AirPods don't “just work” • Hacker News Board

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#661

Post by JohnBooty » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 7:04 PM UTC

loginatnine wrote: post #647

JohnBooty wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm back to wired Same here. Absolutely don't understand the appeal of wireless headsets for people who are sitting at a desk. I've snapped up a bunch of used Bose QC25s from eBay, their last model that used a removable standard AAA battery. Great sound, solid noise canceling, the wired mic is fine, they work even if the battery is drained, sound is better than Bluetooth. I keep a little AAA battery charger on my des…

Yea I went wired at the beginning of the pandemic, QC-35 wired with a wired antlion mic, works like a charm. 3 main reasons I went with this setup : 1- Reduce the audio lag (bluetooth comes with a noticeable lag in video conferencing) 2- Not having to worry about battery life (going wired vastly improved the QC-35 battery life) 3- Keep the stellar comfort (at least for me) of the QC-35. I personally don't understand…

Another nice thing about Bose is that they're "somewhat" repairable.

They're not really designed to be, but because they sell in such huge quantities, there's kind of an "ecosystem" of replacement parts and YouTube repair videos etc. Replacement of the internal battery on the QC35 doesn't seem too terribly onerous. The earpads are shared with the QC25 too, which is nice.

I'm not nearly as eco-conscious as I should be, but it's nice to keep things out of the landfill.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#662

Post by ivank » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 7:04 PM UTC

jdminhbg wrote: post #599

ho_schi wrote: post #564

3.5 mm jack Nasty. Yes ;) I'm sorry but it solves these problems and I think most of us have more prominent issues. Bluetooth - and even overpriced Apple products - are usually working well with one connection only. And the headset profile needs to sacrifice quality for voice input. This is to large degrees a question about priority of the user. If you need good or even excellent quality - opt for a good headset and…

None of the AirPod annoyances are as bad as having your headphones yanked violently out of your ears when the 3.5mm cable catches on a door handle.

If you have an IEM with a sturdy cable wrapped around your ear, snagging it on a door handle yanks the connector out of the Lightning to 3.5mm adapter instead.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#663

Post by strogonoff » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 7:05 PM UTC

greedo wrote: post #532

grp000 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as their SE215 model goes, the sound, isolation, and ergonomics are great, but I've always had issues with the cable breaking at the ear curve next to the connection point to the earbuds.

It's been awhile since I used Shure's in ear monitors, but they once sent me a kit with one of everything in that part of their product line. Nice stuff, and if you can tolerate in-ear stuff, incredible sound. But all the cables failed over time. Not heavily used either. They were great about sending replacements, but they were very aware of the reliability issues. And these were monitors that had MSRPs over $800.

Cables (as well as sleeves) are certainly the disposable part of IEMs like these. Earbuds themselves proved incredibly reliable to me (compared to AirPods Pro at least, which I had to exchange once and which still had problems after that).

Also, SE215 cost much, much less than US$800. More like $100.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#664

Post by spoonjim » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 7:06 PM UTC

I bought a pair of AirPods Pro and I loved how they sounded but hated how they made me look, because my skin is very dark and the little white things stood out like sore thumbs on Zoom calls. I returned them for the Jabra Elite 85t which are less comfortable in my ears but which match my skin color much better. Apple lost more than $249 of revenue because they don't make them in black.

There's something to be said for considering the diversity of your market.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#665

Post by Spivak » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 7:07 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #631

Automatic device switching is hell. These two anecdotes happened since I read this article 10 minutes ago: I was listening to a podcast using AirPods and my iPhone. Someone reacted to a message I’d sent, which paused the podcast. When I tried to resume a second later, my AirPods had magically connected to my computer instead of my phone. WTF! Still listening to the podcast and setting up a FaceTime call for my kid on…

This is a bad end-user experience but I can kinda see the flow.

You're listening on your iPhone but using your computer. Device switching then says "okay since they're using their computer if any sound comes from the computer they should hear it" and then iMessage made a sound.

Had the thing you did been playing a YouTube video or Spotify then it would be weird if your AirPods didn't switch. I think it makes sense for notification sounds to not trigger switching by default but IDK what they currently do isn't totally unreasonable.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#666

Post by ActorNightly » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 7:07 PM UTC

lifewallet_dev wrote: post #627

> AirPods are wonderful products. But I just wish these annoying gripes would go away. What's wonderful about all that? Our fanboyism is re-defining the word "wonderful", Annoyence 4 and 3 made me think AirPods broke and they happen so frequently, I also have the Sony wh-1000xm4 and I cannot configure the mic without degrading my audio quality. I'm back to wired, I have a Beyerdynamic DT 1990 PRO, and none of these o…

Yep, back to wired for me as well.

Run the wire under the shirt. Need to switch from phone to laptop for a meeting? Unplug/replug. If I need to remove headphones to talk to someone, i just let them hang down. Never worry about charging them, loosing them, easily replaceable due to price (and with good sound quality as well).

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#667

Post by saurik » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 7:11 PM UTC

hbn wrote: post #524

germinalphrase wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly, no one at Apple considered cold weather when designing the pinch based Airpod Pro interface. Just about impossible with gloves.

Yeah, that's actually one of the reasons I didn't go for the 3rd gen even though they were out when I got mine I can't use that through a toque, whereas with the 1st gen I can double tap the side of my head through the toque and it pauses

Yeah: the tapping interface for the original AirPods is one of the most interesting mechanisms I'd ever seen, both obvious in retrospect and yet not at all obvious. I think of it as one of the more "inspired" mechanisms I've ever seen in such a product... and then they replaced it with "the kind of thing an idiot might have built".

And like, I know the pinch mechanism does have some smarts to it: it isn't even really a button, and the thing you think you are pinching is haptic feedback; but that frankly just makes it worse as the only reason why the pinch feature is better than the tap feature is because the tap feature had an unfortunate requirement that you had to have it in your ear to use it (and to the extent to which it would accidentally work when not in your ear was, fwiw, annoying)...

...but then, for some inexplicable reason, they decided that the pinch feature also shouldn't work if the AirPod isn't in your ear, only, due to the dynamic haptic feature, squeezing it suddenly isn't a button anymore and I find myself just squeezing it harder, twisting it around trying to find the button, until the part of my brain that knows how it works turns on and goes "there isn't really a button there" and I go into problem-solving mode to figure out I need to put it in my ear again for it to work.

The tapping interface was (/is, as I still have them) incredibly intuitive on that front: the part of my brain that wanted to interact with it fundamentally got that "you have to put this in your ear in order to tap it", and I don't ever use them wrong. But with the new pinch interface, I've had a pair ever since they came out (and now have a pair of the AirPod 3, which I don't like anywhere near as the old ones) and I continue to routinely attempt to pinch them when they aren't in my head.

What is crazy to me is that I've complained about this to various people and the response that I tend to get--both from people "in the know" as well as end users giving me this exact complaint back--is that a sizable number of customers apparently really really really hate tapping their head: they find the action annoying and the sound it makes in their skull / ear canal unfortunate. The pinch interface is simply sufficiently boring that everyone seems to be willing to do it without squinching. :/

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#668

Post by lanstin » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

minhazm wrote: post #500

darrenf wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bugs are you referring to? > You'd be no better off with a Sony Headphone that screams in your ear that a device connected, the device is turned on and the battery is almost empty. I have the WF-1000XM4s. On the iOS headphones app, visiting System and turning off "Notification & Voice Guide" gets rid of the power on and battery level announcements leaving only the connection/disconnection alerts (although I keep…

I have the same headphones and the main issue I have with it is their multi-device support is pretty much broken for me. If I'm on a zoom call and I get a phone call on my other device it takes over the audio (as expected), but then if I decline the phone call the audio doesn't switch back to my zoom call (computer). I end up having to turn the headphones off and back on for them to reconnect, which actually takes a…

I hate to say this but I mostly turn Bluetooth on and off as I use different devices. If I get a iPhone call during meeting that I can not listen to for a minute, then I will check mute, stop video, and then answer the phone on speaker. I try to have Bluetooth off when I am outside anyways for security and privacy reasons, so it is complementary to that.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#669

Post by leo150 » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

StaleTortilla wrote: post #598

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #465

It's weird to me how many people are like "yeah but every other bluetooth is worse". I have Airpod Pros and experienced every one of these issues and many more on the regular with them, but my several years old now Bose QC 35II never have any of these problems, still last like 5 times as long on battery after years of recharge cycles, interact better with two simultaneously connected devices, have better signal range…

Agreed on Bose QC 35II being great. I hardly ever have any issues with them. The only issues I do have with them are when they connect to my work MacBook Pro. The biggest of these issues is that the MacBook refuses to let any other device be the active device. If my Bose QC 35II connect to both my MacBook and my PC or phone (Android), and I want to listen to audio from the non-MacBook device, I have to first disconne…

I'm having exactly the same issue. Moreover, when you have multiple devices and want to switch to a new one, first you have to guess who hijacked the sound.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#670

Post by leokennis » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

I would be a happy man if I could tell my AirPods:

“You only need to be paired to my iPhone. I don’t need you synced to all my devices via iCloud and you never need to accept audio from and switch to anything but my iPhone. That’ll do earbuds. That’ll do.”