nano, Touch, and Classic. 

The use of the Bose QuietComfort was the norm before Apple’s white earbuds took over. These were the first commercially available, noise-canceling headphones. These headphones were powerful enough to block the roar of airplane engines - first for pilots, then passengers. 

Although the commonly preferred headphones of today are wireless, Bluetooth capabilities have been around longer than most people are privy to. The history of headphones is just as interesting, and unpredictable, as its future - read more below for the full scoop.