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Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades

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Re: Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades

#401

Post by falcolas »

feet wrote: post #340
jefe_ wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar thing would happen in my Toyota, the song 'Afraid' by Yellowcard would play every time I turned on the car. Realized it was playing the first song in my library. In Apple Music there is a song called 'A a a a a Very Good Song (Silent Track)' by artist Samir Mezrahi, that contains 10 minutes of silence. I added that to my library and now that song plays when I turn on my car (although this autoplay only happen…

But why the hell is it autoplaying in the first place? Does apple really hate their customers/users so much that they can't make this an option? That's completely insane. The more I learn about apple, the more I see extremely hostile UI decisions for literally no reason

IME, this doesn't happen in any of my Subaru vehicles. It picks up where I am in Spotify with no issues. Whether via carplay or connecting via Apple's Car integration.

That said, I have had this issue when connecting an iPhone to a '11 truck via USB. It tries to treat it like an iPod, and consume its default playlist (all songs in Music, sans shuffle).

So this is probably the bluetooth equivalent being done by the cars - treat it like an iPod that the entertainment center should be in charge of.

Re: Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades

#402

Post by _fat_santa »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #358
_fat_santa wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly shocked how good of a job Apple did on their AirPods. When they first came out I thought it was an expensive gimmick, but when they released the Pro's I bought in and they became my favorite Apple product of all time. At least for me, the reliability of the connection as well as being able to do a quick "handoff" from my iPhone to my Mac to take a call is a gamechanger. Also the spacial audio feature is…

I've heard consistent excellent things about AirPods in terms of connectivity and listening experience for the owner :) Let me be the annoying one to say that they can negatively contribute to a team meeting experience (which fair enough, isn't what they're designed for - but what many people use them for, not just in a pinch but as primary day-long mechanism). There's only so much software can do to mitigate the fac…

I agree with the mic issue and it's not ideal, though it eventually just gets down to what you can and can't do with the hardware. I will say for me at least this is non-issue since all calls are taken in my quiet apartment.

Re: Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades

#403

Post by hadlock »

Hapa wrote: post #282
aliqot wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market wants what the other segment of the market has, that's the purpose of marketing. Phones with no jacks, like laptops with no i/o, is something impractical that people self-justify because of the logo and the clout it affords. You're part of the in group, you made it, you have achieved sameness, you have an iPhone . Airpods are just about the worst headphones money can buy and people fight over them, despite…

I am extremely puzzled by true wireless bluetooth headphones to a point where it's hard to find high-end wired bluetooth headphones. True wireless have so many drawbacks: - lower battery life yet people got convinced that they last long thanks to powerbank, I meant ,,case" which you need to carry. - bulkier so they stick out of ear one way or another. They fall down easily when changing t-shirts, huddies .. - easy to…

> it's hard to find high-end wired bluetooth headphones

pre-covid we had an open floorplan office, typical valley startup layout, no noise dampening etc

Everyone had the bose 35 quiet comfort i or ii noise canceling headphones. I was one of the new guys so started off with a $60 panasonic noise canceling headphone, and later when released got the sony ...mx4000? noise canceling headphones because they had USB-C in ~2016 and I brought them with me on my most recent trip here in 2022

I don't know anyone who has ever complained about their bose or sony bluetooth noise canceling headphones. They just work, all the time, every time. Except that one time I forgot to charge them and let them run down to 0% (and it even warned me about an hour before)

Re: Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades

#404

Post by jamal-kumar »

blackhaz wrote: post #91

My car (Lexus) and my iPhone X: The car detects iPhone presence, like, 50% of the time. If it does detect it, it shows me a couple of half-naked shaved guys hugging each other and begins playing "Songs of Innocence" the moment I turn the ignition on. I tried deleting this song from the iPhone, but it auto-magically restores itself somehow, as if it is in the telephone's firmware. The image of men hugging in shade is…

That's so hilarious considering you've probably been putting up with that for years and years while there's a ton of solutions. Here's a fun fact about U2: If Bono himself is in his own car driving around and it comes on he has to change the channel. Doesn't like hearing his own voice (Not macho enough), nor the band name. [1] I also heard the same thing about Phil Collins.

[1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/bono-says-he-switches-the-radi...

Re: Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades

#405

Post by [deleted] »

sgarrity wrote: post #384
NikolaNovak wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard consistent excellent things about AirPods in terms of connectivity and listening experience for the owner :) Let me be the annoying one to say that they can negatively contribute to a team meeting experience (which fair enough, isn't what they're designed for - but what many people use them for, not just in a pinch but as primary day-long mechanism). There's only so much software can do to mitigate the fac…

The worst technology I've encountered in recent years is: Other People's AirPod. When paired with a windows PC or older Mac, Airpods use an older or lower quality audio codec that sounds pretty poor for those hearing you speak. Caveat: I don't know what I'm talking about, technically.

[deleted]

Re: Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades

#406

Post by sp332 »

amelius wrote: post #391
sp332 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluetooth barely has the bandwidth for stereo audio to begin with. Doubling it up means ok-ish mono audio for each of you, or really crummy stereo.

Why does it need to send the audio twice? Surely both phones can listen to the same broadcast signal?

Bluetooth connections frequency hop among 79 bands to avoid interference. That way, you don't have to pick one channel and hope it stays clear, you just switch frequencies constantly and deal with the occasional hiccup. That means that when you pair devices, they share a key that synchronizes the pseudo-random choices for what frequencies the connection will use over time. So each connected device needs its own broadcast, because other devices won't be listening on the same frequency at the same time.

Re: Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades

#407

Post by snarf21 »

nine_k wrote: post #54

I tried to learn why BT is still somehow painful to use, and the article basically does not have an answer. My take from comments here and my experience: - Makers of BT devices can't agree on many important common things (easy discovery / pairing mode, priority, etc), and have little incentive to seek agreement. It's like phone chargers before USB. - Makers of BT devices tend to cut corners and/or add not-entirely-st…

Most of it is the Bluetooth SIGs fault. It has got away from them. It reminds me of SMTP or HTTP, it is so useful that people couldn't wait for things and just implemented and added whatever they wanted. No certification is required just a registration for the logo so it has made it the wild wild west. Additionally being stuck in the "free" frequencies means that it has no ability to deliver quality in a noisy room.

Re: Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades

#408

Post by woopwoop »

makeitdouble wrote: post #353
seer wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general idea I think is that once you start the car, it just send a play command the moment it detects the connection. And in theory it _can_ provide a really nice experience. For example I'm walking to my car listening to an audio book, the moment I start the car, BT is connecting to the phone and moves the audio playback from my AirPods to my car speaker without skipping a beat, its really impressive. Additiona…

Doesn’t it also mean that whatever you were listening to yourself, and potentially stopped as you got company, is now playing in the speakers for everyone in the car just as you’re turning it the engine on and can also reach the stop button so fast?

I have experienced this with NWA's "Gangsta Gangsta". Another delightful thing is that the volume is system volume * speaker volume, so that if you turned up the system volume because you were, e.g., using a quiet pair of headphones, this is now blairing at a total unreasonable volume, perhaps even destroying your car's speakers.

Re: Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades

#409

Post by the_watcher »

nucleardog wrote: post #338
aliqot wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market wants what the other segment of the market has, that's the purpose of marketing. Phones with no jacks, like laptops with no i/o, is something impractical that people self-justify because of the logo and the clout it affords. You're part of the in group, you made it, you have achieved sameness, you have an iPhone . Airpods are just about the worst headphones money can buy and people fight over them, despite…

The airpods do one thing much better than anything else I've tried: work with an iPhone. I went through a few other pairs of bluetooth "true wireless" ear buds and every single one of them would exhibit the normal bluetooth problems. Sometimes one wouldn't connect. Sometimes both wouldn't connect. Sometimes trying to resolve this I'd "forget" them and then not be able to pair them again necessitating pulling out the…

This is why AirPods are popular. While this drives audiophiles and geeks who obsess over performance of their technology (not knocking them, I’m one of them for many devices) up the wall, the reality is most people are not audiophiles and can barely tell the difference. What they want are reasonably comfortable headphones that just work, and Bluetooth is so famously bad at this that AirPods stand out.

Re: Bluetooth remains an 'unusually painful' technology after two decades

#410

Post by incongruity »

Larrikin wrote: post #390
wil421 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3.5mm can go to hell for a phone. I’d prefer the waterproofing we have with iPhones nowadays. If you need an adapter they are available.

Sony solved open headphone jack while being water proof nearly a decade ago. The idea the phone can't have a headphone jack and be waterproof was a lie pushed by Apple to save money on not having to put in a headphone jack. I've been using Sony phones in the shower and at the beach for years now and only briefly switched to a different company when they tried to pull that headphone jack removal of crap briefly when I…

My understanding was that it’s always been about the physical size and the impact it has on the stack-up of iPhone components. Looking at a standard mini-jack vs. my iPhone 13, the connector itself is close to 40% of the thickness of the phone. Add the additional size for the jack’s structure and you quickly get to a point where the phone has to be thicker.

Now, has Apple gotten too obsessive about thin phones? Maybe - but that’s a different discussion.

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