3 ms·
I've never 100% understood it either, the only steelman I've been able to come up with over years is most people are like me and lose or damage the wireless ear
by refulgentis 3y ago
I've never 100% understood it either, the only steelman I've been able to come up with over years is most people are like me and lose or damage the wireless earbuds every 6-12 months. I'm lucky enough to be a yuppie tech nerd with disposable income to treat it as a fact of life. Whereas for them it feels like a forced march to spend $150 every year.
- sleepybrett 3y ago> Whereas for them it feels like a forced march to spend $150 every year. Except that you are not, there exists a 8-10$ dongle from apple for lightning to headphone and, i just had to check, there exists a usb-c to headphone dongle for the same price range if you happen to have the newest gen phone. So instead it's a forced march to buy a new dongle if you happen to lose your cheap wired headphones/earbuds, assuming you just leave the dongle attached to the headphones/earbuds.
- abhinavk 3y agoEverything else aside, the DAC in Apple's USB-C/Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter is phenomenal for the price.
- refulgentis 3y agoSure -- do you want me to steelman that too? (TL;DR: 'forced purchase' and 'can't use your stuff' effects still play in)
- sleepybrett 3y ago'forced purchase' is much different when its $8 and not $150 (and let's be clear you can get bluetooth headphones and earbuds for well under $100 at this point). Let's also remember that when apple made this change originally they packed in earpods w/ lightning connectors. I can understand some grousing when the headphone jack was removed. I can't understand grousing still almost 8 years later. Buy the phone or don't buy the phone, they clearly aren't going to add the jack back.
- recursive 3y agoI don't like dongles. It's another piece. It plugs into the same place the charger does.
- bigstrat2003 3y agoI hate wireless headphones because they are a strictly worse product. They cost a lot more, can be lost, and need to be charged. But the only advantage they offer (being wireless) isn't actually useful. So I use wired headphones, because they are flat out better in every way that matters.
- DiggyJohnson 3y agoNot having a wire is an obvious advantage, even if the negatives you listed are true. Obviously this only applies to me, but having to avoid yanking or catching me headphone cord significantly impacted my range of motion if I was doing anything other than walking or sitting down.
- ghostpepper 3y agoIndeed Apple AirPods are such a step above in usability of even other wireless headphones, let alone wired, that they're almost a separate product category. They're so much better than what we had before that once you've used them for a few days it's hard to go back.
- a1o 3y agoI have AirPods Pro but ended up prefering the Samsung Galaxy Buds (had many different iterations of them from Samsung). Samsung products compatibility is overall better with non-Apple products and it works ok with Apple products too. If you have to use Windows computers for work and use Microsoft Teams and all that, Samsung line works. If you want to connect with a Linux computer, Apple AirPods get terrible audio quality (and had same issue on Windows 11), but the Samsung Galaxy Buds (all of them) seem to work fine.
- jowea 3y agoMy experience is damaging cheap wired headphones way faster than with wireless. Although it certainly wasn't a 150$ wired or wireless headphone.