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Yet every month my Apple AirPods stop connecting with my Apple iPhone, until I hard reboot the iPhone. And a $70 Bluetooth headset that wouldn’t connect to a br

Yet every month my Apple AirPods stop connecting with my Apple iPhone, until I hard reboot the iPhone. And a $70 Bluetooth headset that wouldn’t connect to a brand new Apple laptop until I restarted it 4 times, rebooted the Mac twice, and toggled the pairing mode about 8 times. And Bose headsets that don’t connect to iPhone for 2-3 attempts.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
That sounds more like an Apple Bluetooth stack issue at their OS level rather than something wrong with the Bluetooth chip/tech itself. It's where you should complain to Apple or ask for refunds/replacements. Granted, Apple is not alone here since both Google and Microsoft really botched their Bluetooth stacks on their OSs. Especially Google who hasn't learned you can't treat your C driver/embedded SW like front-end JS code.
- worthless-trash 4y ago
  Apple have really, really weird BT stack issues.
  - joecool1029 4y ago
    Legit everyone does. I one time had to convince a VW dealership to read a TSB issued for my 2012 Golf Cheater Edition, bluetooth only played the left channel of audio, but it played on both sides, so you needed music that was different enough on each channel to really notice. Dealership didn't want to believe me until I showed them left/right channel tests on youtube on both android and iphones and told them to use their own phones to test. It took about an hour to flash the repaired firmware on. Android is on its like 3rd bluetooth stack now? Gabeldorsche, since the meme is rewriting in rust. Every device can support a different number of codecs, everything works on the fallback (or should) but the high definition codecs are a crapshoot. I remember getting the first gen iphone SE and having a radar open with Apple as all bluetooth audio sounded like it was playing through tin foil speakers, they did fix it but here was the original thread on it: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7521352 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7521352
    - worthless-trash 4y ago
      Props on getting a response from apple. I've had significantly worse fun getting their security team around that time to respond.
  - RedShift1 4y ago
    On my Macbook Pro, when bluetooth is on, the bluetooth process uses 100% CPU. So I turn off bluetooth, process goes away, but every once in a while it turns itself on without me asking, bye battery life -_-
  - wildrhythms 4y ago
    I find that my Apple Macbooks (I have a couple) tend to try to pair with my headphones more "aggressively" than any other device, even when my Macbook has its lid closed and in my backpack, it immediately jumps in and pairs with things that I'm trying to pair with something else (my phone usually). Very annoying
- t_mann 4y ago
  'It's not Bluetooth's fault, everyone is just using it wrong' does not sound good.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    I mean, if I give you a hammer, and you use it to drive nails by hitting them with the handle, then it's not really the hammer's fault, is it? What makes complex tech components like Bluetooth any different? Also, Bluetooth isn't a single product made by a single company that dictates the standard and has the golden implementation. To have Bluetooth audio between your phone and you PC for example, you can have different Bluetooth chips on each device, each with its own different firmware, then the OS on your PC and phone has a different driver and stack that interfaces to the Bluetooth chip and then there's the antenna design which links the two Bluetooth chips via the air. All these pieces need to come together in perfect harmony for you to enjoy seamless audio between two device. If any of the manufacturers fucked up the antenna design, or the firmware on the chip, or the driver/stack on the OS, then your entire experience can fall apart and testing/debugging these thousands of permutations of various different pieces is nearly impossible. That's why Apple usually goes their own route towards proprietary tech they can fully control over the entire stack.
    - deleted 4y ago
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    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - michaelt 4y ago
      > What makes complex tech components like Bluetooth any different? A hammer will be reliable if the user uses it correctly, which it's possible to do. With bluetooth I have the most popular, widely sold smartphone and the most popular, widely sold sports watch. They both claim to be compatible. I'm using both precisely as instructed. And sometimes they just.... don't see one another. This isn't user error.
      - 4y ago
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  It sounds like something specific to that person's piece of hardware. I use my AirPods multiple times a day, every day, swapping back and forth between my MBP and my iPhone. Occasionally it's slow to realize which device I wanted it to connect to, but I've not once had to reboot the phone.
matsemann 4y ago
I sometimes wonder if it's almost deliberate incompetence on Apple's side, to make it seem even more lucrative to buy everything from them. My GF and I sometimes switch/borrow each other earphones and other gear, and she has loads of problems connecting to her Mac or iPhone. Like the Sony MX3000 something she has to reconnect every half an hour or they will be out of sync with the show she's watching on her laptop by a second or so. But for me never issues like that on Android/Dell.
- oynqr 4y ago
  Judging from other comments, there are still lots of bluetooth problems even if all if your devices are Apple ones.
  - saiya-jin 4y ago
    Oh yes. Colleague has latest iphone 13 pro max, and latest airpods pro. Even this basic apple-apple setup is failing him numerous times, and you would expect this pair to be tweaked to perfection for that price. Conf calls where he had to give up pairing attempts and had to do it via phone. I could understand busy office space interference, but he has same issues at home. I have Samsung S22 ultra and Sennheiser momentum 2 buds. Pairing works 100% anywhere immediately with aptx (unfortunately they don't support HD variant of codecs). But if I do press play, first 1-2 seconds the music is some ugly skipping. I would rather prefer it to be quiet for longer.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  Judging from all the comments, this is situational. I have a pair of MX4000s that I use when I want noise canceling, and aside from being finicky and slow to reconnect sometimes, once they're connected they're fine. No random disconnects. But I can also walk halfway across my house and bluetooth doesn't drop until just about the time I reach my refrigerator, so I may have an exceptionally low noise floor where I live.
neurostimulant 4y ago
This is one of the reason why I prefer to use a usb-c bluetooth audio dongle to use my bluetooth headphones. I have multiple bluetooth headphones and multiple devices that can use them, so switching the headphones between those devices got old very quickly. Now I just plug the bluetooth audio dongle to the device I currently use (pc, laptop, or phone) and turn on the bluetooth headphone I want to use, and it's done. I basically turned the bluetooth headphones into a virtually wired headphones now.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

That sounds more like an Apple Bluetooth stack issue at their OS level rather than something wrong with the Bluetooth chip/tech itself. It's where you should complain to Apple or ask for refunds/replacements. Granted, Apple is not alone here since both Google and Microsoft really botched their Bluetooth stacks on their OSs. Especially Google who hasn't learned you can't treat your C driver/embedded SW like front-end JS code.

worthless-trash 4y ago
Apple have really, really weird BT stack issues.
- joecool1029 4y ago
  Legit everyone does. I one time had to convince a VW dealership to read a TSB issued for my 2012 Golf Cheater Edition, bluetooth only played the left channel of audio, but it played on both sides, so you needed music that was different enough on each channel to really notice. Dealership didn't want to believe me until I showed them left/right channel tests on youtube on both android and iphones and told them to use their own phones to test. It took about an hour to flash the repaired firmware on. Android is on its like 3rd bluetooth stack now? Gabeldorsche, since the meme is rewriting in rust. Every device can support a different number of codecs, everything works on the fallback (or should) but the high definition codecs are a crapshoot. I remember getting the first gen iphone SE and having a radar open with Apple as all bluetooth audio sounded like it was playing through tin foil speakers, they did fix it but here was the original thread on it: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7521352 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7521352
  - worthless-trash 4y ago
    Props on getting a response from apple. I've had significantly worse fun getting their security team around that time to respond.
- RedShift1 4y ago
  On my Macbook Pro, when bluetooth is on, the bluetooth process uses 100% CPU. So I turn off bluetooth, process goes away, but every once in a while it turns itself on without me asking, bye battery life -_-
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  I find that my Apple Macbooks (I have a couple) tend to try to pair with my headphones more "aggressively" than any other device, even when my Macbook has its lid closed and in my backpack, it immediately jumps in and pairs with things that I'm trying to pair with something else (my phone usually). Very annoying
t_mann 4y ago
'It's not Bluetooth's fault, everyone is just using it wrong' does not sound good.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  I mean, if I give you a hammer, and you use it to drive nails by hitting them with the handle, then it's not really the hammer's fault, is it? What makes complex tech components like Bluetooth any different? Also, Bluetooth isn't a single product made by a single company that dictates the standard and has the golden implementation. To have Bluetooth audio between your phone and you PC for example, you can have different Bluetooth chips on each device, each with its own different firmware, then the OS on your PC and phone has a different driver and stack that interfaces to the Bluetooth chip and then there's the antenna design which links the two Bluetooth chips via the air. All these pieces need to come together in perfect harmony for you to enjoy seamless audio between two device. If any of the manufacturers fucked up the antenna design, or the firmware on the chip, or the driver/stack on the OS, then your entire experience can fall apart and testing/debugging these thousands of permutations of various different pieces is nearly impossible. That's why Apple usually goes their own route towards proprietary tech they can fully control over the entire stack.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - michaelt 4y ago
    > What makes complex tech components like Bluetooth any different? A hammer will be reliable if the user uses it correctly, which it's possible to do. With bluetooth I have the most popular, widely sold smartphone and the most popular, widely sold sports watch. They both claim to be compatible. I'm using both precisely as instructed. And sometimes they just.... don't see one another. This isn't user error.
    - 4y ago
rootusrootus 4y ago
It sounds like something specific to that person's piece of hardware. I use my AirPods multiple times a day, every day, swapping back and forth between my MBP and my iPhone. Occasionally it's slow to realize which device I wanted it to connect to, but I've not once had to reboot the phone.

matsemann 4y ago

I sometimes wonder if it's almost deliberate incompetence on Apple's side, to make it seem even more lucrative to buy everything from them. My GF and I sometimes switch/borrow each other earphones and other gear, and she has loads of problems connecting to her Mac or iPhone. Like the Sony MX3000 something she has to reconnect every half an hour or they will be out of sync with the show she's watching on her laptop by a second or so. But for me never issues like that on Android/Dell.

oynqr 4y ago
Judging from other comments, there are still lots of bluetooth problems even if all if your devices are Apple ones.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  Oh yes. Colleague has latest iphone 13 pro max, and latest airpods pro. Even this basic apple-apple setup is failing him numerous times, and you would expect this pair to be tweaked to perfection for that price. Conf calls where he had to give up pairing attempts and had to do it via phone. I could understand busy office space interference, but he has same issues at home. I have Samsung S22 ultra and Sennheiser momentum 2 buds. Pairing works 100% anywhere immediately with aptx (unfortunately they don't support HD variant of codecs). But if I do press play, first 1-2 seconds the music is some ugly skipping. I would rather prefer it to be quiet for longer.
rootusrootus 4y ago
Judging from all the comments, this is situational. I have a pair of MX4000s that I use when I want noise canceling, and aside from being finicky and slow to reconnect sometimes, once they're connected they're fine. No random disconnects. But I can also walk halfway across my house and bluetooth doesn't drop until just about the time I reach my refrigerator, so I may have an exceptionally low noise floor where I live.

neurostimulant 4y ago

This is one of the reason why I prefer to use a usb-c bluetooth audio dongle to use my bluetooth headphones. I have multiple bluetooth headphones and multiple devices that can use them, so switching the headphones between those devices got old very quickly. Now I just plug the bluetooth audio dongle to the device I currently use (pc, laptop, or phone) and turn on the bluetooth headphone I want to use, and it's done. I basically turned the bluetooth headphones into a virtually wired headphones now.