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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 - listenin

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
        “Immediately” is not the word. As the phone is answered, it’s trying to automatically switch. Pressing that key while it’s in the process of auto switch just confuses it, and typically stops the switch process altogether. Then you have to do it again. Fwiw, this seemed to work smoothly two years ago. And then… updates. AirPod firmware updates. iPhone updates. macOS updates. Nothing works the same as it did 2 years ago for maybe … 2 months or so. And there’s no going back. :(
  - RulerOf 4y ago
    I've often said that Airpods are the best bluetooth headphones I've ever bought, and they still suck.
  - freemanofthewan 4y ago
    This "why" has been growing since Steve passed. I have been an Apple user for 20+ years. The experience has been slowly going downhill for the last 5 years. I think they survived on Steve's vision for the first couple of years after his passing. The brains behind Apple are still there, clearly, M1, M2... the vision is missing. The why's you mention seem to be those unpolished pieces Steve would never have allowed the release of.
- 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.

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
        “Immediately” is not the word. As the phone is answered, it’s trying to automatically switch. Pressing that key while it’s in the process of auto switch just confuses it, and typically stops the switch process altogether. Then you have to do it again. Fwiw, this seemed to work smoothly two years ago. And then… updates. AirPod firmware updates. iPhone updates. macOS updates. Nothing works the same as it did 2 years ago for maybe … 2 months or so. And there’s no going back. :(
- RulerOf 4y ago
  I've often said that Airpods are the best bluetooth headphones I've ever bought, and they still suck.
- freemanofthewan 4y ago
  This "why" has been growing since Steve passed. I have been an Apple user for 20+ years. The experience has been slowly going downhill for the last 5 years. I think they survived on Steve's vision for the first couple of years after his passing. The brains behind Apple are still there, clearly, M1, M2... the vision is missing. The why's you mention seem to be those unpolished pieces Steve would never have allowed the release of.
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.