I really struggled to take the plunge on the original AirPods and it has been one of my top 10 purchases ever in my life without a doubt. I stood there holding the little $200 box in my hand and really danced back and forth in my mind about whether or not they would really be necessary. If they broke, I would go buy a new pair immediately.
For what they are, the sound is amazing. I can't really do a phone call anymore without them. Working on my car, doing dishes, going for a jog, taking the dogs on a walk, the pods are goin' in.
My wife finally made the switch from Android (she had mulitple Samsung Galaxy devices) to iOS w/ an XS and she is also hopelessly addicted to the new ecosystem and her AirPods. We had a running joke for years that she would never switch teams but now she is 100% stoked on Apple gear.
I am not in the market for anything like this, since I have the high-end spectrum covered w/ some Sony over the ear noise cancelling cans but if I was I would give these a shot in a new york minute.
I've demoed my $25 Anker or mpow earbuds (the Airpod-likes) to many coworkers sporting Airpods and they're universally astounded by the quality of the cheaper buds. I've converted quite a few people who lost their Airpods.
The chead buds don't sound quite as good as Airpods, but they're 85% of the way there, fit better, can actually handle the rain and sweat without breaking down, can be used during exercise without falling out, and they cost a fraction of the price.
I think most of the magic is Bluetooth 5. After years and years of trying Bluetooth headphones I only found them acceptable under very specific circumstances (only certain types of exercising). AirPods really seemed to fix most of the long standing issues.
But the cost, even for people who would immediately go buy another pair, does suck. When I used <$20 headphones at the gym, it was reasonable to keep a backup on hand, or a second pair at work or in a gym bag. If I leave my AirPods somewhere unexpectedly my options are to go back and get them. Buying or borrowing a pair of wired headphones aren't even an option in most cases anymore.
Not as a counter to your story, but I know someone who was gifted knockoff AirPods and didn't know it. They were really confused why people liked them so much and returned them within a week.
Doubt so, Bluetooth 5 doesn't really do anything with audio streaming. Check this out: https://habr.com/en/post/456182/, in particular:
> Only one change affected the Classic version within the specification of Bluetooth 5: support for the Slot Availability Mask (SAM) technology, designed to improve radio frequency sharing. All other changes affect only Bluetooth LE (the same applies to Higher Output Power too).
> All audio devices use only Bluetooth Classic. Headphones and speakers cannot be connected via Bluetooth Low Energy. There is no standard for transmitting audio using LE. The A2DP standard, used to transmit high-quality audio, works only through Bluetooth Classic, and there is no equivalent in LE.
> To sum up: buying audio devices with Bluetooth 5 only because of the new version of the protocol is meaningless. Bluetooth 4.0/4.1/4.2 in the context of audio transmission will work the same way.
> If the announcement of the new headphone mentions a doubled radius and reduced power consumption thanks to Bluetooth 5, then you should know that they either do not understand themselves or mislead you. No wonder, even the manufacturers of Bluetooth chips confuse the difference in both standards, and some Bluetooth 5 chips support the fifth version only for LE, and use 4.2 for Classic.
I haven't followed the specs closely. My grievances with bluetooth weren't around audio quality. They were all around pairing, battery life, reliability during use, and how annoying and frustrating general use was. Maybe this all came from 4.2 and a combination of other tech like available chips or better implementation? For whatever reason, not long after AirPods were released I hear competing headphones improved significantly. I know often can take years and suddenly someone comes along with a clever design pattern everyone else implements on top of old hardware or existing specs.
I, too, have a pair of Anker's airpod-clones that I've sampled next to a family member's AirPods (as well as a comparably-priced set of Samsung's premium wireless buds), and I feel like the 85% quality to 12.5% cost really makes it a no-brainer.
To boot, the fact that these things only cost me about 20 bucks just makes it so much easier to carry around with me every day. People have reported having anxiety/panic attacks over fear of misplacing their AirPods because they're so damn expensive. I don't really have to worry about that with the Anker ones--I'd be bummed if I lost them, but they're just another pair of earbuds, at the end of the day.
I purchased a pair of $50 bluetooth earbuds on Amazon and without a doubt they sound and fit better.
The main issues with inexpensive earbuds (Tozo T6) is bluetooth connectivity and touch controls. Pairing between the two earbuds is hit and miss, then a few more seconds to connect to the phone. The touch controls are inaccurate. Perhaps I should have bought cheaper ones without touch. In contrast, Apple earpods connect instantly and just work. It's like comparing Macbook touchpads vs PC touchpads. Macbook touchpads are unequaled.
I use the inexpensive earbuds daily despite their quirks. I can buy 5 of them for the ridiculously priced Pro.
>can actually handle the rain and sweat without breaking down
That is my biggest issue, as a distance runner I have never had a pair of headphones last >6 months before they stop work (likely due to salt from my sweat). Its one thing to buy a pair of earpods for $29.99 every 6 months (and Apple usually gives me a pair free under the warranty), but I don't want to spend $150 every 6 months. I've been considering the bone conduction headphones, but haven't been able to test a pair yet.
I've bought quite a few of the cheaper earbuds from Aliexpress, and there are problems with the really low end ones that you should watch out for:
- left and right earbud need to first pair with each other on startup before pairing to your phone. Otherwise you get one side paired to your phone and the other side is just dangling
- lack of volume controls on many
Battery capacity was actually never a show stopper for me - some earbud charging cases are 550 mAh while others are 3500. But the 550 one would already be enough for a whole day's worth of use, so by the end of the day I could just charge the case all the same.
I don’t know what to say about handling sweat and rain, but I went running a few times with my airpods and also washed them a few times with and without case and they are still working :D
With my airpods I think I've gone a max of 8 miles in a single run and have only run into issues when the batteries are partially drained before I take off. I've gotten better over time about keeping them charged. I've probably done at least 60 or so runs with them and haven't had any issues.
I have to imagine they'd last up to a half marathon, but might struggle on a full marathon.
Do you often spend 18 hours with your headphones in? Even on a long day I’ll have 5 minutes to charge them while talking to someone, using the bathroom or getting lunch.
i do! Well, not 18 hours. the Anker I bought "only" lasts about 12 hours (only the newest model gets 18).
I do a lot of home improvements and listening to audio books is how I make the experience tolerable. only having to charge my earbuds at night (along with my phone) is nice.
> I am not in the market for anything like this, since I have the high-end spectrum covered w/ some Sony over the ear noise cancelling cans but if I was I would give these a shot in a new york minute.
Like the first-gen AirPods, I think having noise-cancelling in this form factor is a game-changer. All other noise-cancelling headphones, as far as I know, are either bulky on-ears or earbuds with a brick that dangles at the end of the cable.
Being able to block out the world with a device like the AirPods that just fades into the background is a dream. Especially for someone like me who has to wear noise-cancelling headphones to sleep at night.
There's probably more, but this was my simple amazon search. Lots of manufacturers are calling their earbuds noise canceling with cVc 6.0 or 8.0, but those are only for phone calls, not for other audio.
From what I've heard all other fully-wireless earbuds are a terrible user experience WRT connection quality/disconnects, battery life, etc. Of course noise-cancelling doesn't require connection to a phone, but for this price range I want both parts of the experience to be excellent
I think the sony ones have been generally well-received in reviews with respect to connection quality and battery life. I don't think anyone knows about the echo buds, since they haven't shipped yet.
I think that if you're not in the Apple ecosystem, it wouldn't be a bad idea to check these other options out. Of course, if you are in Apple's ecosystem it's almost a no-brainer to go with Apple's earbuds.
I have this problem, too. I can't wear my beats noise cancelling headphones for too long or the pressure starts to hurt.
The Apple web site states that the new AirPods have an internally-facing microphone, as well. I wonder if that will help. They're touted as being unnoticeable.
I agree. Thankfully the Bose app allows that to be turned off when it gets to be too much for me, though the office is worse without the Bose cancelling, at least it stops killing my brain.
It's somewhere between a headache and physical discomfort. Hard to describe because I've only ever experienced it with active noise cancelling (over the ear) headphones and I gave those up 5+ years ago.
Do you have a recommendation for sleep headphones that don't hurt your ears or fall out? I'm a side sleeper, so I've always found the ear I'm sleeping on to get irritated.
Sleeping on my side isn't 100% ideal but they don't prevent it, for me. My biggest problem is turning over in the night and getting tangled up in the cord, then waking up slightly when I try to adjust it.
That one says Apple because it has the volume up, volume down, and middle button attached to the headset, rather than just wire.
I h ave these, too, and they're pretty great. I don't sleep with these in except on an airplane, but even then never on one of these. They're a little big since they stick out of my ear.
I toss and turn, a lot, so the wires aren't ideal for me, but I used to use my wired Apple headphones without the wires being too preventative. These are a bit pricy for my use case, but good to know that they might not hurt my ear as much.
Should note that I don't need noise cancellation, I just listen to audiobooks until I fall asleep on nights that I am having trouble getting to sleep, but have a partner who is a light sleeper and can't just play them on a speaker.
For me the answer is quite clear: they simply work. Apple like. Did I test all the others you mentioned? No. Probably because I used to have several Bluetooth headset. They hardly ever worked. For me, I had to have high trust in the HW company to ever test a Bluetooth headset again.
Did you realize you had to press the circular button on the back of the charging case. It's hard to see and they won't pair with anything unless you do.
The microphone in Airpods is pretty bad too. One of my colleagues uses them paired to his Mac (maybe that's the issue?) and it sounds like the built in microphone on cheap laptops.
If the noise cancelling and sound quality on these is great, I may actually go from the Sony cans to these, mainly due to Bluetooth pairing woes. With the Sony headphones, if I want to switch from iPhone to Macbook I have to do the dance of Bluetooth repairing. Switch off BT on iPhone -> connect headphones to Mac, switch iPhone BT back on.
The sound would have to be in the same ballpark though, which is hardly a guarantee given my experience with IEMs in the past.
FWIW I have the Bose NC 700 and the Bluetooth pairing is seamless. I can be paired to multiple devices at once; if I’m playing music from my laptop but receive a call from my phone then the Bose are smart enough to pause music on my laptop and switch the audio input to my phone.
Bose appear to has their stuff together when it comes with multi-device pairing. I can pair both my Soundsports and QC35 headphones with multiple devices at the same time.
When choosing between QC35 and Sony's noise cancelling cans, Bose was a clear winner due to that fact alone.
Most Bluetooth headphones work this way. Jaybirds also have seamless syncing, and the X4 has full multi-device coverage like you describe of your Bose.
I have the same issue with my Sony's. Definitely a pain in the ass, especially when my mac is folded up and sleeping in my backpack and the headphones still connect to it.
I find that I can't use them for phone calls because the other person always complains that my mic is terrible. Is this because of using an Android device?
They also don't stay in my ears for the life of me, so exercising at the gym I have to use over-the-ear headphones. I think this impacts the sound for me, as well, since they sound better when I hold them in my ear versus when I let go.
I've had good success with Jabra 65t on Android. Probably 1k hours of calls and no complaints except in very high wind.
Oh, btw, the connection is very dependent on your Android phone. Bluetooth is in year ~20 of widespread alpha testing and Android implementations vary. I initially had an HTC; it had bluetooth issues. I'm now on a Google-made phone and it's seamless. Anecdotally, Samsungs work well too.
I've also got the Jabra 65t on Android and would completely recommend. I've used some AirPods that my family owns and I find the audio quality better on the Jabras. Never used the mic on either, though.
With a Pixel 3a I also have had zero Bluetooth connection issues; I keep it paired to both my 3a and my laptop and it works flawlessly, including switching between devices as needed.
You are lucky. My wife's 65t's left earbud is dead after very light usage for a little over a year (right after the warranty expired, basically). I don't think she's used them more than maybe twice a week on average.
Seems like a common problem too and various fixes that I've read up on don't work.
She is no considering the airpods but I don't know what to tell her. Like the poster above, the price seems ridiculous to me, especially after the bad experience with the Jabras which are also expensive and supposedly high quality.
Have a Huawei P20 pro with the 65t Elite Active. I have to reset the Bluetooth, forcing a reconnect everytime I connect them but after that they work seamlessly. They have quite a bit of delay on my device though. Music, calls and pods are amazing. Videos not so much.
I wonder if a complete reset would fix it, got them last Christmas and the pairing process was horribly buggy back then and don't feel like risking it again....
I have exactly the same problem, that the pods would fall out after 30s, faster when I'm moving. I gave them to my wife and for her it's like they're glued in. I tried using the pod-"cushions". While they work I have to remove them every time for charging. So I'm a little jealous about people with compatible ears.
Every android is different, but Airpods work great with my PH1 running Android 9. I did have to disable "absolute volume" in the developer settings to get reasonable playback levels.
>I find that I can't use them for phone calls because the other person always complains that my mic is terrible. Is this because of using an Android device?
Probably, never had any complaints and my own recordings work (airpods/iphone)
Not very well in my experience. I did try Airpods for a while and the volume control doesn't work properly. It was impossible to turn them down below a level that was still too loud. The microphone also apparently sounded horrible.
Goodness, controlling something like volume by voice sounds _excruciating_. I rarely know where I want the knob to be and thus fiddle to the left and right until the desired level is reached. I wonder the ergonomics of this experience.
Their main problem is they don't properly go to sleep when you put them in the case. They'll often keep reconnecting. If they don't disconnect, they don't charge. Sometimes they spontaneously reconnect in the middle of the night and end up dead in the morning when you go to use them. It's incredibly frustrating.
I feel pretty similarly: they're a phenomenal testament for the value of it just works. I'd been using wireless Anker ear buds for workouts for years, and while they were fine, they lost connection, were annoying to connect to my phone, required plugging in when they died, etc.
That said, I really* wish there were an option that didn't decay in battery quality so rapidly after a year.
I use my AirPods on my Android OnePlus - so you dont really need to make the switch to Apple. The only feature you lose out on is the light sensor that switches audio channels if you pull the pods out of your ear. Not a terrible loss.
I currently use Jabra Active 65-somethings because they offer adjustable soft rubber tips, and airpods do not fit my ears. The Jabra's don't have a mute button on the earbuds; you have to open your phone. Do the Airpods?
Thanks!
100% agree that if you take a lot of calls, airpods or their clones are the best thing I've bought in 5 years.
No physical buttons on them, but each pod can be programmed to do things based on taps.
For instance, my right pod will skip to the next song with a double-tap. My left pod activates Siri.
I left my airpods at home today (what a coincidence) so I cannot visit that menu to let you know whether or not mute is one of the possibilities for the tap gestures.
Standard bluetooth has pretty bad quality. But Android has the AptXHD standard, for high quality wireless earphones. That's what we should compare this to.
What’s the max bitrate for recent bluetooth standards? I hate the idea of layering compression on top of compression. I just haven’t found anything that compares to a modest pair of cans with any kind of okay DAC/amplifier.
aptX HD and LDAC are good, with bitrates of 576 kbps/990 kbps. The bigger problem with sound quality is that for any given price tier, adding Bluetooth comes with a significant compromise in SQ versus offerings that are optimized for only SQ.
Bluetooth also caps out at roughly the midrange for headphones. High-end bluetooth Bluetooth headphones are technically possible, but nobody makes anything equivalent to say, the Focal Clear, but with Bluetooth.
At home I use the Sennheiser RS 185, Sennheiser's top-end RF (non-Bluetooth) wireless headphones. I love them, but realistically, the sound quality is on par with $200 wired headphones.
Bitrate isn't the problem. Modern codecs like Opus achieve transparency at around 100-120 kbit/s. Even uncompressed CD audio (at 1.411 kbit/s) could be streamed over Bluetooth 5 Low Energy – just (about 1.6 Mbit/s usable).
AirPods (and earbuds in general) just don't deliver the sound quality unless you make it loud enough that probably hurts your hearing on long run due to nature of their design.
They are comfortable and very useful to have phone calls but nothing more unless you are in quiet environment most of your time.
This is such a bad frame of mind if you're someone who owns more than a dorm room of stuff. I used to feel like this about stuff. "Oh it's just $100 and we use it every day, totally okay to replace every few years."
But it adds up when you start having to replace 100 different "it's pretty cheap given how often we use it" items in a year.
And it's not just the cost. It's also the time you commit to being a consumer. Thinking about which one to buy, reading reviews, etc. Some people enjoy being consumers and that's fine. But it takes away from what I want to be doing with my life. I want to buy something once and not have to think about it for a long time.
I don't think people have a frame of reference in their short lives to realize just how much time they spend being consumers and how that doesn't have to be normal.
> I want to buy something once and not have to think about it for a long time.
A thousand times this ^ And ideally for everything: phone, computer, headphones, clothes, etc.
Personally, I own one pair of pants that I know will last about 2 years before I need to replace them, then just buy exactly the same pair again. Same with t-shirts, except I own about 10 of the same and replace 2 or 3 once a year (each one will last 2-3 years).
Kind of trying something similar. My jeans seem to be tough enough, but I’ve had a hard time with t-shirts. I’m looking for plain t-shirts without logos. What brands do you buy?
For nice t-shirts without logo, check Muji (their bio cotton collection) or Uniqlo (their Supima cotton collection). Less than $15, great fit, good enough durability.
For t-shirts, Banana Republic (although they keep changing the styles and colors slightly over time, which could also be considered a good thing).
For jeans, Levi's.
Haven't really tried too many brands, but those two were good enough for me that I don't feel like I need to make the decision for those two items ever again.
I don't think I own 100 items that use batteries. I mean, I'm curious, and I'll make a list, but I'm definitely not replacing things every year.
I've got a MacBook that's a few years old, an iPhone that's two years old, and AirPods that are less than a year old, and... my Apple TV remote is many years old and still only needs charging every couple of months. My Kindle is many years old and only needs charging every couple of weeks. My two USB power bricks still seem to be doing well. One is three years old, the other almost a year old. Apple Watch is about two years old, still makes it through almost two full days on a charge.
I think everything else electronic either plugs in or uses replaceable batteries (garage door opener, car keys).
I might be forgetting something, but 100 items is an order of magnitude more than I think I use, and I'm not replacing most of them most years.
And yes, I clearly consume a lot of Apple kit. I like to think I don't do so blindly, though.
I'm speaking more generally, not just about battery replacement. I cannot be in the mindset of disposable merchandise because I would be thinking about this stuff all the time.
> To put this into perspective, you produce more waste with a grocery trip or a takeout order than you do with owning AirPods.
That is probably only true in the US given the amount of regulation on compostable bags and boxes we have now in the EU.
Secondly, e-waste is orders of magnitude more difficult to dispose of and it often contains some rare minerals that got mined in some war zone in Africa: that should give you more of an incentive to recycle than some random styrofoam container.
Perhaps using numbers that are an order-of-magnitude out of line aren't helpful to your main point? If you're talking about replacing 100 items per year in a world where even ardent consumers of electronics own less than one-tenth that an replace, on average, none, that seems like a hard case to make.
I think there's a trend toward seeing electronics as consumable that bothers me, and I try to think carefully about my purchases, and yet somehow I've still ended up with at least eight items that use non-replaceable batteries, and maybe others that are "disposable" for other reasons.
Still, for each item I own, I've considered the "disposable" nature and yet bought it anyway.
Is the cumulative time spent screwing around reading reviews, comparing brands and choosing products more than the time spent replacing broken things? Just buying the cheapest thing that does what you are looking for saves a heck of a lot of time.
Everybody loves to go on about quality but quality doesn't always pan out in terms of time or money cost. There's plenty of cases where some thing you've bought will meet its end in a way unrelated to whether it's high or low quality. If you really want to optimize you have to tailor your purchasing to your specific use case.
A simple approach is to just pull the trigger quickly on whatever has a million 5 star reviews and looks acceptable and is cheap. This feels environmentally offensive. Throwing away something that 99% works with one broken part. I feel sick when I have to do this.
Another approach is to try to get something expensive but durable and fixable. Unfortunately we live in a crappy future where nobody has any pride anymore and nothing's built to last decades. I have a 30 year old jigsaw I got from my grandfather and I frickin' love it.
There used to be an expectation of longevity in the electronics we purchase. Even while Moore's law was in full effect, you could find good uses for a 6 year old computer. Today's computer hardware can easily remain fully usable for a decade. The notion of buying a laptop or phone, let alone headphones, every year is ludicrous and actively harmful to the environment.
You must have lived in a different "Used to be" than I did. I owned multiple Walkman style cassette players back in the 80s and if you got 2 years use out of those foam covered headphones, it was a small miracle. Even buying replacement foam, the cords got snagged and destroyed quickly. Also, the cheap plastic doors on the players were notoriously prone to failing. Not to mention all of them were powered by disposable batteries which powered them for just a few hours and had to be tossed out.
I agree about the headphones, but I got a full decade of use from my WM-D6 Walkman Pro and its (optional, removable) rechargeable battery pack. I replaced it with a WM-D6C which still worked the last time I tried it, a few years ago now.
High-quality gear was definitely available in the '80s, if you were willing to pay for it — and might have been cheaper in the long run.
So instead of tiny, expensive headphones last 18-24 months, you had an even more expensive cassette player which might last 5 years, with headphones that lasted less than a year, and expensive bulky rechargeable battery packs which lasted about 6 months if you were lucky.
How is this better than a set of headphones which last 18+ months? Just the NiCd battery packs were something like 20 times bulkier than the AirPods and lasted less than a third the time with careful use. Normal replacement cycle on those battery packs would be more expensive over 2 years than my AirPods, particularly if you consider inflation.
I'm not suggesting it was better overall; I'm not sure how you read me that way. I'm just saying that reliable gear was available.
(Only 6 months out of a set of NiCds??? I got multiple years out of more than one set. NiCds are very easy to take care of; just remember that they need exercise. Always drain them fully before charging, and make sure not to overcharge.)
Well, batteries have never had a long useful life, and since the batteries (Airpods + case) make up most of the mass, replacing the battery would have most of the environmental impact.
The answer then, is that goods like this may not be worthwhile purchases, comparing the environmental impact they cause to the limited (nonexistent?) benefits that they bring to our society.
I'd be glad if we all could use mobile phones where we are able to change the battery. There is no way around, batteries are wearing parts. And I know that most phones (and even laptop computers) use small/weird form factors to use the even the last bit of space available, but I'd be glad to do with a little less battery life, if I just could switch batteries.
That still doesn’t help the environment. The batteries can be changed and they still have to be disposed of. Having less battery capacity doesn’t help. In fact, you would need to change them more often.
Let alone headphones? You could throw away a pair of AirPods every day and it would still constitute a tiny fraction of what (Americans) produce in waste on a yearly basis.
Uuuugh. This line of thinking, though rooted in good intentions (hold corporations responsible for better behavior) is deeply flawed.
Corporations don't exist in a vacuum. They have customers they're serving. We don't get to just pretend our behavior doesn't matter because some bogeymen (corporations) are doing worse things, then continue to voluntarily hand our money to those very same corporations.
We (individuals) bear responsibility, too. We vote with out dollars. Yes, we can't control the other 7.7 Billion people on the planet. But we can control our own behavior, and lead by example.
I like this line of thinking too, but there should be a line drawn somewhere between consumer's responsibility and law maker's responsibility to hold corporations accountable for their environmental impact. It is not a single person at home dumping pollution into a river or factory smoke into the air. And it's downright difficult for an average consumer to know what impact each option for a purchase has on the environment.
I think it's an argument somewhat like the "don't water your lawn in a drought" argument - even in aggregate, domestic/consumer impact is miniscule. 2005 numbers say that domestic water use is 8.5% of freshwater use, and of that, irrigation is at most 5.3% (the "other" category). Yet we in California were told to let our lawns die or given money to convert to high-efficiency landscape.
An average shower uses 17 gallons of water. A single pound of almonds uses 1,900 gallons.
Anyway, all this to say that I think the GP's argument is convincing.
That is the point I was making. The devices last (as we both have experienced), but today it is "fashionable" to dispose of them and buy new ones on a schedule much shorter than their lifespans (because of some new gimmick that provides an inconsequential improvement in the usability of the newer model).
My point is that perhaps you might have that impression, but what does the data say?
Even higher income people I know don't swap out their phones and laptops every year. It's a pain in the ass to reconfigure everything, and even when the devices get replaced, the old ones get passed down to the kids or elders.
Perhaps low end devices are getting replaced more and more often, but I would bet high end devices get used for much longer. Especially with a widening wealth/income gap, how would people even afford to replace working electronics for no reason?
Yes, if the _only_ reason you need to replace an item is because the battery can't be replaced, that is only because it is in the manufacturer's interest to make it that way. It is not in your interest. They've got to keep you on the endless upgrade cycle one way or another, it gets harder as products mature and become 'good enough.
Dinner for many people in the world was made using fertiliser, or feedstock was. Fertiliser is often nitrogen based, made from ammonia, made from natural gas. Using natural gas and oil is often worse than plastics (which somewhat embed the energy).
I have Apple's PowerBeats Pros. They cost $250, and the batteries cannot be replaced. I expect them to last about two years, based on AirPods usage. And the footprint on those things is so minuscule in comparison to other aspects of my life that I could easily improve, I feel no need to justify my choice whatsoever.
EDIT: another comment prompted me to explain better. Money aside, for a bit of trash I get two years of entertainment, a quality experience, more enjoyable runs, something to listen to on my commute, a voice assistant for when my hands are full. All for a little pile of garbage after a few years. Now let's take a trip down the street to the teriyaki place close to work. EVERY TAKEOUT MEAL THEY SERVE generates more garbage than my earphones. If not the lithium batteries, for sure more plastic by weight or volume (let's not forget the styrofoam, either). For something that's going to be forgotten and floating in the toilet tomorrow morning.
I don't eat at the teriyaki place anymore for the above reasons. Leave me the hell alone about my headset choices. /EDIT
Though with a minute of thought, I'm pretty sure I could mount a reasonable argument for disposable, but smart, earphones reducing my footprint. But that's a longer discussion and beside the point. EDIT: for one example, see user ogre_codes experience with Walkmans.
What other data do I have to go on? PBPs have only been out for like a year. I figure I'll use the new ones in patterns similar to the old ones. PBPs have a bigger battery, so if I get two years out of AirPods it's not unreasonable to expect the same or more out of PBPs.
I've owned the QC20i (two of them actually). The battery was never the issue. The durability was! I take a great care of all my electronics. And no matter how careful I was, the QC20i never lasted more than 2 years without some sort of connection issues.
Just as another anecdotal data point, my QC20i lasted 2 years, and then I tried to clean them, and the little metal grill went away. I thought it would be good to still have them, so I went to a local Bose store, and they were willing to fix it, which was pretty nice. I've had mine since 2015 and they've been around the world with me multiple times.
Agreed. I've had 3 or 4 of them over the years - great headset and in particular noise cancellation (airplanes, trains, etc.), but man, they break so easily. The plastic on the "brick" comes off, the little plastic ridge that holds the ear tips in place has come off on one side (so the ear tip falls off constantly), if you have the thing plugged in with the airplane adapter to the socket in your armrest and stand up, the whole 3.5 mm plug can rip off, the cable frays, etc. etc.
oh I had a pair of those for YEARS. LOVED them. Battery lasted ages. great small size for traveling. I wish they had a better form factor (I hate that neck thing format).
What's killing me is the doublespeak. "We must be eco friendly ! we must save the world ! climate change bad ! look at our renewable energy data centers ! yay !" and then they ship you products that are either unfixable or you need to replace half the product to change the broken part.
In the older bose headsets you could slap an AAA batteries and be good for a while. These types of batteries won't disappear anytime soon.
Anyway, in 5 years when bose stops producing the qc35 battery pack no one will be able to replace them whereas people using bose qc25 will just have to get new AAA batteries. Either apple talks the talk and walks the walk or it simply shut up about climate, no one cares about virtue signalling if it's to fuck the user for 3% more margin in the end. I'm surethey could have designed it better and fit at the very least user replaceable batteries.
Yep, just like in the Airpods. And just like the ones in the Airpods, they'll eventually stop holding a charge. The only difference is, they're significantly bigger than the Airpods, and have more of the toxic waste.
Can't speak to quality since they're not released yet, or the complaint about replaceable battery, but I imagine the demographic of people who want a replaceable battery isn't the largest, and for better or worse Apple has eschewed replaceable batteries for going on a decade now.
I dunno, I felt the same way about the normal Airpods until I relented and bought them and its almost weird to say that its been a huge quality of life improvement for me. Running is far more enjoyable without the cables. Pretty easy to carry them around too.
But then again I didn't shop around the other brands at all.
I put my airpods through the washer and dryer about 2 weeks into ownership (oops). They still work perfect to this day, almost a year later. I also run a couple miles every other day with them in, during the summer that means 90 degree weather and me drenched in sweat. Sweat is a non-issue for them.
I have a $30 set of over-hear bluetooth headphones I use for running. I'd describe the sound quality as "reasonably good" and the battery life as "excellent".
For sure, I mean I always knew I could find something else looking around, but I was into the idea of having something that connected super easily and that I could trust would work. Plus half of my co-workers had them and swore by them, word of mouth is a powerful thing.
I got about 18 months out of my first pair of AirPods before I lost them and while battery life wasn't great at the end, it was mostly tolerable. Seems like 18 months - 2 years is the typical lifespan of headphones for me. They they get lost, batteries die, the earbuds wear out, cables get broken, take a bath, etc.
I bought a second set of AirPods after losing my first and when these die/ get lost/ take a bath/ whatever I'll either buy another pair or maybe upgrade to the $250 ones... with the expectation that they will last 18-24 months. For me, the form factor is worth it.
We already went through the "why buy an X whose batteries can't be replaced" when the iPhone showed up. Same reasoning: between smaller size, greater capacity, less breakage, and wanting a reason to buy the new model ~2 years hence, most are happy to replace devices over dead fixed batteries.
I'm on conference calls >4 hours daily. Wore out my AirPods series 1 set, bought a replacement series 2 (wireless charging) set a couple months ago, no question would have ordered the Pro today if not having just bought the series 2.
People are already spending that much on the power beats pro, sennheiser momentum true wireless, and sony wf-1000xm3. It's only $50 more than the AirPods with wireless charging case.
These would be a day one purchase for me if I didn't already have the over-the-ear Sony WH-1000xm3 headphones for 90% of my listening and a recently purchased set of AirPods for the other 10%.
I think they’re a really dumb pair of headphones considering the fact that they automatically connect to either my phone or laptop at random and I have to reconnect them by holding the power button for 5 seconds every time to switch between laptop and phone.
Despite this, the sound quality is pretty good... but it still doesn’t justify how relatively dumb these pair of headphones are.
I use them for about 4 hours a day, about 1 conference call every other day.
I know they need new batteries because from full charge, they won't get through a single hour-long conference call anymore without blasting the low battery warning.
I used to be able to eek out about 2 1-hour conference calls before getting the warning.
Surprised you can wear those things that long. I've found my iPhone or MBP speaker have better noise reduction than the AirPods, and they're not comfortable to have in for multiple hours at a time.
When I need to do this - I only wear one AirPods, and keep the other charged in the case. Mic quality seems improved also with only 1 AirPods.
They will just replace your AirPods. Not actually replace the batteries. iFixIt[1] had to physically cut them open to get to the battery, there's no way Apple is actually replacing the battery as opposed to recycling what parts they can and tossing the rest when they come in for service.
Interesting, I didn't know that. But if you look at it purely from a cost perspective, it's at least a lot cheaper have the airpods swapped for 2x $49 when the battery dies, compared to buying a new pair with case for $199.
Obviously replaceable batteries would be even better. How do other brands of wireless earbuds of the same size fare in this regard?
The wording on that page shows replacing the batteries mean they give you an entire new Airpod (or 2). They say "replacement airpod" instead of "repaired airpod".
The electronics and plastic casing are in working order, no? How much did producing those cost the environment (materials, energy, waste by-products), not throwing them away would make sense.
TCO is pretty brutal for anybody who bothers to do the back of the napkin math on how long the batteries will hold out (IF you don't lose or break them first) but the experience is pretty good. The aesthetic appeal, the sound quality bump from the elimination of cable knock, and practicality are nice.
I would go as far as to call wired IEMs inherently inferior if price is no object and I don't care if you're buying a $1000 pair with an amp. You're buying a less practical product with a sound quality improvement only in SOME situations. The only reasons to go that road now are running time (if you listen to music ALL day) or cost.
Still either lifespan needs to improve or price needs to drop or both these to be a non-stupid purchase for the vast majority of the market. Most people really don't have the disposible income for these including half the people who buy them.
Still shocked Apple gets such good PR about their environmental work when one of their most popular products is 3 batteries in plastic sarcophaguses that needs to be replaced every 18 months.
At the end of humanity there will still be corroded burst airpods and funko dolls washing up on beaches.
Recall that Apple is big into 100% recycling. Don't discard dead AirPods, get them "repaired" (replaced) at cost and let Apple recycle the components/materials.
What about all the people who are just going to chuck these in a landfill instead of properly recycling them? Apple can get all chuffed about acting like they're green, but they have to know these are landfill fodder.
I've had the OG Airpods since release, and haven't had to replace battery. Not sure how often you use yours, but I'm on maybe 1-2 hrs a day and still can go almost a week between needing to charge.
I use mine every day for at least an hour of running. Yesterday they ran out of power at just over two hours of running. I have had mine for a couple of years now.
I’m looking forward to buying these new ones as they are water resistant and the original model is not, requiring me to dry the sweat off of them very carefully.
They don't advertise the water resistance but I run with mine drenched in sweat and have never had an issue. I also put them through the washer and dryer (not in the case) and they work fine almost a year later. I wouldn't worry about carefully drying them..
I have not had the same success as you. I do a lot of running and I sweat a lot while running at full speed. Formerly, I would put my AirPods into their case as quickly as possible after a run to avoid losing them. The charging contacts ended up becoming corroded and I have cleaned them off multiple times to get the batteries to charge. The AirPods were not fully wet, they just had a sheen of sweat on them. Now I set them out to dry in the air for a while before putting them in the case. I suspect the new version will have the same problem. They are not really meant for vigorous exercise.
[Edited to answer your question to which I cannot reply because it is marked as dead:] The corrosion to which I was referring is clearly oxidation to my eye. It has a green color and requires scraping. Maybe our environments and usage are too different for comparison. I live in Central Florida, where it is quite hot and humid. According to my receipts, I bought these AirPods on April 5, 2017. I have been running with them almost every day since then.
Thats pretty interesting, you made me take a look at my charging contacts and they're still completely new looking.
I wonder why you experienced that and I didn't - I don't take particularly good care of my AirPods. The only thing I do occasionally is hit them with a paperclip to remove any earwax buildup because they get pretty gross after a few weeks of use.
I mean I'll go for runs in the rain, run in super humid weather, sleep with them in sometimes, and a host of other probably not good ideas and they just keep on working perfect after a year of this 'abuse'.
I would guess however that they weren't corroded in the traditional sense of the word, more likely just covered in a gross film?
I will personally love to see someone justify spending $250 on AirPods if he just can buy normal full-size headphones, where music is music, not random noises.
These are undeniably really nice products for the target audience, but the direction we as a humanity are going with disposable products has been and still is problematic and products like this do not help, on the contrary. Everyone is free to ignore that, but I personally cannot justify it. Especially knowing that just adding a wire buys me a better sounding product which lasts way, way longer. But yes: the wire is not too convenient. Though after 20+ years of using it I also got accustomed so no deal breaker.
I'm sure buying 1 airpods per year (per month even) is less waste than buying plastic-packed groceries every day (i.e. what we need to survive). I too oppose this, but to pretend AirPods are the real issue is just FUD. We need to have laws / taxes against this, but they need to be fair - not people e.g. promoting anti-AirPods policies but supporting /ignoring plastic-wrapped veggies, or promoting anti-meat policies but tolerating non-electric cars. Institute taxes that accurately account for the actual environmental impact of a product, and let (1) the people, and (2) the market sort it out (by reducing waste, improving recycling, deciding whether they want to spend more on meat or on petrol, etc.)
They are incredibly convenient if you use multiple apple devices. You can change from your iPhone to Mac/iPad and watch almost seemingly. with traditional Bluetooth headphones it’s always a hassle to change devices. I either have to press buttons on the headphones and it doesn’t work well with more then two devices or I have to disconnect them manually from my device and open Bluetooth on the other. Connecting to a different device takes usually less then 10 secs with AirPods/Beats, which is super nice.
That being said, if you don’t use Apple products (or only one apple product), they are not really more convenient then any other headphones.
I see, thanks for the explanation, I can see how that might be useful.
Not having an iPad, I always got by with having a single set of earphones plugged in my work machine, and bluetooth ones for my phone, which I use for running.
I can imagine having many more devices and using the same set for all could be preferable.
Have you ever needed to be on a phone call while doing something else with your hands? Running with music and not having cords whip around your neck is pretty nice too.
Have you ever needed to be on a phone call after you took the call on the phone, but would like to switch headset, but because Bluetooth still sucks it doesn't even show the headset in the list, so you have to power down the headset, restart in pairing mode...
Yeah, I've done that plenty of times using a Bluetooth headset. You will never do that using an iPhone and AirPods. You'll just push the button, and it will switch without drama. And it will work that way tomorrow, too. That's why I've paid eye-watering sums for headsets with W1/H1 chips in them.
I'm not sure that I follow, but do you mean be listening to music on the earphones, take a phone call on the handset speaker, then end the call and go back to the earphones? If that's the case then there's literally to switch between earphone/handset speaker/loudspeaker, on my phone at least.
Also, isn't the point of a bluetooth handset that you can make the call there?
Can we talk about how smooth and beautiful the website is? I know, it's Apple and their websites are always the same, but there's always a tiny increment. This time it's the woman adjusting the ANC by holding her Airpods. The way she fades in and the scroll controls her every movement and then fades out is just so smooth.
It made it difficult for me to read the content, and lagged/stuttered on my Macbook Pro. Not to mention taking up a whole screen for a single marketing sentence is obnoxious.
As someone who buys a lot of "pro" labeled audio gear, the only thing I care about is a bullet point list of specs. I've seen enough snake oil to ignore marketing materials for consumer audio products. But I get why Apple doesn't do that off the bat, because they're not trying to sell these to people like me.
I found it awful. I'm running on a very beefy development machine in the latest version of Firefox and it was kinda sluggish and very hard to read all of the information (felt like I had to scroll forever just to see a few sentences and pictures). It's also very inaccessible.
Perhaps the reason for that is it’s been tested on Safari on an iPhone but not on Firefox on a fast desktop processor because the method used to animate is something fast in 1 browser but not in the other. Perhaps your comment didn’t consider that Apple’s marketing team only cater to their existing core demographic most likely already using an iPhone and not interested in the product at hand. But most of all, you didn’t bother to consider the software stack that had a huge impact on performance. And neither did Apple.
This is true. But for reference, I'm using a 2018 MacBook Pro with two external HiDPI monitors connected via USB-C (a Dell 4k and an LG 5k2k), and the page still performs flawlessly in Chrome.
Parent comment here, I just tried scrolling with my mouse and it was horrible. I should've mentioned I was scrolling with the arrow keys, using the mouse just now was awful and I can see why so many people disagree with my initial view. Usign the arrow keys was very hypnotic however.
I had the exact opposite reaction. I wanted to see how much the headphones cost. It took me what felt like 100 space bar presses to get to the purchase link, almost like the page didn't really want me to order and was stalling for time.
It took me what felt like 100 space bar presses to get to the purchase link
I took me zero spacebar presses. There's a big blue purchase link at the top of the page, and it's anchored there and stays with you as your scroll through the presentation.
In my defense, I may have mistaken it for a login button of some kind. Usually the login link goes at the top right. It's uncommon for the "buy" button to be in the top navbar. It's usually at the same level as the product being presented.
It's just a video, but the scrollbar is the tracker for playback. Definitely a novel take on playing a video in a web page, but nothing too technical going on here.
I disagree; this website is awful. If you hijack the scroll event to do something like this, instead of just... letting me scroll, you're very much going to hell.
This is not hijacking the scroll event. Look at the scrollbar. The page scrolls exactly as you'd expect according to your input method and operating system.
I know it's not technically correct, but I tend to conflate "hijacking scroll event" as both receiving a scroll event and doing something that weird or slows down my browser along with something that manipulates scrolling since they have similar effects to an end user.
What’s the word on active noise cancellation and hearing protection? I currently avoid using headphones in loud environments, and my quick test is if I can hear myself talk over the music.
This page says the active cancellation uses “anti-noise”, which iirc is noise, at frequencies that drown out the outside noise. But I’m not really sure about this.
So, if we were in say a 85 db environment, would music with these be at, say 90 db, or would it actually let you play safely at a lower volume like 80mm.
I know NRR headphones are best to actually block noise. But I’m curious what these do. Specifically related to hearing damage.
That's not quite right. What the anti-noise does is generate an inverse wave to cancel out some (as much as possible) of the waveform of the noise. It's not just playing white noise louder than the external noise. The result is that your ear drum receives a smaller waveform to vibrate to.
Someone believes the active cancelling itself does reduce the music quality due to the fact that there is no earphone able to cancel environment noise 100% perfect.
It always leave some here and affect music quality.
Although I think that is fine enough for me that my main purpose is to block the environment noise.
There is definitely a tradeoff for sound quality and that can be a good reason to disable it in a quiet room. In noiser rooms, it is likely that the background noise is already damaging sound quality more than the ANR will.
As others have mentioned, it might affect sound quality in terms of passing a tiny bit of environmental sound, because ANC isn't 100% efficient. But in terms of hearing, ANC itself has no negative effects on its own, and it is definitely way less damaging to your hearing than if you used the same earphones in the same environment, but without ANC.
You can definitely tell something is going on when the active noise canceling is on but it's not a big deal most of the time. It's good at blocking repetitive noise (office, car, plane) but bad at blocking other things like a car horn, a gun, someone clapping, &c.
Depends on how they're set up. My Sony over-ear noise-cancelling set has ambient noise mics that assume a non-windy environment, and thus can pick up wind noise themselves. I turn the noise-cancelling off if I'm going to be somewhere windy, but I have a hunch that putting a little faux fur patch (deadcat) over the ambient noise mic port would fix this.
I would say it would depend on the position of the microphone, the speed of the electronics and the ability of the speaker to reproduce the negative wave at the microphone.
I don't think it could work perfectly. It would be like putting a beach-ball offshore and using it's motion to move a log closer to shore up and down to cancel all waves hitting a beach.
If you're really concerned about noise reduction, I personally recommend headphones that block noise, not counter it. An example would be the Shure IEM line, which acts like an earplug, and which provide a flat 25db attenuation of sound. So, your 85db environment becomes a 60 db environment, and your music can be 65 db.
Boise 2 headphones with ANR, in comparison, reduce about 13db of noise at 85db.
I'm interested in this, so looked the Shure line up. The cheapest IEM model is SE425CL at $269. Simple wires, no mic. Anyone have experience with them?
If you want inexpensive, SE 215 is what you're looking for, for $99.
I have the 535's, which are a step up in drivers, and I love them. They aren't reference quality (which I recommend Etymotics for, and you can buy the isolating sleves for them), and are a bit on the warm side. The 425s are fairly similar, but the 535s are a bit clearer in the high-mids.
Any Shure headphones will have better sound quality than Apple, Beats, or Boise at similar price ranges, since they're built for listening, not fashion.
>If you want inexpensive, SE 215 is what you're looking for, for $99.
Shure has jumped the shark. I own these and have stopped endorsing them, the sound quality is utterly rubbish compared to some alternative wireless pairs, which might cost a little bit more, but even a punt on some of the cheaper pairs like Airdots et al. would be worth it.
They get better when an EQ increases the high frequencies.
I can recommend the 1more E1001 triple driver for a similar price point but better sound.
For sound quality I have a pair of in-ear B&O but they are falling apart after a couple years which is pretty annoying because the sound quality is really good.
I would pick Airpods over Shure, but they don't fall in the $99 category! I was replying on the basis of a specific model and made it explicitly clear that an alternative pair meant either a foray into slightly expensive pairs (still cheaper than Airpods) or go all the all way to the bottom, for the more adventurous.
I had the equivalent model of these about ten years ago, no complaints. IEMs will have better sound quality than regular headphones. There was more cord noise, from what I remember, probably because they make everything else quieter so it's more noticeable.
On a side note, I didn't like the AirPods at all, and returned them. The sound quality is worse than the default iPhone corded earbuds, and they were frustrating if you wanted to frequently switch pairings between a phone and computer (like getting an incoming call and the bluetooth pairing takes 10-15 seconds to change over).
* Noise cancelling earphones really do cancel the noise before you hear it - when they're fast enough.*
No. They can only start cancel ing it after they build the predictive model of it, and only if the model is accurate. Basically this only works for repetitive regular types of noise (e.g. engine hum).
These headphones do two things: 1) block external noise passively and 2 actively cancel the sound pressure of external noise by producing an out-of-phase pressure wave. This means that your eardrum doesn't experience the pressure from the external noise, so you should be better protected.
My guess is that even the passive noise reduction of using closed earbuds helps considerably. When I'm in the NYC subway with $8 headphones I don't experience the painfully loud sounds from squealing trains/etc. 15-20 Db of reduction goes a long way towards protecting your hearing.
I noticed the recent version of Apple Health on my iPhone logs and warns about dB levels of headphones. So I imagine they're at least thinking about this and I'm really curious to see how it plays out.
I have noticed with other headphones with active noise cancelation I'm able to have the volume set much much lower, but I haven't done strict testing and I am comparing over-the-ear with noise canceling against earbuds.
I love AirPods. I wear then 10+hrs a day (cycling between two due to charge). It isnt fair to judge before I've tried this, but I've never quite felt comfortable with the rubber seals
1. It feels like you are underwater
2. I want ambient sound coming thru, esp when i'm walking outside/etc.
I'm exactly the opposite. I've never enjoyed a pair of Apple earbuds in my life because of the hard, uncomfortable plastic. Rubber earbuds are mandatory for me.
These will probably be the first Apple headphones I'll buy, and use.
I’m intrigued to actually try this. Turning the transparency setting on and off.
On an active phone call I can carry on a conversation in the room im in 10 feet away from the person. To have that cancelled out would be interesting to try.
Noise cancelling cancels out white noise - not people's conversations.
Also - the "transparency" mode is quite common feature of noise cancelling headphones. All of the Bose NCs have had this for years. When you seal off the ear to provide NC you need to be able to hear yourself when youre on a phone call. So its more a necessity than a "nice to have".
for #2 - you generally want enough sound coming through to be safe, but I find the current ones often are unlistenable on the bus or walking down a street with traffic. Some isolation of constant noise would be fantastic.
The lack of sound isolation is my biggest gripe with my AirPods, so it is nice to see that it has been improved with the Pro version. In the past I have had nausea when using active noise cancelling headphone (especially when used without music), so I am curious to see if any of the reviews hints at this.
> I am curious to see if any of the reviews hints at this.
I think it's probably too individual to go by a review, even if it's addressed. This is the kind of thing the return policy is for, though I realize the convenience of this might not be good enough depending on where you live.
I have serious reservations about these. They make big claims yet miss some important, basic design choices. For instance: you will get zero bass with an open back design and the active noise cancellation operates at 200 Hz (presumably) so you can forget about cancelling annoying whines from server fans or turbojets. The dynamic EQ based on a microphone is an interesting choice. This could have really good results if they didn't fuck up on more basics. I just hope they don't neglect phase response and do some time alignment.
Apple says they adjust the active noise cancellation 200 times a second.
We can't tell exactly what that means just from reading it, but it could very well mean that while the filter is updated 200 times a second, it isn't limited to filtering 200 Hz sound.
There are very few parameters that make sense to update 200 times a second if not the actual voltage level to subtract. If you adjusted EQ parameters 200 times a second you'd just be injecting a ton of noise in the center of the audible band due to phase jumps.
Edit: There is reason to believe it is just 200 Hz ANC. It's the same wording used in Beats over ear headphones that have a W1 chip and ANC. Those headphones have abysmal ANC that doesn't do anything above 500 Hz (aside from adding in some noise).
The dynamic EQ based on a microphone is an interesting choice.
I don't even know if the two are related, not being sound/audio/whatever expert, but I'm continually amazed that I can blast music on a HomePod, speak in a conversational tone or quieter (of course I've tested), and Siri still hears me. Whatever dark wizardry makes that work would come in handy here, yes? Or is your argument more that, dark magic or not, the physical hardware isn't there?
The limitation on active noise reduction is mostly latency, and hardware constraints when using adaptive filtering in a small package without a large battery.
Whatever "Adaptive EQ" means it may or may not be particularly novel. I've seen worked on things similar for years - changing filter parameters in response to microphone input isn't always easy but it's not untrod ground.
Going to have to listen to it to be the judge of anything, like all audio products.
Adaptive EQ is a well established piece of jargon in telecommunications. I’m not sure if that’s actually what they’re doing here, but it would be interesting if they are. The ear canal makes a resonant cavity and they could notch out annoying peaks in the mid-highs that vary from each seating of the buds. This could also be used to level out the magnitude response if they hadn’t made it an open cavity.
It’s all DSP tricks. They can take you pretty far down in receiving signals with bad SNR, but they have limits. The issues here are physics limitations. IEMs are not like subwoofers. They’re more like if your head was inside the enclosure. Porting the enclosure kills some useful resonances. Small drivers need these resonances to make low frequencies because the diameter is simply not large enough.
If you want the quick n dirties about this stuff you can check out IEM design guidelines. They're pretty shoddy and not rigorous, but serve as a decent diving off point.
I started getting severe ear issues with my normal AirPods. Due to a lack of cushioning, my ear canals started getting damaged. It got very painful eventually (swimmers ear levels of pain).
I stopped using them and went back to my Bose in ear headphones (that never gave me problems).
These new AirPods seem to have cushioning. I might consider them.
The new shape of these makes me not want them. I seem to have the exact same ears as whoever Apple has modeled their earbuds for and they're super comfortable.
Every other in-ear headphone I've tried has been super painful and falls out at the slightest bump.
What gives me hope is that they might have used the exact same ear model to build these new ones, so maybe this will be the first pair of rubber earphones I will ever like?
You are not kidding, opening up the network tab in Chrome reveals they are loading nearly 300 images named: 0000.jpg -> 0289.jpg and stitching them together in canvas elements as scroll-able videos (Each image being ~50kb).
I have a pair of the older ones. Say what you will, but if you have an iphone, they are incredible. Using one is great for podcasts and phone conversations. I hated on them for a while, but after trying, I'm a believer.
For me, the value of upgrading to this 'pro' model will be the quality of the noise cancelling. If as good as the recent releases from Sony and/or Bose, I will definitely get a pair.
Normally I roll my eyes at these types of comments but you are totally justified. I'm in front of a desktop using a mouse and am getting scroll fatigue just trying to get to about the 1/2 way point of the web page. Literally scrolling through individual video frames is moronic.
Edit - Just noticed that the animated scroll-breaking stuff seemed to stop when using a mobile view (noticed using Chrome Dev tools) which makes it a better read.
I was graphic designer (now developer) so I tend to give websites a lot of "artistic freedom" as long as it doesn't interfere a great deal with user-friendliness. Your comment was completely justified in this regard. This particular page when not viewed on a mobile device is painful and should be mentioned.
I tried the site on macbook touchpad and iPhone X, works _very_ well. Maybe the directly targeted audience use one of these?
I have no interest in AirPods but I think the page is super nicely done. Not something I'd like for every product I look at ever, but as a sort of unveiling I think is is nicer than a spec sheet.
Yeah I'm sure it's lovely with a touchpad or touchscreen! I can't say I'm a huge fan of that style even with those input devices, but I can appreciate what they're going for.
I just wish a little attention was paid when other input devices are being used.
This is a huge improvement. The regular airpods are the same shape as the original iphone earbuds, and my normal ritual with those was to immediately throw them in the trash as soon as I opened any Apple product because they're horribly uncomfortable. Am I the only one who notices this?
One persons uncomfortable is another persons perfection. I can't stand headphones like these new Pro ones that have the little rubber tips. They hurt my ears so much. The current Airpods or the wired ones you "throw in the trash" are the most comfortable in ear headphones I've ever used, personally.
And here I am smack in the middle. I can run in them, I might even try jumping jacks. But bicycle helmet straps knock them out, and when I tap them I often have to readjust them. So I have "AirPods with earhooks" called PowerBeats Pros. The innards of AirPods in a different, better-fitting (for me) package. (And the PowerBeats are water-resistant, but I guess the AirPod Pros are, too.)
>The regular airpods are the same shape as the original iphone earbuds, and my normal ritual with those was to immediately throw them in the trash as soon as I opened any Apple product because are horribly uncomfortable. Am I the only one who notices this?
No, I'm exactly the same way. I've always hated Apple ear-buds. These new ones will probably be the first I ever own and use.
I wonder if the pressure equalization is a first for these and not in the originals. It might be the win that actually makes them comfortable this time around.
The pro line is just the high-end line-up from Apple. The 'regular' (non-pro) line is for consumers with average spending, and the pro line is for those who are willing to spend more for a more polished experience.
Maybe except for the upcoming Mac pro, the pro line products don't offer particular features for professional use over the regular line. It's not like you can't do professional work on a non-pro Apple product.
It's just a really well chosen marketing name, which is now being diluted due because every* Apple product now has a pro version.
Been using the Beats Pro's since I lost my Airpods (later found them) and they are considerably better sound and far more comfortable to use and for workouts. I no longer have to have the volume cranked up to 11.
The original Airpods are amazing only because they work well at least 90% of the time, unlike just about every bluetooth headphone out there.
I have found the Beats Pro's generally as reliable and convenient but occasionally they flake out completely and are unable to pair properly with anything. Hours later they will work again. I've seen the a few threads online complaining about this behaviour. It is uncommon but a shockingly bad problem considering the cost.
Given what Apple is asking for, for these products they need to be pretty much perfect. I'll be interested to see how users review these.
You've been able to get pretty decent Bluetooth in-ear headphones for $20-40 on Amazon for a few years now, can anyone comment on whether AirPods are really 10x better to justify the price? I just have a hard time believing that's possible, but I've never tried them.
I've never found a "decent" pair of Bluetooth anything. Pairing is almost always an annoyance and never quite just "works". If I'm heading out for a walk or a run, or if I want to answer a call, it needs to pair and work immediately or I may as well throw them in the trash. Airpods were the first headphones where they just worked every single time I put them on.
I've been eyeing BT headphones for years and years. I've had friends that found use-cases that suited them. AirPods were the first one that fixed almost all my grumbles and moved me from wired headphones.
That being said, hearing from other people I have a suspicion that a lot of it is due to Bluetooth 5.
I have a pair of those cheap ones, they are great except:
- Pairing is a chore / Sometimes loses all info, so you are forced to forget and re-pair which takes time and fiddling on the phone and the device
- Forget pairing to more than one device
- Battery isn't great (down to 2 hours per charge now)
- Mic is unusable. When I get a call, I have to interrupt everything and pull out my phone (often times when I'm using these, I'm usually working and my hands are dirty).
I tried switching to Bluetooth headphones around 2014 to terrible success. The entire pairing process seemed more complicated then necessary. This on it's own isn't great, and it was always a recurring pain if I wanted to repair it with a different device, but I kind of got used to it. My biggest issue was just reconnecting to an already paired device was incredibly unreliable. Every so often it just wouldn't pair to a device, and I would either have to just wait (30 mins or so), or redo the pairing process (and sometimes that didn't even work!).
Needless to say, I gave up after 2 months or so and went back to wired headphones. I've use Airpods now for about a year now, mainly at work or when I walk my dogs, and have had zero issues.
This is the first time I’ve seen an AR experience launched from the browser. I expected to be kicked to the App Store to download Apple’s shopping app when I clicked See it in AR, but instead the AirPods instantly showed up on my desk (without prompting for camera access even). When did this capability get added?
Edit: looks like this is powered by Apple and Pixar’s USDZ file format for sharing compressed 3D models. I’m guessing it overlays the model over the built-in camera app, so Safari never asks for permission to use my camera.
I have no problem with the AirPods being highly integrated, nor did I inherently think dropping the 3.5mm jack was an issue. Working wireless is a lot better. But I do really wish Apple would make the W1 chips and associated stack generally available to 3rd parties, that's what really got lost in the transition and they were wrong to keep vertical. Their strategy has surely sold more AirPods, but they will never be able to match all the niches served by a functioning market and it's a bummer to have that kind of variety unnecessarily reduced. For example it's fairly of niche, but I'd love a W1-based MMCX set. That would then allow the use of a wide range of high quality earphones from Shure/Westone/UE etc.
And I wonder if Apple isn't missing a bit of a trick in areas like this, where they do something which will increase the attached revenue value of each iPhone sold but that could reduce the attractiveness of iOS as a platform in general. If Apple made their own wireless implementation generally available but it only worked at its best with iOS/Macs, would a thriving wireless headphone/earphone/music market based around that increase the sales of iDevices and Macs more than whatever AidPod sales Apple lost?
Can you elaborate a bit on the reasons for this? I don't disagree... but what capabilities are lacking in regular hardware that this chip provides?
I ask because initially the Sony WH-1000XM3 over-ears I use at home when working in my office (or on a plane) were initially using the lower quality SBC standard and with some kung fu I was able to get them working with higher quality AAC on my Mac.
The price is $250, which is what everyone expected (note: the Wireless Charging case is mandatory; for comparison, the AirPods with Wireless Charging SKU is $200).
Will have to wait and see how the reviews are, although it sounds like we'll hear sooner than later (pun intended).
I have a pair of AirPods, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed with them, the main reason being that they just don’t seem to fit in my ears very well, needing constant readjustment. Further, the sound quality is no better than the pair that comes with the iPhone that can be purchased for $29. I also find the nfc pairing nice, but also frustrating when it fails, and extra annoying when trying to check battery levels. I’ll never understand why the battery level doesn’t show up on the top right like every other Bluetooth headphone set I have.
I do find them pretty convenient at the gym so it’s not all bad.
Perhaps I should have waited for these, but I already have a Bose pair that fits my noise cancelling needs pretty well.
> the main reason being that they just don’t seem to fit in my ears very well, needing constant readjustment
It may simply be that your ears aren't a suitable shape - I've had this problem with every single pair of in-ear phones that I've ever tried and fitted hearing aids. At least the aids have over-the-ear clips so I don't lose them. I would be guaranteed to lose an AirPod within a week of owning them.
the main reason being that they just don’t seem to fit in my ears very well, needing constant readjustment
The fix for that is the PowerBeats Pro. I know, I know, another $250. But they took AirPods and put on earhooks and rubber tips. Same W1 chip, so you get the pairing/switching convenience. They sound better than AirPods, too.
2 incremental updates to this product and still only one color, they holding the others back for the post-Christmas lull in the hopes a lot of people will double dip or something?
I’d be interested if the fit is better when it comes to running. I actually don’t have much of a problem with AirPods now that I got some Earhoox ($10 little silicon arms that wrap into your ear, which sounds skeevy when I type it out right now but it’s really changed my whole run experience). I only use them while running, though, and maybe these would be a better fit. OTOH, I don’t want noise cancelling while running in the city, so might not be worth the added dough.
Similarly, it's not compatible with iPhone 6, which is what I have. Oh well. I really want these but I'm probably better off not paying $250 for something like this.
edit: wait a minute... they say the same thing for the regular AirPods, but I use them all the time.
You might find that you can’t properly configure them, enable noise canceling, auto measure your ear size, or that the built-in firmware update process introduced into iOS at some point doesn’t work and thus your devices run into bugs or perform less well in certain scenarios due to their out of date firmware.
The customizable fit is all I was looking for. I bought the originals but gifted them to my parents, because my ear is messed up from years of high school wrestling without wearing headgear. I know I'm an edge case, but there have been plenty of other great earbuds (wireless and traditional) that use soft flexible tips over the past decade.
The default Apple headphones that come with the iPhones never fit in my ears properly, so I've assumed traditional Airpods don't either. They should make dummy versions of the new ones so they can be tried out.
Go in to the Apple Store after release, they usually have models available for trying them out. They keep em stashed away in the drawers of those big tables, and use alcohol wipes to clean them before you try em on. I didn't know this until I recently went in to look at the Powerbeats and one of the employees asked if I wanted to try them before buying. Good thing I did, they didn't fit my ear canal comfortably.
Even without wrestling injuries, my ears have never properly fit apple's in-ear headphones.
It's quite odd, for a company with so much ahead-of-the-competition accessibility work, that they've completely left out "people whose ear holes are slightly different" from what could be a profit center.
I bought a pair of apple airpods on launch, and after a week of them falling out every ten seconds, I returned them. They could have kept the money if there were different sizes, or some sort of non-hideous-third-party way to make them fit.
I had airpods and returned them because they fell out of my head, and because I couldn't use them on the subway because of all the external noise. I think these may be the thing for me — everything else about the original airpod experience was actually super nice.
I wonder if Bluetooth multipoint pairing works between iPhone and Mac on these. If it does, noise cancellation, wireless charging and form factor of airpods these would replace QC35 as my favorite.
I like this tech but unless I buy a second pair, I don't see a reasonable way to use these on long airplane flights as they only offer 4.5 hours of battery power.
I feel like this pricing is too expensive. At this $249 price point, this is now competing against a used Bose QC 35 II and Sony WH-1000XM3. I guess if you really want an earbud.
Kudos to Apple; they made a site that manages to reliably crash Chrome on Android (if I scroll fairly fast to the bottom, right after the page becomes interactive).
I don't even want to spend $250 on a new phone, tablet or computer. The world has lost it's damn mind. I have a $10 corded earphones from Amazon, great sound quality, going to 2 years. I can think of what to do with that extra $240 AFTER TAX MONEY than give it to Apple, and here folks are ready to spend it again on a new version.
Okay great. It's obvious that (MANY) people derive value from these beyond just playing sound in your ears, but it's good to hear that you're happy with your earphones as well.
For what they are, the sound is amazing. I can't really do a phone call anymore without them. Working on my car, doing dishes, going for a jog, taking the dogs on a walk, the pods are goin' in.
My wife finally made the switch from Android (she had mulitple Samsung Galaxy devices) to iOS w/ an XS and she is also hopelessly addicted to the new ecosystem and her AirPods. We had a running joke for years that she would never switch teams but now she is 100% stoked on Apple gear.
I am not in the market for anything like this, since I have the high-end spectrum covered w/ some Sony over the ear noise cancelling cans but if I was I would give these a shot in a new york minute.