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AirPods don't “just work”

philip.design

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Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#851

Post by p1necone »

symlinkk wrote: post #660
COGlory wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask why you purchased them in the first place? They seemed very obviously to not be a $600 product from their announcement.

Are there any other over the ear headphones that provide great sound quality, noise cancellation, pair with computers and smartphones, and have a solid mic? I’ve looked at the Sony XM1000’s and from what I understand there is some issue with Windows where if you enable the mic, it goes into some different Bluetooth mode that degrades the audio quality coming out of the headphones. Many wireless headphones are adverti…

I don't think there's really any headphones that provide "great"[1] sound quality and noise cancelling + bluetooth. There's necessary tradeoffs that need to be made and physical limitations that mean that sound quality and noise cancelling ability are kind of at odds with each other.

You can definitely get "good"[1] sound quality + noise cancelling, but for me at least most decent non noise cancelling headphones sound noticeably better than my Sony XM4s, even at much lower price points. I'm fine with this though, because I use my XM4s when I need to focus without being distracted by background noise and they do an amazing job at that.

(There's also the issue of bluetooth signal not being as good as wired, and the DAC/Amplification needing to be built into the headphones but I don't think that's having as much of an impact on the overall sound signature - it hasn't been my experience when using bluetooth adapters on some other headphones, and using the XM4s wired).

[1] Obviously peoples subjective idea of "good" vs "great" vary wildly, I'm just sharing my subjective opinion on things.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#852

Post by bryceacc »

nsxwolf wrote: post #733
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 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…

i feel like i can't identify issues in my life because I am so used to doing workarounds. this is why everything needs to be tested by someone else that is completely separate from the work, their fresh perspective will point out such obvious issues and your first reaction should never be to balk and say "no but you just do it like this"

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#853

Post by fomine3 »

pjerem wrote: post #738
krferriter wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the problems you describe is the failings of the bluetooth stack in MacOS, not the Airpods themselves. I have had bluetooth device issues in MacOS on a brand new Macbook, and of course MacOS offers no advanced control options or access to underlying defaults it plugs into device and connection configurations, and there are forum posts about issues going back many years with no acknowledgement by Apple…

I have to reassure you, the Windows BT stack is actually a pile of garbage. And I’m talking about things like the whole audio system crashing when trying to use my XM4 on any videoconférence software, my Xbox controller randomly disconnecting for several seconds while in game (I play at a At this point I’m starting to believe that even Linux has a better Bluetooth stack than windows and OS X. iOS is okayish but I hav…

Agree. Linux BT audio is relatively stable. Also it's the only desktop OS that supports LDAC codec.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#854

Post by mschuster91 »

p2t2p wrote: post #827
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…

Apple's stuff _always_ have issues and annoying ones. My Homepod stopped seeing any HomeKit devices. Reboot didn't help. I didn't feel like digging into it so I just went to bed. Couple days later out of all a sudden they start seeing stuff again.

At least their issues are relatively benign compared to the hot mess that is Windows. Had to re-install a friend's Asus all-in-one PC last weekend and god this was not fun. Took over a day worth of downloading Windows updates, battling Realtek's audio driver and Intel's chipset drivers until everything was finally working as expected (and most of the drivers are from 2016 - only God knows how much exploit surface these have!). Anything Bluetooth on Windows is still a hit-and-miss. And then you have to research on how to disable all the phone home crap, the ads and other bloat.

Linux is even worse, where even basic stuff such as suspend to disk or 3D acceleration regularly takes days or weeks worth of sifting through StackExchange posts, mailing lists, obscure blogs and 2010-era Debian Wiki posts.

And don't get me started on the clusterfuck that is Android. Got a new iPhone? No problem, transferring all the data is painless. Migrating in the Android world? Good luck getting even half of your stuff working.

Compared to all that, Apple is a fucking breeze to work with, because the competition is just mind bogglingly bad.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#855

Post by abbot2 »

saiya-jin wrote: post #692
tobyjsullivan wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've similarly found AirPods both "just work" from a user experience, especially compared to alternative bluetooth audio devices, and also are quirky from a reliability standpoint. There have been fixes pushed out in past, particularly with the earlier models, where fixes could be done via OTA firmware updates. The remaining quirks all feel related to Bluetooth tech and, specifically, the low-power available to AirPo…

Man, you sure are overly optimistic. That part about bluetooth doesn't make sense, tons of products work reliably with similar dimension/weight restrictions as airpods. If Apple with its army of engineers can't make their products work reliably, how could have much smaller companies succeeded? Btw one of biggest disappointments for me with airpods (pro) is weak bettery life compared to competition. I am currently sho…

Yes, bluetooth has plenty of unfortunate limitations. For example, there is no standard high-quality bidi audio codec in bluetooth spec (see https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/duplex-high-quality-audi... for detailed explanation).

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#856

Post by sorry_outta_gas »

mhink wrote: post #821
symlinkk wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any other over the ear headphones that provide great sound quality, noise cancellation, pair with computers and smartphones, and have a solid mic? I’ve looked at the Sony XM1000’s and from what I understand there is some issue with Windows where if you enable the mic, it goes into some different Bluetooth mode that degrades the audio quality coming out of the headphones. Many wireless headphones are adverti…

> I’ve looked at the Sony XM1000’s and from what I understand there is some issue with Windows where if you enable the mic, it goes into some different Bluetooth mode that degrades the audio quality coming out of the headphones. I have the Jabra Elite 85h's and have the same exact problem on OS X from time to time. (I really like them otherwise, though!) I'm not entirely sure what it is.

probably because the bultiin microphone is enabled due to bluetooth limitations

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#857

Post by ivanvanderbyl »

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…

It's amazing that these issues are exactly the same on both Airpods Pro and Max. You'd think the Max would have a better software stack given the claimed sound improvements.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#858

Post by fomine3 »

Gigachad wrote: post #790
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Another option is 2.4 GHz wireless Sorry to break it to you but Bluetooth also operates on the 2.4GHz ISM band. Those 2.4GHz dongles you're talking about is basically a custom wireless protocol that doesn't follow Bluetooth or any other open standard or OSI stack but is most likely based on some internal protocol of what the three major chip makers in the 2.4GHz space offer (Texas Instruments, Silicon Labs, Nordic S…

They put the complexity in to the dongle which if done right, just works. It's why I choose to use the usb dongle for my mouse/kb even when they support bluetooth. Because bluetooth works most of the time while the dongle works all of the time and doesn't have compromises like "It doesn't work here because the OS bluetooth stack isn't loaded yet" Bluetooth almost needs to be lifted from the OS and become part of the…

BT-W3 could be a solution.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#859

Post by fomine3 »

m12k wrote: post #13

>Annoyance 4: Sometimes, only the left or right AirPod plays sound. Taking them in/out of your ears doesn't fix it, you need to put it back into the case and take it back out, which sometimes, doesn't fix it. So you need to put your AirPods in/out of your case two or three times to fix it. I run into this too, anyone know what's up with that? Is there some "listen with only one headphone in" feature that I'm accident…

It even happens on AirPods Max because it has two chips internally for L/R. Buggy.

Re: AirPods don't “just work”

#860

Post by fomine3 »

delecti wrote: post #202
soared wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airpods are insanely small and the outside casing is pretty much a single piece of plastic. I am all for right to repair, but it does not seem feasible or reasonable for AirPods - they’d have to be bulkier.

> they’d have to be bulkier Then make them bulkier. What's worse, filling the planet with garbage, or a few industrial designers having slightly less impressive portfolios?

You can promote your TWS with detachable battery design. I think it's totally not attractive.
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