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AirPods don't “just work”

philip.design

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Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#751

Post by biot »

Spivak wrote: post #665
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 fo…

It's even worse when you're on an active phone call (the standard iPhone phone functionality, not third party meeting/voip app) talking to another human being and an alert sound plays on the computer, stealing the audio from your phone call and you can no longer hear or speak with the other person. I can't think of a better example where "don't steal the audio" is more applicable.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#752

Post by dangus »

lanstin wrote: post #650
dangus wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice! I love the 3.5mm jack solution. All we gotta do is solve the “I got my cable caught on the door knob as I walked by” issue and 3.5mm will be perfect.

Putting the phone in pocket and wire under shirt helps but not 100%

What happens if I’m wearing a dress?

Selling me on going back to wired is like telling me to use an Ethernet jack on my laptop for optimal performance.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#753

Post by arcticbull »

initplus wrote: post #720
arcticbull wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extend that to AirPods Pro. My right ear cup crashes periodically - then I can only hear out of the left side until the watchdog timer engages and nukes the left cup too. I frequently have to reset it by holding down the buttons for 10 seconds in order to get it to connect to anything. It frequently disconnects and refuses to reconnect if I take off my mask out from under it. It stops detecting my head occasionally.…

If you are experiencing all of these reliability issues, have them replaced by Apple. My original AirPods Pro had some serious issues. Firmware would update on only one of the pair, and so preventing them both from connecting to the same device. Or one would just crash frequently... After having both replaced I have had zero issues since. I assumed it was some hardware quirks with earlier models.

That's good advice. I'll set up an appointment.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#754

Post by hetspookjee »

darrenf wrote: post #72
hetspookjee wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. The flagship Sony headphone is so bug ridden it's a joke if you ask me.

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 too have the WF-1000XM4 and I only have the function to turn off the notification & voice guide that will stop making the sound that tells me what mode it is in. But it will happily scream in my ear that its either connected, almost empty or on / off. Regarding the bugs I experience on a regular basis: - Every off week the Speak-to-chat is somehow activated and than it drops me out of the music with the sound amplified. - The standby function does no longer work since a month or two and I find it empty every time I forget to either manually turn it off or put it in the charger - The multi device is so odd that I need to disconnect all devices in the surrounding and start connecting one by one - The dual bluetooth sometimes struggle to work with both Windows and Mac. - The connection with Windows was something I actually needed to Google as I couldnt get the quality to work, I somehow had to read somewhere that I needed to wait for ±1min till the actual device pops up in the list (Its registered as two seperate devices) but for this I actually blame Windows - Teams often refuses to play with the main device, but rather prefers the crappy audio system one.

To finish off and it's not a bug, but the microphone they advertise is so laughably bad that roughly 80% of the people couldnt hear me properly on the other end of the line. But reading the reviews I find myself one of the few in this situation.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#755

Post by strogonoff »

grp000 wrote: post #703
strogonoff wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, I have two pairs of SE215s for convenience. But, replacement OEM cables cost 20-30$, and maybe it's the geometry of my ears, but I've had to replace 3-4 cables by now, since the cables, OEM or not, kept failing at the same section, at that metal wire you bend over your ear.

I see. Well, YMMV but you could try a different type of cable. There are cables not using metal wires that you bend around the ears, but the same thin flexible cable throughout the entire length. I have not had problems with one in more than a couple of years of use.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#756

Post by musicale »

Hokusai wrote: post #749
nsxwolf wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like "workarounds become a reflex". This is a very succinct way of describing one of the causes of why people often claim to have no issues using something that universally has issues. A great example is the gaming PC vs gaming console war. PC gamers often seem to refuse to admit there's untold little quirks you have to deal with when using a general-purpose operating system and modular hardware to play games. They…

> there's untold little quirks you have to deal with when using a general-purpose operating system "Though initial iterations of the software for the original Xbox and Xbox 360 were based on heavily modified versions of Windows, the newer consoles feature operating systems that are highly compatible with Microsoft's desktop operating systems, allowing for shared applications and ease-of-development between personal c…

> newer consoles feature operating systems that are highly compatible with Microsoft's desktop operating systems, allowing for shared applications and ease-of-development between personal computers and the Xbox line

Microsoft created its Universal Windows Platform (UWP) to enable software to run across multiple Windows devices from desktops to tablets to consoles. It has not really been a resounding success, though it has some inconvenient limitations as well as business restrictions such as being tied to the Windows Store.

Even the Windows Store has moved away from UWP by supporting Win32 apps.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#757

Post by a-dub »

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…

i don't know if it's limitations of the bluetooth protocol, or necessary optimizations in order to maintain battery life, but in my experience most battery operated bluetooth devices seem to have pairing issues.

i suspect that it's probably a combination of three things:

1) reliability is hard when on a power budget. if power was free, they'd just always be looking to renegotiate, but since power is limited, they probably are very miserly about this process which leads to getting stuck in states that require power cycling to force retries.

2) interoperability is hard with open standards, especially old standards that are complicated.

3) open standards come with limitations that sometimes cannot be worked around. (this is where i'm surprised apple hasn't just cheated as they usually do when open standards result in ux they find unacceptable, this leads me to believe the problem itself, of distributed consensus between multiple wireless low power devices with potentially noisy links, is actually very hard)

when you think about it, the technology behind wireless earbuds is nothing short of astounding. they're little battery operated wireless two node compute clusters that can literally fit in your ears, stream audio and maintain nearly perfect synchronization when rendering that audio in the most absolute basic use case.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#758

Post by marcan_42 »

Hokusai wrote: post #749
nsxwolf wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like "workarounds become a reflex". This is a very succinct way of describing one of the causes of why people often claim to have no issues using something that universally has issues. A great example is the gaming PC vs gaming console war. PC gamers often seem to refuse to admit there's untold little quirks you have to deal with when using a general-purpose operating system and modular hardware to play games. They…

> there's untold little quirks you have to deal with when using a general-purpose operating system "Though initial iterations of the software for the original Xbox and Xbox 360 were based on heavily modified versions of Windows, the newer consoles feature operating systems that are highly compatible with Microsoft's desktop operating systems, allowing for shared applications and ease-of-development between personal c…

It's not about the OS technology in use, it's about all the practicalities of how it is deployed on consoles vs. on desktops. Things like immutable OS volumes, fixed configuration tested on the hardware, the extent to which they build higher level automation to do what the user expects, etc. "The Xbox One runs Windows" ignores all these details which make it a much more seamless experience than on a PC. The PS4 runs FreeBSD, but try gaming on FreeBSD and let me know how it goes in comparison...

Honestly, it's plainly obvious that gaming on consoles is much more seamless than on PCs. If you don't think so, you're not recognizing all the little quirks you're dealing with on a PC. When was the last time a driver update broke a game on a console? Ever had to install support software to make a game work well with a particular controller? Issues with overlays and system feature integration? Unexpected performance loss due to a weird configuration? Mysterious DRM malfunction issues? Windows Update gone wrong? Those things (mostly) just don't happen on consoles because it's a much more controlled ecosystem.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#759

Post by nsxwolf »

Hokusai wrote: post #749
nsxwolf wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like "workarounds become a reflex". This is a very succinct way of describing one of the causes of why people often claim to have no issues using something that universally has issues. A great example is the gaming PC vs gaming console war. PC gamers often seem to refuse to admit there's untold little quirks you have to deal with when using a general-purpose operating system and modular hardware to play games. They…

> there's untold little quirks you have to deal with when using a general-purpose operating system "Though initial iterations of the software for the original Xbox and Xbox 360 were based on heavily modified versions of Windows, the newer consoles feature operating systems that are highly compatible with Microsoft's desktop operating systems, allowing for shared applications and ease-of-development between personal c…

There's also a lot of little things. Like, you launch a game and there's no audio. Well, Windows at some point decided to switch audio outputs on you. You may have a lot of them. Line out, headphones, a bluetooth headset, a virtual out for streaming software, a monitor with built-in speakers - and now you've got to click the little speaker icon and try to figure out what should be selected, which may be named after the driver or hardware vendor and not totally obvious.

That's the sort of thing that for the most part just doesn't happen with the consoles, because they're limited and tuned for the intended experience.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#760

Post by bsder »

TylerE wrote: post #687
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about "every other Bluetooth," but I certainly experience different problems with other Bluetooth devices. :) My regular experiences: - The AirPods Pro and AirPods Max generally work well. I've experienced most of the annoyances the OP lists occasionally, but not regularly, although the "autoselect the device want you want" outsmarts itself semi-regularly. (Not quite enough to make me disable it, but it'…

I have to wonder if it's time to just say screw Bluetooth, and deploy a new standard that's specially oriented for audio. Requirements aren't crazy. It just needs to support uncompressed 96/24, full duplex.

Except that requirement IS crazy--when you put all the other stuff around it.

Must work at 2.4Ghz--even in the face of 200 WiFi access points and 3 times that number of devices.

Must stay in sync to within a millisecond ... even though there is a large bag of RF absorbing water in between them.

Should work on a battery smaller than a thumbnail.

Should process audio but not generate enough heat that you notice it in your ear.

I can go on. The engineering requirements are quite severe.

... for something that we can do with a 10 cent wire, ironically.

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