Tangled earphones were a feature, not a bug.

28 Sep 2026 Tangled earphones were a feature, not a bug. My parents gifted me a Sony MP3 player in 10th standard, in boarding school. A bright red Walkman. Actually I got it because my elder brother had been demanding one for a while. So we both got one at the same time. But everyone from my generation will tell you the same thing about that era. We hated the earphones. Not the music. The wires. They had a superhuman ability to tangle. Throw them in your bag, tangled. Pocket, tangled. Leave them on the table for two minutes, tangled. Every single time. So of course the next decade or so was spent solving the tangle. Flat wired earphones that didn’t knot. That OnePlus band around your neck. Weird Bluetooth earphones, heavy and clunky af, that frequently lost connectivity. All of it chasing the same problem. Kill the tangle. And then Apple launched the AirPods. That was it. No wire, no tangle, no thinking. It just freaking worked. I could feel my usage explode. More content, in more…