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AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)

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Re: AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)

#471

Post by jsinai »

askafriend wrote: post #326
killerdhmo wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check your settings on your call that it is on Voice Isolation; there are three settings IIRC that tell the microphone what to focus on.

Oh wow, this is really helpful. I did a quick test and this seems to make a big difference! For anyone reading: if you're on a call, pull down on control center and there's a Mic Mode setting that appears that you can change to "Voice Isolation". This setting won't be there if you're not in a call. Here's an article that explains it: https://www.lifewire.com/use-voice-isolation-on-ios-15-52064...

I have a problem where Voice Isolation partially cancels out my voice, especially when background noise is pronounced, and actually makes calling a worse experience for both parties. Whenever I'm on a call outside, with my AirPod Pro's, the person on the other end complains that Voice Isolation cancels out every other word. When I experiment between keeping Voice Isolation on or off, almost everyone I've tried this with prefers it off. It turns out filling in missing words takes more energy than understanding my voice with background noise.

I wish Voice Isolation could be pre-trained on our voices, similar to how Face ID pre-trains on your face. That way, the phone's software can know to recognize your voice and not cancel those out.

Re: AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)

#472

Post by dougmwne »

1123581321 wrote: post #103
dougmwne wrote: post #61

Interested to know what bluetooth codecs these support. That's important for using them with non-apple devices. Frustrating that they don't list supported codecs in the tech specs.

The tech specs link on the APP page is grayed out. Hopefully it will be live soon.

Tech specs are live, but even though there are a half dozen size measurements, not a codec in sight. I think that is intentional because they don’t support AptX, or LDAC which would be essential for using these with anything not Apple.

Re: AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)

#473

Post by 1123581321 »

dougmwne wrote: post #472
1123581321 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech specs link on the APP page is grayed out. Hopefully it will be live soon.

Tech specs are live, but even though there are a half dozen size measurements, not a codec in sight. I think that is intentional because they don’t support AptX, or LDAC which would be essential for using these with anything not Apple.

Ah, yes, that's a disappointing lack of detail (and disappointing if they only support the required codecs in 5.2/5.3.)

Re: AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)

#474

Post by SergeAx »

joshstrange wrote: post #37
hardwaregeek wrote: post #26

It's wild how much money Apple has made from Bluetooth headphones that don't suck. That's literally it. They're portable, pair easily and (somewhat) work with multiple devices. I have top of the line Bose Bluetooth headphones that still, in 2022, have issues with multiple devices. I can't count how many times I've started playing music on my iPhone only to realize that the headphones think my laptop is playing, so th…

This makes me think of the "What if AirPods was a company?" [0] post from 2019. It's really wild how big that one product is alone. [0] https://jonahlupton.medium.com/what-is-airpods-was-a-company...

> What if AirPods was a company?

They wouldn't release a single product, because of proprietary Apple ecosystem and patents wall around it.

Re: AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)

#475

Post by Reason077 »

coconut08 wrote: post #123
ycta3402937498 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony WH-1000XM4s I'd say are the most comparable in terms of ease of use and pairing well. I haven't had any dropout problems with them like I have with others (including my gen 3 airpods). I use my AirPods for my phone/tablet and my XM4s with my 2020 Mac Mini.

I've daily driven the xm3's and the xm4's for years and their multi-device support is so bad that it literally makes it worse than not having it at all. I explicitly disable multi-device support for them because the headphones will randomly jump around for seemingly no reason at all making them entirely unusable. Apple's bluetooth headphones, assuming you are living exclusively inside of the apple ecosystem, are the…

> "I've daily driven the xm3's and the xm4's for years and their multi-device support is so bad that it literally makes it worse than not having it at all."

Disagree. I had the XM3s before and it was a constant pain having to manually switch devices. Sure, it's not 100% perfect, but the XM4s seamlessly switching between my laptop and phone is a dream by comparison.

Re: AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)

#476

Post by alistairSH »

happyopossum wrote: post #264
alistairSH wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I’m missing something, the only offering from Beats is the Flex. The rest are either over-ear “studio” headphones or true wireless. The Flex might be ok, but it doesn’t use the same chipset as the AirPods, so I don’t know if it pairs as seamlessly between 3+ devices or if they’ll work as well for teleconferencing.

> The Flex might be ok, but it doesn’t use the same chipset as the AirPods The Beats Flex actually do use the W1 chip, which was used in the first few AirPods, and a bunch of Beats devices. It supports ‘AirPod-style’ pair once/use on any Apple devices use. Would recommend.

Ah, I hadn’t realized the W1 was the original AirPod SoC. At <$80, seems like they’re the best option for sports (within the Apple world at least).

Re: AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)

#477

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

lrem wrote: post #441
vlovich123 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also possible that their Bluetooth stack for the AirPods is likely sharing a lot of code with their battle-tested iOS stack which puts even Android's to shame (I worked at both places and even Googler's acknowledged Android has some serious problems and Apple kicked there ass here). A sibling noted the H1 chip and whatnot. I don't know how much the specific chip matters for that piece (certainly key for battery…

There is a widespread belief in a simple explanation among Googlers: device makers test against iPhone. Whenever Apple strays off spec, they'll choose to be compatible with Apple's implementation rather than the standard. TBF, can't blame them. Apple has pretty much a single stack. Android is about as fragmented as the PC world.

Well I think it doesn't stop with the SW stack, I remember the time when the android devices had the bathtub notch without having any real sensors in them.

Re: AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)

#478

Post by dbbk »

bironran wrote: post #417

And still no mute button on the airpod itself. Seriously, I would love to have a chat with the product manager in charge. With over 6.2M call-minutes per minute and over 300M daily active users [1], how can "mute", the most important functionality in a video call (I would argue even more than disconnecting the call) still be missing? Just a tiny dot that sets a mute/unmute flag on the mic, preferably with an audible…

If you "don't even involve the phone" how would you know what the state of your mic is? Whether it's on or off?

Re: AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)

#479

Post by dbbk »

RockRobotRock wrote: post #336
smoldesu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Airpods simply do not support decent sounding duplex audio: https://youtu.be/N6Y_Q7RYmmY?t=351

No bluetooth device supports decent duplex audio, that I know of.

I'm frankly quite surprised that Apple hasn't come up with its own competing version of Bluetooth to fix this yet. I know they must hate it.

Re: AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)

#480

Post by arthurmorgan »

kapsel wrote: post #12

I love my AirPod Pros, but I hate how unreliable charging in the case is. The AirPods will often think they are out of the case, when they are, and discharge themselves, while connected to my phone/laptop. Then they will re-charge, emptying the battery in the case, so I will end up with a dead pair of AirPods after a couple of days in the pocket, not using them. I guess their tolerances are too tight, hopefully somet…

I have the same issue(s) on my third set of earpods and second case. It has gotten to a point where I don't want to buy another set of Apple headphones because I'm afraid this will happen again one day or another.
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