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I really don't understand how Bluetooth headphones can be a passable user experience, to say nothing of better. - I need to charge them, which means toting aro

by chris_7 10y ago

I really don't understand how Bluetooth headphones can be a passable user experience, to say nothing of better. - I need to charge them, which means toting around yet another charge - two chargers, actually if I want to charge in parallel, one for each ear! - They probably weigh more, because now they include a battery. - They're no longer plug-and-play, I need to manually pair them, then forget them to use them with another device. - I probably have to manually turn them on and off. The only improvement is that there isn't a cable. Maybe switching to Bluetooth will be more profitable, but I can't see it providing a better user experience.

nier 10y ago
I’d like to add connection timeouts and device restarts to your list. It is hard to keep the Bluetooth gods happy.
snowwrestler 10y ago
If Apple does this (to be clear, I'm speculating), I think they would be betting that those are problems which can be solved or improved by spending enough time and money on engineering. They have made similar bets before. The Internet was pretty bad at moving data around, and USB drives were big and expensive, when they killed the floppy drive. But once the floppy was gone, it was a race among vendors to sell the most USB stuff and improved bandwidth. It created a market opportunity, which drove innovation. The iPhone attacked a bunch of these restrictions. RIM thought the fact that the Blackberry sipped data and lasted a week on battery was a competitive advantage. Turns out users will charge daily, and cell companies will invest heavily, if given enough incentive. The Macbook Air shipped without an Ethernet port. It hasn't slowed it down--WiFi just got good enough. Of course, my thinking about the headphones is all speculation, but to me at least it seems in line with how Apple tries to shift things around. I mean look at it this way--if all those problems you list could go away, wouldn't it be nice to not deal with a cord? Phones and computers exploded in popularity once the cord was gone. Why not headphones?
- chris_7 10y ago
  Not really, the cord is a feature sometimes. I can undo one earbud and let it hang there if someone wants to talk to me quickly. Since they're essentially on a string, I don't need to worry about them falling out and getting smashed on the ground or touching a gross subway floor.
- x0x0 10y ago
  Because you're still left juggling two batteries and now two chargers, unless you fit a lightning port on the earbuds too. I have decent bt earbuds and the batteries last less than 8 hours, probably because of size. Nothing will piss me off like my earbuds running out of juice and sitting there with a phone that can't play audio until I get to a wall...
acdha 10y ago
Especially with the usual half-hearted QA efforts most vendors, including Apple, make on Bluetooth quality. The last time I had to reboot a system to get a headphone jack working was an old 286, whereas I still have to turn bluetooth off/on, kill blued, restart a speaker, etc. at least once a week to get sound to work again, not to mention an open bug report with Apple about the way iTunes opens on my laptop every time my iPhone grabs the speaker to play a sound. Every time I rent a car, it's obvious how little QA has gone into the Bluetooth stack from pairing on. I have no reason to believe that the headphone industry will invest more in QA than the manufacturers of items costing thousands of dollars.

by chris_7 10y ago

nier 10y ago

I’d like to add connection timeouts and device restarts to your list. It is hard to keep the Bluetooth gods happy.

snowwrestler 10y ago

If Apple does this (to be clear, I'm speculating), I think they would be betting that those are problems which can be solved or improved by spending enough time and money on engineering. They have made similar bets before. The Internet was pretty bad at moving data around, and USB drives were big and expensive, when they killed the floppy drive. But once the floppy was gone, it was a race among vendors to sell the most USB stuff and improved bandwidth. It created a market opportunity, which drove innovation. The iPhone attacked a bunch of these restrictions. RIM thought the fact that the Blackberry sipped data and lasted a week on battery was a competitive advantage. Turns out users will charge daily, and cell companies will invest heavily, if given enough incentive. The Macbook Air shipped without an Ethernet port. It hasn't slowed it down--WiFi just got good enough. Of course, my thinking about the headphones is all speculation, but to me at least it seems in line with how Apple tries to shift things around. I mean look at it this way--if all those problems you list could go away, wouldn't it be nice to not deal with a cord? Phones and computers exploded in popularity once the cord was gone. Why not headphones?

chris_7 10y ago
Not really, the cord is a feature sometimes. I can undo one earbud and let it hang there if someone wants to talk to me quickly. Since they're essentially on a string, I don't need to worry about them falling out and getting smashed on the ground or touching a gross subway floor.
x0x0 10y ago
Because you're still left juggling two batteries and now two chargers, unless you fit a lightning port on the earbuds too. I have decent bt earbuds and the batteries last less than 8 hours, probably because of size. Nothing will piss me off like my earbuds running out of juice and sitting there with a phone that can't play audio until I get to a wall...

acdha 10y ago

Especially with the usual half-hearted QA efforts most vendors, including Apple, make on Bluetooth quality. The last time I had to reboot a system to get a headphone jack working was an old 286, whereas I still have to turn bluetooth off/on, kill blued, restart a speaker, etc. at least once a week to get sound to work again, not to mention an open bug report with Apple about the way iTunes opens on my laptop every time my iPhone grabs the speaker to play a sound. Every time I rent a car, it's obvious how little QA has gone into the Bluetooth stack from pairing on. I have no reason to believe that the headphone industry will invest more in QA than the manufacturers of items costing thousands of dollars.