4 ms·

I was formerly a dongle-hater, having gone through at least 3 or 4 of them, all of which broke under what I consider normal usage. I didn't realize you could g

by birken 8y ago

I was formerly a dongle-hater, having gone through at least 3 or 4 of them, all of which broke under what I consider normal usage. I didn't realize you could get them replaced for free either so I spend like $30-40 on them. Then I finally gave in and got airpods, and now I see the light. Airpods are just amazing. I was skeptical at first just like the author, but he is fighting the wrong battle. Holding onto wired headphones and complaining about the 3.5mm jack is completely missed out on how amazing wireless headphones are (note: I have no idea if other wireless headphones are as good as airpods). I can now be charging my phone and walk around my house listening to music. I can seamlessly transition my headphones from my computer to my phone with one click. When I'm working in the shop the cord so longer snags on things and rips the headphones out of my ears. When I'm biking I can just wear one headphone and leave the other one in my pocket instead of having the other headphone dangling down. When running there is no cord bouncing around. And airpods don't even fit my ears, I have to put a little silicone wrapper around them every time I take them out of the charger and I still love them.

tunesmith 8y ago
Which wrapper do you use? I went down that rabbit hole a while ago and couldn't find anything appropriate. It was starting to seem like the best option was to actually get the foam earbud things for better grippiness - advantage being the case will even close over them - but they were still too loose.
- birken 8y ago
  I think finding a wrapper that fits your ear is very dependent on the person, but in my dongle days I used "Yurbuds Inspire 200" headphones, which are somewhat normal looking headphones with a silicone wrapper you put on them that fit my ear perfectly. When I got airpods, I just took the wrapper off the Yurbuds and it fit perfectly on the airpods and then locks nicely into my ear.
lev99 8y ago
My major complaint about airpods is that I routinely use headphones for longer than 4 hours in a single session. Still, I like them so much that I own two pair and swap when the battery is low.
- birken 8y ago
  When running low on power I just charge them one at a time. It only takes about 15 minutes to charge each one, so I just go "mono" for 30 minutes and then I'm fully charged and don't miss any time.
- NN88 8y ago
  BINGO. I'm basically always listening to something. Podcasts, news, etc. Not even music. Airpods literally don't fit my consumption needs.
sametmax 8y ago
I love bluetooth headphones, but I doubt you can convince a real music lover to go wireless. Unless you spend a huge amount of money, you won't get nearly close to the sound quality of real audiophile headphones. Actually, just the fact the airpods are in-ear limit the quality of the experience they can render. Also, I always have both wire and wireless on my table, because there is no way the wireless headphone battery is gonna enough.
- tristanj 8y ago
  This isn't true anymore. Wireless tech is advancing quickly. The latest Apple and Samsung phones now support Bluetooth 5, which supports data transmission at 2Mb/s. This is far more than enough bandwidth to transmit 'audiophile' quality audio, which is at ~320kbps.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    2Mb/s in theory. I always divide by 10 the max the spec gives you to get a real estimate of the IRL output. Same for wifi, 4G or landline contracts. Reality is never that good. Add in the mix anything that gets in the way of the signal, the oh-so-annoying latency, then the lower quality of the sound provided with in-ear head phone and voilà.
- actsasbuffoon 8y ago
  Latency is also a problem. I often write music while wearing headphones, and I need to hear the sound immediately, especially when playing very fast pieces. From what I can find online, the AirPods have a latency of around 250ms. When playing 16th notes at 180 BPM (common for my music), I'd be playing the 4th note by the time I heard the first note. The latency can be dealt with when watching movies by slightly delaying the visuals to sync up with the audio. That approach doesn't work when I need to hear a sound as a result of doing something.
hbosch 8y ago
And yet... imagine my abashment when I sit down for my 5 hour flight across the country and suddenly realize the airplane TV's don't support bluetooth.
- tcskeptic 8y ago
  I don't know which airline you were flying or which country you are flying across, but in the US all the major carriers that I am aware of that have (or had have, they are being phased out) seat-back video now have the ability to stream to an app on your device. (Though most times I travel I take a pair of Sony WH-1000 MX2s with me. Great noise cancelling, bluetooth or cable attachment to standard ports, overall excellent, lousy touch controls)
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    I don't know what airlines you fly, but that is not true of the Southwest, Continental, Delta, or American Airlines flights I took in the past year.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    Of the last 5 flights I took on Delta out of Hartsfield, zero had that capability. The same goes for Southwest, Britsh Airways, Alitalia, Aerlingus and United. Oh and the Alitalia flight I was on just last Friday still had those dual mono jack atrocities while the flight attendants only had those crappy stereo ear buds. I think one guy on the whole flight had an adapter while the rest of us got one channel of audio from a stereo signal for 8 hours. The meal was decent though.
    - mackmgg 8y ago
      All of the recent Delta planes with WiFi support streaming to a phone with their app, but some of the older planes still don’t. Southwest offers entertainment exclusively through a phone though, they don’t have anywhere to plug headphones into on any of their planes.
      - 8y ago
ebiester 8y ago
Yes, but they sound like 10 dollar earbuds. (VZ Monks are 5 bucks and are of similar sound quality.) I can't connect a proper headphone to them, and frankly, batteries go bad. When your battery dies on those, you'll be paying another 1XX dollars. And they'll still sound like a 10 dollar earbud. Oh, I can also get beats! So then I can get something that sounds like a 30 dollar headphone (like the Monoprice retros) for a 10x premium. If I get a 200 dollar headphone (like... say... the Sennheiser/Massdrop 6xx or the Beyerdynamic DT 770/880/990) then I expect it to last for years. Or, if we're talking IEMs, perhaps the $100 1More triple drivers... So, my primary complaint is that convenience isn't worth 200 dollars for something that is guaranteed to fail due to the battery.
- birken 8y ago
  I fully admit I'm not an audiophile. I think most people are not. I do understand that for audiophiles wireless headphones may not be the best solution, but that really isn't Apple's fault. Compromises must be made. The official out-of-warranty Apple battery service on Airpods is $70, and anecdotally nobody seems to be complaining that the batteries life degrades anymore than you'd expect.
- jvzr 8y ago
  I've been using mine daily ever since Day 1. No exaggeration there. And I can report that my pair still has its brilliant battery life. Frankly, I rate the AirPods far on top of the list of my favorite tech products. My Apple Watch a distant second, and I love my watch.

by birken 8y ago

tunesmith 8y ago

Which wrapper do you use? I went down that rabbit hole a while ago and couldn't find anything appropriate. It was starting to seem like the best option was to actually get the foam earbud things for better grippiness - advantage being the case will even close over them - but they were still too loose.

birken 8y ago
I think finding a wrapper that fits your ear is very dependent on the person, but in my dongle days I used "Yurbuds Inspire 200" headphones, which are somewhat normal looking headphones with a silicone wrapper you put on them that fit my ear perfectly. When I got airpods, I just took the wrapper off the Yurbuds and it fit perfectly on the airpods and then locks nicely into my ear.

lev99 8y ago

My major complaint about airpods is that I routinely use headphones for longer than 4 hours in a single session. Still, I like them so much that I own two pair and swap when the battery is low.

birken 8y ago
When running low on power I just charge them one at a time. It only takes about 15 minutes to charge each one, so I just go "mono" for 30 minutes and then I'm fully charged and don't miss any time.
NN88 8y ago
BINGO. I'm basically always listening to something. Podcasts, news, etc. Not even music. Airpods literally don't fit my consumption needs.

sametmax 8y ago

I love bluetooth headphones, but I doubt you can convince a real music lover to go wireless. Unless you spend a huge amount of money, you won't get nearly close to the sound quality of real audiophile headphones. Actually, just the fact the airpods are in-ear limit the quality of the experience they can render. Also, I always have both wire and wireless on my table, because there is no way the wireless headphone battery is gonna enough.

tristanj 8y ago
This isn't true anymore. Wireless tech is advancing quickly. The latest Apple and Samsung phones now support Bluetooth 5, which supports data transmission at 2Mb/s. This is far more than enough bandwidth to transmit 'audiophile' quality audio, which is at ~320kbps.
- sametmax 8y ago
  2Mb/s in theory. I always divide by 10 the max the spec gives you to get a real estimate of the IRL output. Same for wifi, 4G or landline contracts. Reality is never that good. Add in the mix anything that gets in the way of the signal, the oh-so-annoying latency, then the lower quality of the sound provided with in-ear head phone and voilà.
actsasbuffoon 8y ago
Latency is also a problem. I often write music while wearing headphones, and I need to hear the sound immediately, especially when playing very fast pieces. From what I can find online, the AirPods have a latency of around 250ms. When playing 16th notes at 180 BPM (common for my music), I'd be playing the 4th note by the time I heard the first note. The latency can be dealt with when watching movies by slightly delaying the visuals to sync up with the audio. That approach doesn't work when I need to hear a sound as a result of doing something.

hbosch 8y ago

And yet... imagine my abashment when I sit down for my 5 hour flight across the country and suddenly realize the airplane TV's don't support bluetooth.

tcskeptic 8y ago
I don't know which airline you were flying or which country you are flying across, but in the US all the major carriers that I am aware of that have (or had have, they are being phased out) seat-back video now have the ability to stream to an app on your device. (Though most times I travel I take a pair of Sony WH-1000 MX2s with me. Great noise cancelling, bluetooth or cable attachment to standard ports, overall excellent, lousy touch controls)
- gamblor956 8y ago
  I don't know what airlines you fly, but that is not true of the Southwest, Continental, Delta, or American Airlines flights I took in the past year.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  Of the last 5 flights I took on Delta out of Hartsfield, zero had that capability. The same goes for Southwest, Britsh Airways, Alitalia, Aerlingus and United. Oh and the Alitalia flight I was on just last Friday still had those dual mono jack atrocities while the flight attendants only had those crappy stereo ear buds. I think one guy on the whole flight had an adapter while the rest of us got one channel of audio from a stereo signal for 8 hours. The meal was decent though.
  - mackmgg 8y ago
    All of the recent Delta planes with WiFi support streaming to a phone with their app, but some of the older planes still don’t. Southwest offers entertainment exclusively through a phone though, they don’t have anywhere to plug headphones into on any of their planes.
    - 8y ago

ebiester 8y ago

Yes, but they sound like 10 dollar earbuds. (VZ Monks are 5 bucks and are of similar sound quality.) I can't connect a proper headphone to them, and frankly, batteries go bad. When your battery dies on those, you'll be paying another 1XX dollars. And they'll still sound like a 10 dollar earbud. Oh, I can also get beats! So then I can get something that sounds like a 30 dollar headphone (like the Monoprice retros) for a 10x premium. If I get a 200 dollar headphone (like... say... the Sennheiser/Massdrop 6xx or the Beyerdynamic DT 770/880/990) then I expect it to last for years. Or, if we're talking IEMs, perhaps the $100 1More triple drivers... So, my primary complaint is that convenience isn't worth 200 dollars for something that is guaranteed to fail due to the battery.

birken 8y ago
I fully admit I'm not an audiophile. I think most people are not. I do understand that for audiophiles wireless headphones may not be the best solution, but that really isn't Apple's fault. Compromises must be made. The official out-of-warranty Apple battery service on Airpods is $70, and anecdotally nobody seems to be complaining that the batteries life degrades anymore than you'd expect.
jvzr 8y ago
I've been using mine daily ever since Day 1. No exaggeration there. And I can report that my pair still has its brilliant battery life. Frankly, I rate the AirPods far on top of the list of my favorite tech products. My Apple Watch a distant second, and I love my watch.