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I've long desired form my AirPods to operate in a "play any sound from any of my devices" mode. This seems like a no-brainer and such phantom connections would

I've long desired form my AirPods to operate in a "play any sound from any of my devices" mode. This seems like a no-brainer and such phantom connections would as a result have no user-visible impact and you could do things like listen to music coming from your phone while hearing sounds from your MacBook.

mgkimsal 4y ago
Unsure if I would love or hate that, but it might be more natural than the iphone/airpods/mac "incoming call" fiasco I face regularly. Airpods/MacOS - listening to background music. Phone call comes in... VERY LOUD facetime 'ring' announces on mac that I'm getting a phone call. Pick up phone to answer it... holy tamole - it's minimum 8 seconds between clicking 'answer' and... eventually airpods switching over to phone - most of the time. To the calling party, I've 'answered', but they can't hear me - or... can sort of hear me, but I can't hear them. The speed at which the 'switch' takes place, and the visual delay (air pod icons turning on, then off, then on again, then a floating top notification saying "airpods connected"...)... this is always minimum 8 seconds. Usually 10-11. I just say "hang on, i'm switching my earpiece over..." and wait. Annoying. Given that this is all in their ecosystem, I expect this to get better, not worse. I'd rather this sort of experience get fixed vs more emojis, or 'sidecar' or whatnot.
- leipert 4y ago
  Honest question: Why don’t you answer the call from the Mac? Or do you have that continuity feature disabled?
  - AdamGibbins 4y ago
    I disabled that as it has some very confusing and undesired behaviour. For example if you're listening to Spotify on your Mac, then get a call on your iPhone you hit pause on your keyboard media keys so you can pick up the call - and it hangs up.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    I usually want to walk away from the computer. I sit at the computer enough already. If a call comes in, I want - sometimes need - to be able to walk away. The long/short of it is, both devices 'know' about the airpods. Call comes in to phone, during an answer, having airpods switch to the phone quickly - like, under 2 seconds - is what I'm expecting. I'm not sure that's an unreasonable expectation (maybe it is?). At some point, I would think, given all the neural-core-AI stuff in the phones and ecosystem, it should know that I always switch airpods to phone to talk... maybe do it automatically at some point? The phone now knows my daily routine, giving me traffic updates 10 minutes before I normally leave to hit the gym. Yet... the 'fill in your email' prompts on the phone suggest 'my' email address is something I have not actively used in 11 years. I don't understand the 'why' behind some of these things. If the device is going to learn... when will it learn I don't use that email address any longer? Obviously separate issue, but... as has gone on for decades - we get loads of new features, but often little attention paid to clean up and refine last year's new features.
    - sroussey 4y ago
      Why have the Mac ring if you don’t answer from the Mac? I turned that off in settings. Still text via Mac though!
      - mgkimsal 4y ago
        "settings" was vague. I looked in system settings - nothing there. Apparently, it's a 'facetime' setting? Will this make switching 'audio from mac via airpods' to 'audio from iphone via airpods' any faster?
        givinguflac 4y ago
        You should be able to tap the speakerphone icon on your iPhone, choose AirPods, and they’ll switch immediately in my experience
        mgkimsal 4y ago
  - chrisfinazzo 4y ago
    This was one of the first things I disabled with Continuity. As for why, it's not that complicated. 1) It's a distraction. I am also one of those people who turned on "Silence unknown callers" to send everyone I don't know to voicemail. If it's important, you'll get a message there. My phone either lives in my pocket or is on the desk next to me, so it's very unlikely I'd miss something. 2) At least with AirPods, although I have "connect automatically" turned on, I will never intentionally connect them to more than one source at a time. Therin lies madness and bugs.
    - officeplant 4y ago
      Idk how you live without silence unknown callers. I get an upwards of 20 spam calls a day interrupting me otherwise while using the phone.
      - chrisfinazzo 4y ago
        I do use it, not sure how that was unclear.
        officeplant 4y ago
        Ah sorry, My brain completely fumbled your sentence.
        chrisfinazzo 4y ago
        No worries, I had to reread my own sentence to make sure I wasn't being a complete moron. NOTE TO SELF: COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE
  - zakki 4y ago
    I feel many objections to Apple’s products behavior are responded with “a suggestion “ to just follow Apple way.
    - leipert 4y ago
      Oh. I wasn’t objecting. I am not getting many calls, maybe one a week, but the explanation of “picking up and wandering around” makes complete sense.
taneq 4y ago
Such an obvious feature… you would think! Apparently it’s not that easy, though, because nobody seems able to do it.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  The more I think about it, the more complex it sounds to me .... Let's say you're listening to a Youtube MV on your computer while cleaning the dishes. A Skype call comes on your phone, and you take it. - Do you still hear the youtube sound in the background ? - What does the play/pause button do on your earbuds ? Or the volume button ? Which source does it act on ? - An alarm starts on your iPad somewhere in the house, how do you stop it ? Do you keep getting the sound until you physically find the device and act on it ? And that's just 2 min of thinking about it. Not saying it can't be done, just that you'd need to deal with all the edge cases as well. Auto switching sources is annoying (I personally disabled it when I had airpods, and don't use it on any headset), but I think having all sources active at all time could be as annoying, or worse. If Apple couldn't solve auto-switching, I wouldn't be holding my breath for them to solve the all-devices at the same times edge cases.
  - taneq 4y ago
    Oh, definitely! Even on a single device, some of these are issues. Does ‘play’ play winamp, or that YouTube tab, or VLC? Hopefully not all three! Now consider what volume each of these needs to be, especially if one is an online meeting and one’s a noisy voice call. There’s a reason it’s a shambles.
makeitdouble 4y ago
What you’re requesting seem pretty complex, or at least resource intensive to me. It means the airPods keep X active connections with any device that says it could emit sound at any time, while also harmonizing sound levels as the devices don’t have the same settings, and mixing it all at the end. That feels like a lot to ask for tiny devices with limited battery. Now that could be a nice idea for a separate device that keeps all these bluetooth connection alive and deals with all the mess to deliver a single stream to your earbuds (albeit with double the latency)
- sgtnoodle 4y ago
  Connect the devices all together with wifi direct to share and mix audio. Then have whichever device is connected to the earbuds send the mixed stream. The extra bandwidth of 802.11 would also allow for additional latency on the order of milliseconds.

mgkimsal 4y ago

Unsure if I would love or hate that, but it might be more natural than the iphone/airpods/mac "incoming call" fiasco I face regularly. Airpods/MacOS - listening to background music. Phone call comes in... VERY LOUD facetime 'ring' announces on mac that I'm getting a phone call. Pick up phone to answer it... holy tamole - it's minimum 8 seconds between clicking 'answer' and... eventually airpods switching over to phone - most of the time. To the calling party, I've 'answered', but they can't hear me - or... can sort of hear me, but I can't hear them. The speed at which the 'switch' takes place, and the visual delay (air pod icons turning on, then off, then on again, then a floating top notification saying "airpods connected"...)... this is always minimum 8 seconds. Usually 10-11. I just say "hang on, i'm switching my earpiece over..." and wait. Annoying. Given that this is all in their ecosystem, I expect this to get better, not worse. I'd rather this sort of experience get fixed vs more emojis, or 'sidecar' or whatnot.

leipert 4y ago
Honest question: Why don’t you answer the call from the Mac? Or do you have that continuity feature disabled?
- AdamGibbins 4y ago
  I disabled that as it has some very confusing and undesired behaviour. For example if you're listening to Spotify on your Mac, then get a call on your iPhone you hit pause on your keyboard media keys so you can pick up the call - and it hangs up.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  I usually want to walk away from the computer. I sit at the computer enough already. If a call comes in, I want - sometimes need - to be able to walk away. The long/short of it is, both devices 'know' about the airpods. Call comes in to phone, during an answer, having airpods switch to the phone quickly - like, under 2 seconds - is what I'm expecting. I'm not sure that's an unreasonable expectation (maybe it is?). At some point, I would think, given all the neural-core-AI stuff in the phones and ecosystem, it should know that I always switch airpods to phone to talk... maybe do it automatically at some point? The phone now knows my daily routine, giving me traffic updates 10 minutes before I normally leave to hit the gym. Yet... the 'fill in your email' prompts on the phone suggest 'my' email address is something I have not actively used in 11 years. I don't understand the 'why' behind some of these things. If the device is going to learn... when will it learn I don't use that email address any longer? Obviously separate issue, but... as has gone on for decades - we get loads of new features, but often little attention paid to clean up and refine last year's new features.
  - sroussey 4y ago
    Why have the Mac ring if you don’t answer from the Mac? I turned that off in settings. Still text via Mac though!
    - mgkimsal 4y ago
      "settings" was vague. I looked in system settings - nothing there. Apparently, it's a 'facetime' setting? Will this make switching 'audio from mac via airpods' to 'audio from iphone via airpods' any faster?
      - givinguflac 4y ago
        You should be able to tap the speakerphone icon on your iPhone, choose AirPods, and they’ll switch immediately in my experience
        mgkimsal 4y ago
- chrisfinazzo 4y ago
  This was one of the first things I disabled with Continuity. As for why, it's not that complicated. 1) It's a distraction. I am also one of those people who turned on "Silence unknown callers" to send everyone I don't know to voicemail. If it's important, you'll get a message there. My phone either lives in my pocket or is on the desk next to me, so it's very unlikely I'd miss something. 2) At least with AirPods, although I have "connect automatically" turned on, I will never intentionally connect them to more than one source at a time. Therin lies madness and bugs.
  - officeplant 4y ago
    Idk how you live without silence unknown callers. I get an upwards of 20 spam calls a day interrupting me otherwise while using the phone.
    - chrisfinazzo 4y ago
      I do use it, not sure how that was unclear.
      - officeplant 4y ago
        Ah sorry, My brain completely fumbled your sentence.
        chrisfinazzo 4y ago
        No worries, I had to reread my own sentence to make sure I wasn't being a complete moron. NOTE TO SELF: COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE
- zakki 4y ago
  I feel many objections to Apple’s products behavior are responded with “a suggestion “ to just follow Apple way.
  - leipert 4y ago
    Oh. I wasn’t objecting. I am not getting many calls, maybe one a week, but the explanation of “picking up and wandering around” makes complete sense.

taneq 4y ago

Such an obvious feature… you would think! Apparently it’s not that easy, though, because nobody seems able to do it.

makeitdouble 4y ago
The more I think about it, the more complex it sounds to me .... Let's say you're listening to a Youtube MV on your computer while cleaning the dishes. A Skype call comes on your phone, and you take it. - Do you still hear the youtube sound in the background ? - What does the play/pause button do on your earbuds ? Or the volume button ? Which source does it act on ? - An alarm starts on your iPad somewhere in the house, how do you stop it ? Do you keep getting the sound until you physically find the device and act on it ? And that's just 2 min of thinking about it. Not saying it can't be done, just that you'd need to deal with all the edge cases as well. Auto switching sources is annoying (I personally disabled it when I had airpods, and don't use it on any headset), but I think having all sources active at all time could be as annoying, or worse. If Apple couldn't solve auto-switching, I wouldn't be holding my breath for them to solve the all-devices at the same times edge cases.
- taneq 4y ago
  Oh, definitely! Even on a single device, some of these are issues. Does ‘play’ play winamp, or that YouTube tab, or VLC? Hopefully not all three! Now consider what volume each of these needs to be, especially if one is an online meeting and one’s a noisy voice call. There’s a reason it’s a shambles.

makeitdouble 4y ago

What you’re requesting seem pretty complex, or at least resource intensive to me. It means the airPods keep X active connections with any device that says it could emit sound at any time, while also harmonizing sound levels as the devices don’t have the same settings, and mixing it all at the end. That feels like a lot to ask for tiny devices with limited battery. Now that could be a nice idea for a separate device that keeps all these bluetooth connection alive and deals with all the mess to deliver a single stream to your earbuds (albeit with double the latency)

sgtnoodle 4y ago
Connect the devices all together with wifi direct to share and mix audio. Then have whichever device is connected to the earbuds send the mixed stream. The extra bandwidth of 802.11 would also allow for additional latency on the order of milliseconds.