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All valid annoyances, but I really think OP should try using another brand of Bluetooth headphones for a week just to get some perspective of how well AirPods "just work" compared to the competition. Manually having to re-pair once in every blue moon, one earbud playing while the other isn't, no automatic device switching without having to go through the Settings app everytime, A/V desync, dodgy mic quality, earbuds…
That members of the wider YC community do take it seriously, or worse actually believe and re-bark it in the first place, just shows that, in this instance, being fluent in 'tech' is not a panacea for gullibility.
Having had my share of annoying buzzing sounds I wrote these up a while ago, since I got them replaced 3 times I don't have any of these any more though:
- https://annoying.technology/posts/abea6876cf4f2e13/
- https://annoying.technology/posts/d3e6a4bce1e140b2/
I'm still using them every day and despite the annoyances the small form factor and the sound quality are just good enough to put up with it.
I’ve also experienced my fair share of quality issues - static coming through when noise cancelling operates, which Apple replaced my AirPods under warranty for.) Now I’m experiencing a very tough to describe effect where one AirPod seems to cut in and out of transparency mode repeatedly and in a subtle way.
All in all they are a great product and I agree with some of the other commenters that for all their flaws they are miles ahead of anything else I’ve tried.
I got AirPods shortly after they were released and they were great. They were basic Bluetooth headphones with a decent, minimalistic UI that "just worked". They wouldn't try to be smart and just remain connected to the last device they were on, which worked well 90% of the time and the last 10% wasn't a problem because the connection process was very quick. Under the hood it was presumably just bog-standard Bluetooth which is good enough and can actually be reliable given my experience.
But then Apple couldn't leave "well enough" alone and decided to over-engineer and fuck everything up. They tried to do the whole multi-device thing where it's supposed to automatically & seamlessly switch between them, and the problems in this article arise from this - presumably they've now overlaid an extra management layer & protocol on top of the existing Bluetooth. Even disabling the automatic switching feature doesn't help, as the extra complexity seems to still be involved in the background and makes once quick operations take much more time.
Connecting to AirPods from the audio menu on another device now takes much longer and doesn't always work - sometimes it'll keep spinning and eventually time out for no reason. Connecting via the Bluetooth menu always works and is faster - I wonder why the audio menu doesn't just do whatever the Bluetooth menu does? Same story on iPhone - connecting via the audio menu is now error-prone and I sometimes have to try again using the Bluetooth settings.
Also a problem I have which I suspect is an isolated bug but is still annoying is that since these new changes, I simply cannot get within range of my Macbook without my music playing though AirPods on an iPhone stopping. I suspect the automatic switching garbage they introduced, which despite being disabled, still plays a part. The AirPods don't even actually switch so it's not like the setting didn't apply, they remain connected to the original device but merely pause, so in the end it's the worst of both worlds as it's not even giving me the extra functionality and just ruins something that used to work perfectly.
Not to mention, in typical Apple fashion, all these overlay protocols have zero observability and you can't even tell what's going on beyond a spinner that eventually times out. Same with AirDrop, HomeKit, etc but at least those are used infrequently enough that they aren't too big of a deal in practice, but AirPods are particularly problematic especially in a post-pandemic, fully-remote world.
Of course, given the recent changes to iPhones, wired headphones are no longer an option either unless you keep dongles around. They should've either switched the new iPhones to USB-C or added a Lightning port to Macbooks so that wired headphones could be used without a dongle you'll inevitably be missing when you need it.
All valid annoyances, but I really think OP should try using another brand of Bluetooth headphones for a week just to get some perspective of how well AirPods "just work" compared to the competition. Manually having to re-pair once in every blue moon, one earbud playing while the other isn't, no automatic device switching without having to go through the Settings app everytime, A/V desync, dodgy mic quality, earbuds…
Extensive user of various BT headphones on Android for few years now - went through everything from cheap Corwin E7 to Galaxy Buds to Bose QC to latest one Sony WH-1000XM4 - had minor issues with the Galaxy Buds - had to wiggle them in the case to get the charging going but other than that all of the other ones work really well - Sony being the king of the hill - even two devices work as expected and the sound quality is good.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I generally like the QC20, but I think those were recently discontinued. The mic wasn't the best , but for regular conversations generally didn't have problems if I clipped the mic to a shirt. If it bounced around and rustled on a shirt that wasn't good, but that's going to be a problem with any mic on a wire, I'd think.
Yeah it seems that all of the (in-ear) Bose wired headphones were discontinued.
The sounds has been muffled to the point where, while I could still understand the person, it took me 50% more cognitive effort to make out what they were saying because of the low quality. It's almost always much better when I ask them to switch to the built-in MacBook Pro mic (which is decent).
It's an insidious problem. People like their setup because they can hear you well. But what they don't realize is that they are themselves barely understandable. They don't hear themselves and people aren't used to giving them feedback.
Is it just me?
All valid annoyances, but I really think OP should try using another brand of Bluetooth headphones for a week just to get some perspective of how well AirPods "just work" compared to the competition. Manually having to re-pair once in every blue moon, one earbud playing while the other isn't, no automatic device switching without having to go through the Settings app everytime, A/V desync, dodgy mic quality, earbuds…
I use Android and bought the cheapest wireless/bluetooth earphones I could find. They "just work". When I open the charging case, they connect to my phone. The bad points are the sound quality and the lack of noise cancellation