8 ms·

We should start a club! My son just bought a 3.5 mm adapter for the phone. Turns out the younger generation prefers wired too.

ricardobayes 4y ago
I sometimes wonder what the world would be like without FAANG. I'm lead to believe the world would be a better place if all companies would have a max company size of Bose, or Sennheiser. Then no stupid decisions could be pushed through by force, like the removal of the 3.5 mm jack. If the market really wants it, they will eventually vote with their wallet. Same goes with social media, fb killed off local country-specific social media, which sometimes had much better features and less agressivity/conspiracy theories/scams.
- aliqot 4y ago
  The market wants what the other segment of the market has, that's the purpose of marketing. Phones with no jacks, like laptops with no i/o, is something impractical that people self-justify because of the logo and the clout it affords. You're part of the in group, you made it, you have achieved sameness, you have an iPhone. Airpods are just about the worst headphones money can buy and people fight over them, despite there being headphones sold for <$100 that blow them out of the water. I have in-ear-monitors that cost a fraction of what an airpod does, has detachable cords AND bluetooth to each ear, and they sound much better and balanced. Whoever took away the audio port on modern phones should be dragged outside and beaten like an unruly fax machine.
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    >> You're part of the in group, you made it, you have achieved sameness, you have an iPhone. I assumed I was just a grouchy old man (because I am:) but I recently found out what level of social stratification happens for teenagers without iPhone. Immediate judgement, plus the continued dreaded green text box. It is brutal I thought I was exaggerating the iPhone as a status symbol as opposed to actually convenient / technical solution, turns out I was naive. (there ARE things that Apple does very well, when it comes to integrating within ecosystem, though some of them are CREEPY - like being prompted to share my wifi password with another person who happens to be looking for wifi around me; just because they happen to have an iPhone doesn't make them my best friend... or does it :P )
    - aliqot 4y ago
      Imagine how I feel, I don't carry or use phones, period. The level of outright indignation I experience is pretty high. People resort to levels of disgust when met with someone who openly rejects carrying around a little bother-box in their pocket as if I'm some type of unwashed knave.
      - NikolaNovak 4y ago
        I don't think I can fully imagine; I prefer my ergonomic keyboard and massive monitor to be sure, so I dislike phone-first solutions (GRRR Whatsapp GRRR), or phone-priority design, and computers are definitely my hammer of choice. But between Winnipeg winter storms and kids and experience of civil war and strife in a previous lifetime, mobile phones as a safety lifeline were a strong priority for me early in my life in late 90's; and then I was one of those nerdy guys with Palm Pilot (I used to read entire books... many many books... on a 320x320px screen - which is why I find it hilarious when people so righteously proclaim "Retina or bust" :), then Palm Treo then HTC G1 then Galaxy S2 and so on. I am too self-absorbed or something to worry about social media (I genuinely don't care what anybody else had for lunch or the cute picture of their cat or the latest copy pasted platitude that's 5 words but 3MB overcompressed JPEG grr!), so scrolling Facebook or twitter notification etc are not a real threat vector in a portable phone for me. Which is to say, I don't care one iota if anybody else has a portable phone or not, but I personally find it much too convenient; and I can see it impacting me if somebody else doesn't have a phone, not from status perspective but from practical perspective - there's a change of plans, but oh, Bob is still going to the CoolCafe and we can't tell him to meet us at the NiceRestaurant; or my tire is blown, how am I going to call anybody; etc. How do you handle stuff like that?
      - themaninthedark 4y ago
        Yeah that sucks. I graduated collage in 2008 and I refused to get a phone before that point. The amount of people complaining how it is inconvenient that they have to call your room phone instead of texting, how they can't make plans(in reality, it is a crutch for lack of planning), etc. For a while, it was the same with Facebook.
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    The thing I never liked about Airpods is, instead of having one thing that is hard to lose, we now have three easy to lose things.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Hapa 4y ago
    I am extremely puzzled by true wireless bluetooth headphones to a point where it's hard to find high-end wired bluetooth headphones. True wireless have so many drawbacks: - lower battery life yet people got convinced that they last long thanks to powerbank, I meant ,,case" which you need to carry. - bulkier so they stick out of ear one way or another. They fall down easily when changing t-shirts, huddies .. - easy to lose
    - Blackthorn 4y ago
      I use them at the gym because I hate having things on my face/head while I'm sweaty. I don't have a use case for wired bluetooth headphones that isn't better served by something with a 3.5mm jack.
    - hadlock 4y ago
      > it's hard to find high-end wired bluetooth headphones pre-covid we had an open floorplan office, typical valley startup layout, no noise dampening etc Everyone had the bose 35 quiet comfort i or ii noise canceling headphones. I was one of the new guys so started off with a $60 panasonic noise canceling headphone, and later when released got the sony ...mx4000? noise canceling headphones because they had USB-C in ~2016 and I brought them with me on my most recent trip here in 2022 I don't know anyone who has ever complained about their bose or sony bluetooth noise canceling headphones. They just work, all the time, every time. Except that one time I forgot to charge them and let them run down to 0% (and it even warned me about an hour before)
      - qart 4y ago
        > I don't know anyone who has ever complained about their bose or sony bluetooth noise canceling headphones. My Sony XM4 cans often give me trouble with bluetooth. Once in a while, there is no sound from the device. The device says "connected", the phone app says it's connected, the computer says it's connected. The way to fix it is to plugin the 3.5mm jack, and take it off. The device powers off. The next time it is powered on, it works properly. Lots of other people have had this trouble too. I did not discover this "fix" myself, but was written online somewhere.
      - 4y ago
  - nucleardog 4y ago
    The airpods do one thing much better than anything else I've tried: work with an iPhone. I went through a few other pairs of bluetooth "true wireless" ear buds and every single one of them would exhibit the normal bluetooth problems. Sometimes one wouldn't connect. Sometimes both wouldn't connect. Sometimes trying to resolve this I'd "forget" them and then not be able to pair them again necessitating pulling out the manual and figuring out how to do a hard reset on some ear buds. And then ending up with only one paired. Etc, etc. I pretty much exclusively use in-ear headphones to listen to something to fall asleep to, so this is generally happening as I've already wound down and gotten into bed and... now it's tech support time! I paired the airpods to my phone the first time and have never had them fail to connect immediately since.
    - MobiusHorizons 4y ago
      This. I am honestly bewildered when I see the tech press comparing true wireless earbuds to AirPods and not mentioning the enormous ergonomic differences.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        Bluetooth experiences will be largely software-dependent. Comparing Airpods on a Macbook to a Windows laptop and some Sony earbuds? It's no contest, Airpods will win every time. If we're, say, testing the Airpods on Windows and the Sony buds on Linux (where they have LDAC support), the tables will be completely turned. All of these headphones are context-sensitive, and will behave differently on different hardware. You're not exactly writing a novel thesis here. Airpods are still just Bluetooth with an extra chip for NFC pairing. All of the "magic" your Airpods provide are software-based, not part of the actual hardware you're buying. I think Tech Press is totally justified to ignore software that isn't part of the headphones itself.
        stonemetal12 4y ago
        Isn't all that it just works software "driver quality"? If we were talking about a graphics card that couldn't detect monitor resolution and keep connected, we wouldn't give the card a pass just because it is a driver issue.
  - ricardobayes 4y ago
    I see the same happening with a certain new EV that I won't name. It has a nice design, but often gets people stranded, outright bricked through OTA. To the point where dealers advise users not to perform OTA updates. Literal pieces falling off the car while driving. The need to call the tow truck after 2k miles is very common. In normal car terms, it's junk. But people fight tooth and nail to defend it. Exactly because of the 'tribal' thinking you mention. It's our 'tribe', so we close in.
    - bagels 4y ago
      Sounds dire. What car is this, and where can I read about these cars that very commonly fail after 2k miles?
      - pnutjam 4y ago
        When I was a kid, I mowed the lawn for a neighbor who was a mechanic. He exclusively worked on Porsches. He claimed most luxury cars would break down if you bought one and tried to drive it across the country. He rattled off some known issues that were baked into the manufacturing process, but rich people didn't care since it's mostly a status symbol. This was in the late 1900's....
  - corrral 4y ago
    > You're part of the in group, you made it, you have achieved sameness, you have an iPhone. Orrrrr we tolerate repeated mistakes on Apple's part because every time we poke our heads up and look around at the rest of the market (or even try switching for a while!) it's clear we'd just be trading every one problem for three others. I sincerely wish any other tech companies would at least credibly pretend to actually be competing with Apple head-on, rather than just avoiding them and trying to fill other niches.
  - adhesive_wombat 4y ago
    > you have achieved sameness, you have an iPhone. You mean "....you have iPhone". Gotta get the weird marketing right if you want to be in the club.
    - aliqot 4y ago
      I hope the community will find it in their hearts to be swayed by my humble appeal, I mean no harm. Who will help the widow's son?
- BoxOfRain 4y ago
  Of course the true FAANG solution would be to include a 3.5mm jack but disable it in software, requiring £4.99 per month to enable it with a rent-seeking subscription service.
  - mwint 4y ago
    Seems like that’s more the BMW solution (ref. heated seats subscription)
  - ROTMetro 4y ago
    Can I get an audiophile 'Hi-def' tier for $9.99 that's almost but not quite 1982 CD quality?
- wil421 4y ago
  3.5mm can go to hell for a phone. I’d prefer the waterproofing we have with iPhones nowadays. If you need an adapter they are available.
  - MobiusHorizons 4y ago
    Phones exist that have both waterproofing and a headphone jack. I’m sure it’s a challenge, but it’s not technically an either or decision.
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    Interesting; is there some connection between waterproofing and 3.5mm I'm missing? There's plenty of phones and devices waterproofed to any given standard with 3.5mm. To my ignorant mind, a USB C or Lightning port is not fundamentally different exposure / difficulty than 3.5mm when it comes to this - this is far from my area of expertise, but a cursory google search, and plentiful of counter-examples, indicates this is just a post-hoc justification for Apple's removal, not a real critical path. Understanding that "if you need something, get an adapter / live the dongle life" is the core Apple philosophy, and agreeing that most standards should eventually die (parallel port, Firewire, etc), 3.5mm still seems a uniquely standardized, useful, and time proof feature that's is sorely missed with no adequate replacement (dongle, of course, is not it, for many reasons - expense, inconvenience, losing them, and if you want to charge your phone while being on a call things get very wonky very quickly - does Apple even offer a 1st-party solution for this common office-worker use-case?)
  - Larrikin 4y ago
    Sony solved open headphone jack while being water proof nearly a decade ago. The idea the phone can't have a headphone jack and be waterproof was a lie pushed by Apple to save money on not having to put in a headphone jack. I've been using Sony phones in the shower and at the beach for years now and only briefly switched to a different company when they tried to pull that headphone jack removal of crap briefly when I needed a new phone.
    - incongruity 4y ago
- ant6n 4y ago
  I have some Bluetooth speakers from Teufel. They are pretty big and heavy and supposedly good (actually way too bassy for me, hard to listen to podcasts on). And they have a battery, so they are mobile. They heave this “feature” where they turn off after 10 min of silence. And they’re Bluetooth, so once they turn off, u have to walk to the damn speaker (no remote), push the power button that’s hidden on the back for several seconds (less used buttons are visible on top), then go to your playback device and reconnect the Bluetooth. People on the forums have been complaining about this for years, and the support still says this feature can’t be turned off. For a company that supposedly makes very carefully designed, great Audio equipment made in Germany, this user interface is infuriating, pointless and feels never actually tested. (Also, Nowadays nobody reviews products anymore so bad user interfaces are not caught). Btw, I have some Bluetooth speakers with a tiny battery that will stay on for a day and not turn off, idling takes nearly no battery power. So yeah, this is like the laziest product I have owned, that just dares u to stop a movie for a bathroom or snack break lest it goes back to sleep, and it wasn’t designed by some big monolithic FANG but a supposedly user centric design focused hiish end shop.
causi 4y ago
It's patently ridiculous how much better the microphone on $15 wired headphones is than the ones on a $50 set of wireless earbuds.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  A 25 dollar logitech wired headset with a boom is brilliant. I have people with $200+ airpods on the call and I hear their cat dog air conditioner wind spouse keyboard car and everything. But they cannot be told this - they have expensive earbuds and they can hear ME fine, so it's all great!
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    Boom mic is always the superior choice.
    - ansible 4y ago
      Yes. All the software / DSP processing can't help if the physics is against you. By placing the microphone close to the mouth noises you make, you are increasing, by many orders of magnitude, the signal-to-noise ratio. Cars and other large BT devices (like an Amazon Echo) can use multiple microphones and some fancy processing to really isolate the voice signal coming from a specific direction (relative to the device) and also cancel out surrounding noise sources. With ear-bud systems, you can't fit in many microphones, nor can you spatially separate them enough for the software to do the job.
    - JohnBooty 4y ago
      In an absolute sound quality sense, yes. But they also pick up peoples' gross mouth noises. You hear them chewing food, wheezing when they have a cold, or even eating food in waaaaay too much detail. Obviously mute buttons exist but... I've had multiple remote coworkers with boom mics and even if they rememeber to mute 90% of the time over the course of a year that other 10% really adds up lol
      - 4y ago
JTbane 4y ago
I prefer wired because, for some reason, car audio via Bluetooth has adaptive volume, i.e. I start coasting in the car and the music becomes almost inaudible. I speed up and it returns to normal.

ricardobayes 4y ago

I sometimes wonder what the world would be like without FAANG. I'm lead to believe the world would be a better place if all companies would have a max company size of Bose, or Sennheiser. Then no stupid decisions could be pushed through by force, like the removal of the 3.5 mm jack. If the market really wants it, they will eventually vote with their wallet. Same goes with social media, fb killed off local country-specific social media, which sometimes had much better features and less agressivity/conspiracy theories/scams.

aliqot 4y ago
The market wants what the other segment of the market has, that's the purpose of marketing. Phones with no jacks, like laptops with no i/o, is something impractical that people self-justify because of the logo and the clout it affords. You're part of the in group, you made it, you have achieved sameness, you have an iPhone. Airpods are just about the worst headphones money can buy and people fight over them, despite there being headphones sold for <$100 that blow them out of the water. I have in-ear-monitors that cost a fraction of what an airpod does, has detachable cords AND bluetooth to each ear, and they sound much better and balanced. Whoever took away the audio port on modern phones should be dragged outside and beaten like an unruly fax machine.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  >> You're part of the in group, you made it, you have achieved sameness, you have an iPhone. I assumed I was just a grouchy old man (because I am:) but I recently found out what level of social stratification happens for teenagers without iPhone. Immediate judgement, plus the continued dreaded green text box. It is brutal I thought I was exaggerating the iPhone as a status symbol as opposed to actually convenient / technical solution, turns out I was naive. (there ARE things that Apple does very well, when it comes to integrating within ecosystem, though some of them are CREEPY - like being prompted to share my wifi password with another person who happens to be looking for wifi around me; just because they happen to have an iPhone doesn't make them my best friend... or does it :P )
  - aliqot 4y ago
    Imagine how I feel, I don't carry or use phones, period. The level of outright indignation I experience is pretty high. People resort to levels of disgust when met with someone who openly rejects carrying around a little bother-box in their pocket as if I'm some type of unwashed knave.
    - NikolaNovak 4y ago
      I don't think I can fully imagine; I prefer my ergonomic keyboard and massive monitor to be sure, so I dislike phone-first solutions (GRRR Whatsapp GRRR), or phone-priority design, and computers are definitely my hammer of choice. But between Winnipeg winter storms and kids and experience of civil war and strife in a previous lifetime, mobile phones as a safety lifeline were a strong priority for me early in my life in late 90's; and then I was one of those nerdy guys with Palm Pilot (I used to read entire books... many many books... on a 320x320px screen - which is why I find it hilarious when people so righteously proclaim "Retina or bust" :), then Palm Treo then HTC G1 then Galaxy S2 and so on. I am too self-absorbed or something to worry about social media (I genuinely don't care what anybody else had for lunch or the cute picture of their cat or the latest copy pasted platitude that's 5 words but 3MB overcompressed JPEG grr!), so scrolling Facebook or twitter notification etc are not a real threat vector in a portable phone for me. Which is to say, I don't care one iota if anybody else has a portable phone or not, but I personally find it much too convenient; and I can see it impacting me if somebody else doesn't have a phone, not from status perspective but from practical perspective - there's a change of plans, but oh, Bob is still going to the CoolCafe and we can't tell him to meet us at the NiceRestaurant; or my tire is blown, how am I going to call anybody; etc. How do you handle stuff like that?
    - themaninthedark 4y ago
      Yeah that sucks. I graduated collage in 2008 and I refused to get a phone before that point. The amount of people complaining how it is inconvenient that they have to call your room phone instead of texting, how they can't make plans(in reality, it is a crutch for lack of planning), etc. For a while, it was the same with Facebook.
- osigurdson 4y ago
  The thing I never liked about Airpods is, instead of having one thing that is hard to lose, we now have three easy to lose things.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Hapa 4y ago
  I am extremely puzzled by true wireless bluetooth headphones to a point where it's hard to find high-end wired bluetooth headphones. True wireless have so many drawbacks: - lower battery life yet people got convinced that they last long thanks to powerbank, I meant ,,case" which you need to carry. - bulkier so they stick out of ear one way or another. They fall down easily when changing t-shirts, huddies .. - easy to lose
  - Blackthorn 4y ago
    I use them at the gym because I hate having things on my face/head while I'm sweaty. I don't have a use case for wired bluetooth headphones that isn't better served by something with a 3.5mm jack.
  - hadlock 4y ago
    > it's hard to find high-end wired bluetooth headphones pre-covid we had an open floorplan office, typical valley startup layout, no noise dampening etc Everyone had the bose 35 quiet comfort i or ii noise canceling headphones. I was one of the new guys so started off with a $60 panasonic noise canceling headphone, and later when released got the sony ...mx4000? noise canceling headphones because they had USB-C in ~2016 and I brought them with me on my most recent trip here in 2022 I don't know anyone who has ever complained about their bose or sony bluetooth noise canceling headphones. They just work, all the time, every time. Except that one time I forgot to charge them and let them run down to 0% (and it even warned me about an hour before)
    - qart 4y ago
      > I don't know anyone who has ever complained about their bose or sony bluetooth noise canceling headphones. My Sony XM4 cans often give me trouble with bluetooth. Once in a while, there is no sound from the device. The device says "connected", the phone app says it's connected, the computer says it's connected. The way to fix it is to plugin the 3.5mm jack, and take it off. The device powers off. The next time it is powered on, it works properly. Lots of other people have had this trouble too. I did not discover this "fix" myself, but was written online somewhere.
    - 4y ago
- nucleardog 4y ago
  The airpods do one thing much better than anything else I've tried: work with an iPhone. I went through a few other pairs of bluetooth "true wireless" ear buds and every single one of them would exhibit the normal bluetooth problems. Sometimes one wouldn't connect. Sometimes both wouldn't connect. Sometimes trying to resolve this I'd "forget" them and then not be able to pair them again necessitating pulling out the manual and figuring out how to do a hard reset on some ear buds. And then ending up with only one paired. Etc, etc. I pretty much exclusively use in-ear headphones to listen to something to fall asleep to, so this is generally happening as I've already wound down and gotten into bed and... now it's tech support time! I paired the airpods to my phone the first time and have never had them fail to connect immediately since.
  - MobiusHorizons 4y ago
    This. I am honestly bewildered when I see the tech press comparing true wireless earbuds to AirPods and not mentioning the enormous ergonomic differences.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      Bluetooth experiences will be largely software-dependent. Comparing Airpods on a Macbook to a Windows laptop and some Sony earbuds? It's no contest, Airpods will win every time. If we're, say, testing the Airpods on Windows and the Sony buds on Linux (where they have LDAC support), the tables will be completely turned. All of these headphones are context-sensitive, and will behave differently on different hardware. You're not exactly writing a novel thesis here. Airpods are still just Bluetooth with an extra chip for NFC pairing. All of the "magic" your Airpods provide are software-based, not part of the actual hardware you're buying. I think Tech Press is totally justified to ignore software that isn't part of the headphones itself.
      - stonemetal12 4y ago
        Isn't all that it just works software "driver quality"? If we were talking about a graphics card that couldn't detect monitor resolution and keep connected, we wouldn't give the card a pass just because it is a driver issue.
- ricardobayes 4y ago
  I see the same happening with a certain new EV that I won't name. It has a nice design, but often gets people stranded, outright bricked through OTA. To the point where dealers advise users not to perform OTA updates. Literal pieces falling off the car while driving. The need to call the tow truck after 2k miles is very common. In normal car terms, it's junk. But people fight tooth and nail to defend it. Exactly because of the 'tribal' thinking you mention. It's our 'tribe', so we close in.
  - bagels 4y ago
    Sounds dire. What car is this, and where can I read about these cars that very commonly fail after 2k miles?
    - pnutjam 4y ago
      When I was a kid, I mowed the lawn for a neighbor who was a mechanic. He exclusively worked on Porsches. He claimed most luxury cars would break down if you bought one and tried to drive it across the country. He rattled off some known issues that were baked into the manufacturing process, but rich people didn't care since it's mostly a status symbol. This was in the late 1900's....
- corrral 4y ago
  > You're part of the in group, you made it, you have achieved sameness, you have an iPhone. Orrrrr we tolerate repeated mistakes on Apple's part because every time we poke our heads up and look around at the rest of the market (or even try switching for a while!) it's clear we'd just be trading every one problem for three others. I sincerely wish any other tech companies would at least credibly pretend to actually be competing with Apple head-on, rather than just avoiding them and trying to fill other niches.
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago
  > you have achieved sameness, you have an iPhone. You mean "....you have iPhone". Gotta get the weird marketing right if you want to be in the club.
  - aliqot 4y ago
    I hope the community will find it in their hearts to be swayed by my humble appeal, I mean no harm. Who will help the widow's son?
BoxOfRain 4y ago
Of course the true FAANG solution would be to include a 3.5mm jack but disable it in software, requiring £4.99 per month to enable it with a rent-seeking subscription service.
- mwint 4y ago
  Seems like that’s more the BMW solution (ref. heated seats subscription)
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  Can I get an audiophile 'Hi-def' tier for $9.99 that's almost but not quite 1982 CD quality?
wil421 4y ago
3.5mm can go to hell for a phone. I’d prefer the waterproofing we have with iPhones nowadays. If you need an adapter they are available.
- MobiusHorizons 4y ago
  Phones exist that have both waterproofing and a headphone jack. I’m sure it’s a challenge, but it’s not technically an either or decision.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  Interesting; is there some connection between waterproofing and 3.5mm I'm missing? There's plenty of phones and devices waterproofed to any given standard with 3.5mm. To my ignorant mind, a USB C or Lightning port is not fundamentally different exposure / difficulty than 3.5mm when it comes to this - this is far from my area of expertise, but a cursory google search, and plentiful of counter-examples, indicates this is just a post-hoc justification for Apple's removal, not a real critical path. Understanding that "if you need something, get an adapter / live the dongle life" is the core Apple philosophy, and agreeing that most standards should eventually die (parallel port, Firewire, etc), 3.5mm still seems a uniquely standardized, useful, and time proof feature that's is sorely missed with no adequate replacement (dongle, of course, is not it, for many reasons - expense, inconvenience, losing them, and if you want to charge your phone while being on a call things get very wonky very quickly - does Apple even offer a 1st-party solution for this common office-worker use-case?)
- Larrikin 4y ago
  Sony solved open headphone jack while being water proof nearly a decade ago. The idea the phone can't have a headphone jack and be waterproof was a lie pushed by Apple to save money on not having to put in a headphone jack. I've been using Sony phones in the shower and at the beach for years now and only briefly switched to a different company when they tried to pull that headphone jack removal of crap briefly when I needed a new phone.
  - incongruity 4y ago
ant6n 4y ago
I have some Bluetooth speakers from Teufel. They are pretty big and heavy and supposedly good (actually way too bassy for me, hard to listen to podcasts on). And they have a battery, so they are mobile. They heave this “feature” where they turn off after 10 min of silence. And they’re Bluetooth, so once they turn off, u have to walk to the damn speaker (no remote), push the power button that’s hidden on the back for several seconds (less used buttons are visible on top), then go to your playback device and reconnect the Bluetooth. People on the forums have been complaining about this for years, and the support still says this feature can’t be turned off. For a company that supposedly makes very carefully designed, great Audio equipment made in Germany, this user interface is infuriating, pointless and feels never actually tested. (Also, Nowadays nobody reviews products anymore so bad user interfaces are not caught). Btw, I have some Bluetooth speakers with a tiny battery that will stay on for a day and not turn off, idling takes nearly no battery power. So yeah, this is like the laziest product I have owned, that just dares u to stop a movie for a bathroom or snack break lest it goes back to sleep, and it wasn’t designed by some big monolithic FANG but a supposedly user centric design focused hiish end shop.

causi 4y ago

It's patently ridiculous how much better the microphone on $15 wired headphones is than the ones on a $50 set of wireless earbuds.

NikolaNovak 4y ago
A 25 dollar logitech wired headset with a boom is brilliant. I have people with $200+ airpods on the call and I hear their cat dog air conditioner wind spouse keyboard car and everything. But they cannot be told this - they have expensive earbuds and they can hear ME fine, so it's all great!
- HPsquared 4y ago
  Boom mic is always the superior choice.
  - ansible 4y ago
    Yes. All the software / DSP processing can't help if the physics is against you. By placing the microphone close to the mouth noises you make, you are increasing, by many orders of magnitude, the signal-to-noise ratio. Cars and other large BT devices (like an Amazon Echo) can use multiple microphones and some fancy processing to really isolate the voice signal coming from a specific direction (relative to the device) and also cancel out surrounding noise sources. With ear-bud systems, you can't fit in many microphones, nor can you spatially separate them enough for the software to do the job.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    In an absolute sound quality sense, yes. But they also pick up peoples' gross mouth noises. You hear them chewing food, wheezing when they have a cold, or even eating food in waaaaay too much detail. Obviously mute buttons exist but... I've had multiple remote coworkers with boom mics and even if they rememeber to mute 90% of the time over the course of a year that other 10% really adds up lol
    - 4y ago

JTbane 4y ago

I prefer wired because, for some reason, car audio via Bluetooth has adaptive volume, i.e. I start coasting in the car and the music becomes almost inaudible. I speed up and it returns to normal.