21–30 of 43 posts
I don't understand why people buy Apple devices then expect to maintain control over them. The Literal CEO refers to your purchases as "their platform". The thing you bought... is his. This is just part of the Apple experience these days. Don't get attached to anything.
It's basically a UI/UX problem. Apple rolls out features like the loud sound reduction feature that only work if you're in a non-OFF state. Exactly how it should work really depends on the expectations of the average user. If they turn on loud sound reduction, for example, are they just going to be confused when nothing happens? How many people really understand how to toggle between the 3+ states and that additional…
> If they turn on loud sound reduction
People are opted into this. No one gets to "turn it on". Apple turns it on. Which is why this has blindsided users.
And on its being tied to the feature, from the post: "All of this is likely tied to a relatively new feature called Loud Sound Reduction that only works if AirPods are in an active “Noise Control” mode. So Apple perhaps recently decided that everyone needed this feature enabled, and that’s why they made all these annoying changes to Noise Control?"
The title should probably specify AirPods 2 and 4. As an owner of AirPods Pro (1st Generation), I was confused because I've only ever had two options: noise-cancelling or transparency. There has never been an option for “off,” so presumably this was a new feature in later generations, which the author explains is no longer available.
Nobody is asking the most interesting question: why. Why is the option to use the AirPods in “normal” mode being removed? Is Apple hit with some lawsuit or something?
I'd challenge the idea that off/passive really is the "normal" mode, from the ordinary user's POV or Apple's POV. The headphones just don't sound good in this configuration, with neither the background nor the audio sounding clear. They aren't engineered to give good sound isolation OR good background pass-through without active support, and until this post, I didn't even realize that the active modes use more battery life.
The messaging to users is also unclear. Without understanding how ANC works, what does "off" actually mean? It's not turning off the audio playback, and it's not turning off the background noise. It IS however turning off the (newly-advertised) active features like Loud Sound Reduction, which users would expect to be working whenever they are wearing the headphones (or at minimum, whenever music is playing).
In typical Apple style, it makes perfect sense for "off" to be treated as an advanced feature; the problem is that they already shipped it a long time ago, and then removed it without any explanation.
Nobody is asking the most interesting question: why. Why is the option to use the AirPods in “normal” mode being removed? Is Apple hit with some lawsuit or something?
> Why is the option to use the AirPods in “normal” mode being removed? I'd challenge the idea that off/passive really is the "normal" mode, from the ordinary user's POV or Apple's POV. The headphones just don't sound good in this configuration, with neither the background nor the audio sounding clear. They aren't engineered to give good sound isolation OR good background pass-through without active support, and until…
I don't understand why people buy Apple devices then expect to maintain control over them. The Literal CEO refers to your purchases as "their platform". The thing you bought... is his. This is just part of the Apple experience these days. Don't get attached to anything.
If changes to UI = loss of control, then you have zero control over anything and the word is meaningless.
Nobody is asking the most interesting question: why. Why is the option to use the AirPods in “normal” mode being removed? Is Apple hit with some lawsuit or something?
Off hand guess: reduce apparent battery life in order to nudge people to upgrading, thinking their batteries are going
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used “off” when my AirPods had a broken microphone that caused the other modes to make weird noises. Only necessary until I could get them replaced by Apple.
Sure, that’s a valid reason for a broken use case … but it’s still a broken use case. If your mics weren’t broken then the other modes would be better.
This is not the case for AirPods 1. I still have my original ones. You can leave them in the case for months and both will still have a charge.
I love using my AirPods, but they have become insanely buggy as of late (like, they will crash while playing audio; audio stops, then transparency cuts out and comes back after a reboot) and I often come to dead or dying AirPods when I try to use them. This is not the case for AirPods 1. I still have my original ones. You can leave them in the case for months and both will still have a charge.