Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AirPods don't “just work”

philip.design

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 966 posts

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#141

Post by Nextgrid »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #47

I generally enjoy my AirPods. They are occasionally quirky, but most of the time they really do “just work” for me. The annoyances are annoying when they happen, though. The strangest part is that the annoyances aren’t getting any better over time. At first I assumed that they were growing pains of an early product launch. Yet now we’re years into the AirPods experience and they continue to be just as quirky as when…

In my experience, the annoyances actually get worse over time.

I got my AirPods back when the original ones were released and the experience probably was as good as physically possible (short of including multiple radios so they can maintain connections to multiple devices in parallel and simply mix the audio client-side).

They then (2 years ago?) released this new feature where AirPods could automatically switch between all your devices which is just too slow and is more of an annoyance in practice, but even disabling the behavior made the existing experience much worse: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30085538

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#143

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

nemacol wrote: post #124

It is my opinion that bluetooth headphones are garbage. I have several - cheap, expensive, ear buds, over ear. They all suffer from issues between devices, one device out of range weird noises, can't decide which device to connect to. Some of the issues I blame on my phone (Pixel3a). I spend so much time walking around my house turning BT off on all but one device so I can go outside and listen to something. Much eas…

BT is garbage except for very simple products like mice: poorly thought out, even more poorly implemented, generally brittle.

And the audio quality is compromised, although aptX Lossless may finally start changing that.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#145

Post by klmr »

blinkingled wrote: post #106
dt2m wrote: post #63

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…

> OP should try using another brand of Bluetooth headphones for a week 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 ki…

I’m a huge fan of the Sony high-end line, and am currently using the WH-1000XM4 myself. They’re excellent, but they do share quite a few of the annoyances listed in the OP article (in particular the delay when going from call to audio and vice versa, and the audio quality degradation; though, truth be told, I believe that’s a macOS issue), and they have their own annoyances. Most prominently, the utterly useless “second device pairing” audio message that plays for a full four seconds and drowns out whatever else you were listening to. I routinely need to ask people on a call to repeat what they said because of this. Yet Sony arrogantly states that this message is somehow “important” and therefore can’t be disabled.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#146

Post by Nextgrid »

davidbenhaim wrote: post #123

deleted

> My bose headphones that used to work great now don't work as well as airpods.

My AirPods experience has also declined the past couple of years so I think it's just over-engineering and ruining the perfectly functional Bluetooth and/or audio stack rather than an intentional attempt at ruining non-Apple headphones.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#147

Post by Waterluvian »

dt2m wrote: post #63

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 had these $20 pair of Anker bluetooth earbuds and they just worked. I paired them once and they were effortless to use for years on my iPhone. Just hold a button down for 3 seconds and they're on and ready in seconds.

They even went through the wash, twice. But then I lost them.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#148

Post by Razengan »

iqanq wrote: post #126
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y’know what headphones really did “just work” though? Wired headphones, circa 2017. Their battery life was infinite. You could “pair” them in seconds to any device with a headphone jack, aka any device, because we’re in 2017. Oh, and they were cheaper and better for the environment. Courage, indeed. And this is why I’m currently typing my comment on an iPhone 6S...

After using airpods I am never ever going back to wired headphones.

I am sorry but you must be downvoted to prevent your counter opinion from being seen.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#149

Post by toastal »

This Bluetooth headphone trend I think is mostly just to sell more products and bundles. Remove the headphone jack and now people need to buy the matching headphones they don't really want but the OEM is offering a $10 discount. Then they all have their own proprietary "app" for configuration that isn't cross-platform (have a Linux phone? add this to the pile of "sucks to be you"). Said apps always include tracking and phone homing and more permissions than needed because the other part was to sell your user data as the side hustle to Bluetooth headphones.

I'm sad I fell for it after buying a newer ASUS laptop without a headphone jack and picking up a pair for my girlfriend too. The issues Bluetooth has caused me have wasted company money as I try to 'fix' my headphones for telecommunication. Active noise cancelation is nice, but not disrupting-my-work nice.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#150

Post by Causality1 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #100
dt2m wrote: post #63

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…

Y’know what headphones really did “just work” though? Wired headphones, circa 2017. Their battery life was infinite. You could “pair” them in seconds to any device with a headphone jack, aka any device, because we’re in 2017. Oh, and they were cheaper and better for the environment. Courage, indeed. And this is why I’m currently typing my comment on an iPhone 6S...

Not to mention zero latency. Trying to have multiple people in a car play music/podcasts is a nightmare over bluetooth when you used to be able to just pass an aux cable around.
Post reply on HN