When Apple announced the iPhone 7 in September 2016, there was much gnashing of teeth because of its omission of a headphone jack. But after the furor died down, the main complaint became the $160 price of the Apple AirPods, which are reckoned to be the best alternative as of December 2016.

Few among us would call the AirPods attractive, but because they are from Apple they have a lot of cachet. But they are unattractive in a different way from the way that conventional hearing aids are unattractive. The old saw “ children should be seen but not heard” becomes “hearing aids should be heard but not seen”. Most hearing aids look like something that many iPhone users’ grandparents might use, which is the reason that so many older folks resist using them. At least in Silicon Valley, most people would prefer to look geeky than to look senile.

While the Apple AirPods are functionally attractive, they are not aesthetically attractive. But a bunch of competitors, attracted by the big market, are offering attractive ones. Unfortunately, at least some of these are crowdfunded, with ambitious plans but little chance for success. So their customers should be wary that they may have to endure long delays and ultimate failures.

If you are asking yourself why some of these attractive ear buds can’t include the capabilities of hearing aids, or at least the capabilities of their little sibling–PSAPs (Personal Sound Amplification Products), so are we. Some of the hearing aid companies now have models that work with the iPhone, but they have kept the old-fashioned ugliness. Ditto the Sound World Solutions PSAP. Only the now-defunct Soundhawk had a design that looked geeky but modern. The bottom line: we can only hope that SOMEONE figures it out.