AirPods succeed by not selling you a new pair • Hacker News Board

Re: AirPods succeed by not selling you a new pair

#81

Post by kjkjadksj » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 5:40 AM UTC

FredPret wrote: post #60

kjkjadksj wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I want: the ability to integrate tooling I roll myself or find on the internet just as easily as apples often slopware.

But then the logical solution is to not buy Apple? I like the garden walls. If you don't like them, find your own garden, don't shake your fist at my walls.

Macos already operates like this. Works out of the box and has the safe shiny mac app store for the normies but still offers a full unix experience for people who know what they are doing. And the sky doesn’t fall. In fact I had this with my iphone when I had it jailbroken until I got too version locked.

Re: AirPods succeed by not selling you a new pair

#82

Post by pyman » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 9:26 AM UTC

ghusto wrote: post #72

pyman wrote: post #23

When Apple discontinued the first generation of AirPods, the final firmware release had a bug that was never fixed. It caused the left AirPod to disconnect after one or two minutes. Hundreds of thousands of loyal customers were affected [0], including me. You couldn't even buy a second hand left AirPod because of a firmware version mismatch. I still love Apple products, but under Tim Cook, it feels like they care mor…

> I still love Apple products, but under Tim Cook, it feels like they care more about margins than customers. They care about customers, as long as happy customers means more profits. If they can make more money (long term) screwing you over, that's what they'll be doing.

Tim Cook cares more about making money than making customers happy.

For example: Apple Stores often had long lines of people buying cables and adapters until EU regulation forced Apple's iphones, tablets and cameras sold in the EU include USB‑C by end of 2024. Apple initially resisted.

Apple forced new and loyal customers to buy extra adapters just to do basic stuff:

- They removed the headphone jack

- They stuck with Lightning for ages while the rest of the world moved to USB-C.

- MacBooks lost all the ports. At one point they removed HDMI, USB-A, and SD card slots. So you needed a dongle for pretty much everything.

- Apple's dongles are overpriced, they charge a premium for their adapters, even though they're basic accessories. And if you buy them from another company, they sometimes don't work.

- Travel became a pain, I had to carry 3 or 4 dongles.

- Tim Cook pulled Fortnite from the App Store, purely out of corporate greed, with no consideration for the users, who in some cases had to buy a Nintendo Switch just to keep playing.

Tim Cook is the anti–Steve Jobs. All greed, profit, and corporate nonsense. He'd be a better fit as CEO of IBM.

Because he's great at making money, not so great at keeping loyal customers happy. The only reason I’m still using Apple products is because of what Steve Jobs built with the Mac and the iPhone.

Re: AirPods succeed by not selling you a new pair

#83

Post by js2 » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 6:59 PM UTC

avidiax wrote: post #62

js2 wrote: post #19

My AirPods Pro (2nd gen) are just about 3 years old, still going strong, used daily for anywhere from 30-minutes to a few hours. I recently rented a U-Haul cargo van and had to drive it empty for a few hours. It would've been deafening without the AirPods. The noise cancellation works great for something like that. My AirPods Pro first gen are nearly 6 years old, same use up till I gave them to my wife. She uses them…

I have these custom IEM tips, but for a discontinued pair of Sony headphones. I wouldn't say seal (on the earbud side) is perfect, but the fit on my ears is perfect. They never just fall out of my ears, and are super comfortable. https://www.adv-sound.com/products/eartune-fidelity-custom-f...

Did you go to an audiologist for the molds or do the home option?

Re: AirPods succeed by not selling you a new pair

#84

Post by avidiax » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 4:23 AM UTC

js2 wrote: post #83

avidiax wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have these custom IEM tips, but for a discontinued pair of Sony headphones. I wouldn't say seal (on the earbud side) is perfect, but the fit on my ears is perfect. They never just fall out of my ears, and are super comfortable. https://www.adv-sound.com/products/eartune-fidelity-custom-f...

Did you go to an audiologist for the molds or do the home option?

I went to the audiologist. Be careful if you do it yourself, since adhering the compound to your eardrum can cause serious and permanent injury.

At the same time, I also got custom sleeping earplugs. They've been really great. It blocks all the little noises that wake you up, even partially.

Re: AirPods succeed by not selling you a new pair

#85

Post by js2 » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 5:58 PM UTC

avidiax wrote: post #84

js2 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you go to an audiologist for the molds or do the home option?

I went to the audiologist. Be careful if you do it yourself, since adhering the compound to your eardrum can cause serious and permanent injury. At the same time, I also got custom sleeping earplugs. They've been really great. It blocks all the little noises that wake you up, even partially.

Thanks. Appreciate the insight.

Re: AirPods succeed by not selling you a new pair

#86

Post by seec » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 12:03 PM UTC

dayvid wrote: post #28

Moved from Airpods to Galaxy Buds Pro and haven't looked back. Much better sound quality and not as finnicky. Also easier to find decent prices via sales or refurbished

This. I'm a bit baffled considering the loyalty of Apple users to AirPods. They are not very special for the price and most of the gimmicky features are not that useful when they work at all.

But at the same time, I know that most Apple users nowadays are sheep following trends so whatever...

Re: AirPods succeed by not selling you a new pair

#87

Post by seec » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 12:18 PM UTC

can16358p wrote: post #38

I've never used AirPods but I can say their microphones are awful: whenever I'm talking to someone who is on AirPods, I can immediately tell it from the very low audio quality. This happens with many, many people. When they switch to their iPhone mic, it literally sounds like the audio version of upgrading from 144p to 4K.

Most of the wireless earbuds are the same thought.

Fundamentally they are fighting an uphill battle with physics and they'll probably never win no matter how much tech is developed.

They have settled on multiple mics with noise suppression technology to try to isolate and amplify just the voice but it's still so much worse than the cheap approach of a single mic along a cable not too far from your mouth that it's laughable really.

In my opinion this is a case of tech for the sake of tech, it only exists to "fix" a perceived inconvenience (at least marketed) of having a cable but to do so it creates more inconveniences and actually degrades the experience/quality.

When you think about it, it's really marketing genius that they are able to sell them at all. Basically, selling worse audio quality (both mic and speaker) than what was available in the late 2000's at 2-3 times the price, all that to not have a cable.