Not sure there are a lot of secrets revealed here, but this is an interesting read.

A few callouts:

“It was almost like wildfire how quickly it spread,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of product marketing, says. “It’s done even better than we could ever imagine.”

And:

Compared with, say, the Apple Watch, which took years to gain momentum, AirPods are a much easier, and cheaper, product to market. “Everyone’s using a smartphone, and so therefore headphones,” says Neil Cybart, founder of Apple analyst firm Above Avalon, “whereas the younger demographic is moving away from wristwatches.”

And:

According to Joswiak, Apple “had a vision for our wireless future for many years” before the first AirPods were unveiled. “We had this incredible wireless product, the iPhone,” he says. “And yet, what began to feel odd is when you saw somebody using wired headphones. Right then you thought, why would you attach the wire?”

When was the last time you saw someone wearing old-school wired Apple EarPods? Apple got rid of the floppy/CD drives when they were still widely used. Same with the headphone jack. Looking back, the “courage” decision has turned into an unquestioned success for Apple.