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

431–440 of 966 posts

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#431

Post by The_Colonel »

hoistbypetard wrote: post #131
Graffur wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Android and bought the cheapest wireless/bluetooth earphones I could find. They "just work". When I open the charging case, they connect to my phone. The bad points are the sound quality and the lack of noise cancellation

Some of the complaints OP lists are related to using the Airpods with multiple devices. While the complaints are correct, the Airpods are miles better than any bluetooth earphones I've ever used when it comes to switching sources. The dance to get my old earphones to move from my phone to my tablet was annoying and brittle by comparison.

> the Airpods are miles better than any bluetooth earphones I've ever used when it comes to switching sources

I think this just depends on Bluetooth version. My current FreeBuds 4 switch between devices seamlessly, no manual switching needed.

With my old headphones I head to switch manually, but it wasn't that much of a bother with a switching widget on the main screen (instead going deep into the settings).

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#432

Post by kristjansson »

rogual wrote: post #3

Annoyance 8: When I'm using the (good) noise cancelling of the AirPods to eliminate distracting background noise so I can focus, after a few hours the battery will run down to 15% and trigger the EXTREMELY LOUD "PING-pong-pong-pong" low-battery noise, right in my ear, without warning. And it's Apple, so of course you can't turn it off.

Your (and other's) complaints about the volume of the AirPod alert notifications makes me think either (a) your hearing is more sensitive than most or (b) I've lost more hearing than I thought I had. Either way, those alerts play at what seems like a reasonable and moderate volume to me.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#433

Post by thow-58d4e8b »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #190
xg15 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mobility, flexibility snd convenience of me still sitting on front of the same PC for eight hours?

I've got some Sony bluetooth / noise cancelling headphones, I don't like the lag but that's only an issue for videos and it switches to low latency (low quality) for voice calls. But I really appreciate not managing a cable, it's always in the way, or touching my arm or something (some sensory things really annoy me while sitting at a computer). Plus, great battery life. And it Just Works. Although my Mac has a tende…

There's one major annoyance with Sony headphones and earbuds - no way to mute/unmute yourself - you must walk back to your laptop to do it. Why, oh why, Sony?

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#434

Post by eptcyka »

TurningCanadian wrote: post #187
klmr wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 “sec…

I believe the audio quality degradation when using the mic is a limitation of Bluetooth bandwidth. It switches to a different profile capable of sending and receiving audio instead of only receiving.

It's definitely not an issue with bandwidth, instead it's an issue of standardization. There just doesn't exist a bluetooth profile that supports high quality duplex audio communications between two devices. It's pathetic.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#435

Post by ericmay »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #321
ericmay wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't let the lack of a headphone jack deter you from upgrading a phone if you wanted. You can get one of those adapter things and just leave it attached to your headphones if you wanted. I know people think it's annoying that you even have to do this but it's an option. I bet you can get one for free from a friend even. I do have a nostalgic feelings for the iPhone 4s and headphones. I wish there were products…

> You can get one of those adapter things and just leave it attached to your headphones if you wanted. The problem is that I’d have to unplug that adapter to use my headphones with a device other than my phone, including other Apple devices like my Macbook. I would subsequently loose the adapter, guaranteed. If the world could agree to use USB-C for everything, that might work, but Apple—who started this mess—is a pr…

Yea I agree, just offering a solution. I am excited for Apple to switch to USB-C for the iPhone as well. It's quite irritating that it's not... one cable to rule them all! But then they went and added HDMI and SD back to the Mac, so now they have a better argument since they aren't actually doing the one-cable approach.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#436

Post by The_Colonel »

Causality1 wrote: post #166
Graffur wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Android and bought the cheapest wireless/bluetooth earphones I could find. They "just work". When I open the charging case, they connect to my phone. The bad points are the sound quality and the lack of noise cancellation

No noise cancellation is better than bad noise cancellation. The ANC on every set of earbuds and headphones under $200 I've tried is just a blast of white noise that makes it feel like someone is ramming cotton balls into my ears with a jackhammer.

I guess it depends on the use case. ANC on my FreeBuds (which are open type) is certainly limited, but it's a make or break difference in e.g. public transportation.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#437

Post by germinalphrase »

macNchz wrote: post #93
rogual wrote: post #3

Annoyance 8: When I'm using the (good) noise cancelling of the AirPods to eliminate distracting background noise so I can focus, after a few hours the battery will run down to 15% and trigger the EXTREMELY LOUD "PING-pong-pong-pong" low-battery noise, right in my ear, without warning. And it's Apple, so of course you can't turn it off.

Reminds me of my roommate’s Jambox bluetooth speaker years ago…I learned that it had this behavior while fully asleep at 4:30am after we’d had a party, when, every few minutes it started loudly blasting “BOOOOP. LOW BATTERY” alerts. The trouble was that it was hidden somewhere in our messy living room, and the alerts weren’t frequent enough to find it quickly, so I was standing around in my underwear for ages, waitin…

I once had an EE friend that built these tiny chips he called Annoyers. They simply emitted a loud chirp at a random time interval. The interval was too long to effectively locate the chip, and the chirp was terribly annoying. It could take weeks to find the quarter-sides device hidden in someone’s home (or the battery would just die).

Of course, while he was explaining this to me, the chip slipped from my fingers and fell down an air vent of another friend’s living room. The comedic timing was perfect, and it really might have been the funniest thing to happen to me in 2012.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#438

Post by agency »

I just upgraded to a pair of AirPods Pro after my old AirPods were slowly losing battery life until they can barely get through a single podcast ep. It was pretty cool and eerie putting them in for the first time and having the noise cancellation activate and just drop out all the ambient noise. I've never used active noise cancellation and it really makes you realize how much ambient noise you tune out.

Beyond that I'm not 100% sure how I feel about them yet. They definitely don't fit quite as well in my ears as the originals and anecdotally a couple coworkers mentioned returning theirs because they were falling out. And they definitely don't fit in their case in the same way as the original. The way the originals just magnetically fall into place perfectly is an amazing piece of product design. Really makes them feel like some otherworldly artifact. The Pros are definitely not the same in that regard.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#440

Post by renewiltord »

culopatin wrote: post #372
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...

You know what just works? Natural sounds from your environment. No need for equipment, no wires to snag, no pairing or plugging, you could even do it in your sleep. Oh, and it is zero emissions. Courage, indeed. And this is why I am not even typing this. I’m just imagining things, because it’s free and good for the environment.

Hahaha perfection. I love you.
Post reply on HN