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AirPods

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131–140 of 234 posts

Re: AirPods

#131
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They hardly insist -- you can just get an adaptor to lightning if you'd prefer, which isn't much compared to the price of the iPad.

That's yet another stupid adapter you have to take with you everywhere. Even though I personally use wireless headphones, I wouldn't want to buy something new when _already_ getting a new phone or whatever.

It’s also one more possible point of failure. My adapter causes intermittent skipping and cracklings noises, probably because the contact points aren’t secure. So I’ve basically stopped listening to music and podcasts on my iPhone 8 Plus because of it.

Re: AirPods

#132
post #95

AirPods are my best purchase in the last two years. I talk to my research collaborators and clients on Skype almost every morning. The calls can go on for hours. I love the freedom I have to walk around the office while on call, airpods connected to mac. I also use them in the gym connecting them to the ipad while doing eliptical and switching to iphone while doing weights.

A counter anecdote: My AirPod purchase was a complete waste of money. The quality is OK at best, handoff between my X and iPad pro is crap, they don't always pair, and they fall out of my ears if I tilt my head at all. I end up just using my Bose headphones (which are still a PITA for multiple devices), the airpods sit around unused.

When I went to buy airpods, they let me try in the Apple Store. Why would you buy or keep these if you bought online when they don't fit your ears?

Re: AirPods

#133

> Put them in your ears and they connect immediately, immersing you in rich, high-quality sound. Just like magic. I completely disagree with this. It isn’t magic at all. Mine hardly ever work this smooth. Especially transitioning from my iPhone to MacBook Pro. I constantly have to go into bluetooth, manually select them, and even that usually takes a few tries. I like my Earpods from a sound quality perspective but t…

I wouldn't say it never goes as smoothly as they describe, at least in my experience. My experience with the iphone xs + airpods is about: 50% as they describe 49% have to go through bluetooth menu for instant pair 1% they never connect, extreme frustration, have to completely re-pair (no different than any other bluetooth product here, just don't experience it as often with airpods). With Macbook I almost always hav…

ToothFairy provides pretty good experience on mac where you have icon in menubar with one click fast pair with minimal problems. Question remains though why you should use paid thirdparty app to achieve advertised experience.

Re: AirPods

#134

I'm just glad that they let you buy the Wireless Charging case by itself. From the press release it wasn't obvious but when you hit 'buy' it gives you the option for $79 https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MR8U2/wireless-charging-c...

It works with original AirPods too which is a good surprise.

Re: AirPods

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's insistence that I should use wireless for audio is a large reason I'm doubling down on Apple products. I don't need the tangled messes of headphone wires or the extra opportunities for water ingress. Please please let's get rid of wired audio!

Difference being that you used to have the choice between wired or wireless. Now it's wireless or nothing at all. Not good for people who enjoy the higher audio quality or just don't want to mess about with charging yet more batteries

Not to put a too fine point on it, that’s bullshit. I can plug in wired audio on all of my Apple products, except the Apple TV. I did like the optical audio the older models had. By default, I much, much prefer wireless.

Re: AirPods

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's insistence that I should use wireless for audio is a large reason I'm doubling down on Apple products. I don't need the tangled messes of headphone wires or the extra opportunities for water ingress. Please please let's get rid of wired audio!

Think about how wired audio is used in recording, production, and live audio. Removing the wire adds latency.

I've never had latency issues while talking on the phone using my AirPods.

Re: AirPods

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you see as being the ideal UX for switching between devices?

Not OP, but... Start by listening to something on my iPhone. Sit down and turn off music on my iPhone. Open up my laptop. It unlocks with my Apple Watch. I pop open iTunes or Spotify, hit play with my Air Pods still in. This could also work with my iPad as well. I open my iPad, stop playing stuff on my iPhone, and start playing something on my iPad. I shouldn't have to swap. Apple knows it's me and knows which device…

It’s just whichever one you click play on most recently. The other one just auto-pauses.

For certain short bursts of audio, or depending on the source of the audio (transient system sound, unprompted audio, ring tone, etc.) the paused device can auto-resume when the interrupter is done playing.

For sitting at a new device starting the same “type”of audio stream perhaps you would not auto-resume the paused feed when the new feed stops.

For something like Spotify, opening your MacBook should transfer the stream completely seamlessly from your iPhone as a way to save battery. The same song should never stop playing even for a millisecond (the switchover should be imperceptible) and the UI should sync the current playlist between all iCloud devices.

When you open your Mac you should be able to see the Spotify that was playing on your iPhone right there and click pause if you want. It shouldn’t really be perceptible to the user “where it’s coming from”, it should just work.

Re: AirPods

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's insistence that I should use wireless for audio is a large reason I'm doubling down on Apple products. I don't need the tangled messes of headphone wires or the extra opportunities for water ingress. Please please let's get rid of wired audio!

Difference being that you used to have the choice between wired or wireless. Now it's wireless or nothing at all. Not good for people who enjoy the higher audio quality or just don't want to mess about with charging yet more batteries

iPhone are still sold today with bundled wired headphones.

Since when proposing a sold separately wirelesses alternative is "forcing you to go wireless"?

Re: AirPods

#139

> Put them in your ears and they connect immediately, immersing you in rich, high-quality sound. Just like magic. I completely disagree with this. It isn’t magic at all. Mine hardly ever work this smooth. Especially transitioning from my iPhone to MacBook Pro. I constantly have to go into bluetooth, manually select them, and even that usually takes a few tries. I like my Earpods from a sound quality perspective but t…

What do you see as being the ideal UX for switching between devices?

The bluetooth asics tend to be very single function oriented. They might support multiple protocols on the stack but they are generally missing things like a muxer so only one audio based protocol at a time. That means if you're streaming audio using A2DP and you receive a voice call, the A2DP stream is dropped and HSP or Handsfree is enabled. The host will then transition to streaming over the new lower bitrate connection.

The asics generally don't support concurrent connections from different devices, with a few exceptions, and so there's a lot of scaffolding that has to be broken down and stood up when switching devices. It's not unlike HTTP over TCP. There probably needs to be a SPDY for Bluetooth.

Some semiconductor manufacturer could really steal the market by making a bluetooth asic with an audio muxer that supports multiple concurrent protocols and can effectively blend the audio while also maintaining multiple concurrent host connections.

From a UX perspective, this presents problems with situations like listening to music on a headset connected to a PC when an audio call comes from your phone. Does the headset duck A2DP? Send PAUSE over AVCTP if available? Just MUX the audio streams and let you sort it out? What do device controls control when connected to two devices?

Another issue with Bluetooth is that hosts generally don't surface useful controls for prioritizing devices or protocols. So in the case of being paired with multiple A2DP devices, a host will usually only automatically connect to the last one used and you have to explicitly connect to others. This is annoying if you regularly transition between Car and Headphones.

There's also an issue of multiple hosts connecting to the same client and prioritization. Hosts tend to open and hold onto a connect even when they're not doing anything because of the scaffolding involved in a connection. That means if you have two phones and one car, only one will work and if you want to use the other one then it requires terminating the other host's connection, usually on that host device.

Re: AirPods

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but... Start by listening to something on my iPhone. Sit down and turn off music on my iPhone. Open up my laptop. It unlocks with my Apple Watch. I pop open iTunes or Spotify, hit play with my Air Pods still in. This could also work with my iPad as well. I open my iPad, stop playing stuff on my iPhone, and start playing something on my iPad. I shouldn't have to swap. Apple knows it's me and knows which device…

> Apple knows it's me and knows which device I'm actively using. I could be using the MBP and want to hear music from the iPhone though.

Yes, I addressed that in my comment. The common case is that if I'm playing music on my laptop and not playing music on my iPhone (or vice-versa), then I probably want to listen to that music from my laptop, not my iPhone.

For example, let's address your concern with my comment.

"Start by listening to something on my iPhone. Sit down and continue to listen to my music on my iPhone. Open up my laptop. It unlocks with my Apple Watch. I pop open iTunes or Spotify, hit play with my Air Pods still in. Since my iPhone is still playing music, Apple should stick with my iPhone."

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