4 ms·

Tangentially related, but I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by how well Airpods (at least the original ones) worked with Android phones. I got the ori

Tangentially related, but I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by how well Airpods (at least the original ones) worked with Android phones. I got the original Airpods about a year before I switched to iPhone, and they worked pretty much flawlessly with my Galaxy S8+. I assume they missed Siri-specific features (which I don’t care for even after switching to iPhone), and the newer ones probably miss some other more advanced/iOS-specific features (like Apple’s implementation of spatial audio and speech awareness). But all the actual main functionality was there, and I never felt like I was missing out by not using Airpods with iOS. Apple Watch is a different story though, but it kinda makes sense, given how tightly integrated into iOS it is with quite a bit of private health data (that I would never trust Android with managing properly).

jsheard 2y ago
Oddly enough there is an official Android app for Beats headphones, which use the exact same Apple SoCs as AirPods ever since Apple acquired them. They surely could extend that app to work with AirPods too but they've seemingly made the arbitrary decision not to.
- freeone3000 2y ago
  Why would you want an app for bluetooth headphones?
  - jsheard 2y ago
    Equalizer config, shortcut button config, and firmware updates mainly. There isn't a standard way to do those on Android without a manufacturer-specific app. As for why you might want to update the firmware on your headphones, well... https://blogs.gnome.org/jdressler/2024/06/26/do-a-firmware-update-for-your-airpods-now/ https://blogs.gnome.org/jdressler/2024/06/26/do-a-firmware-u...
  - nl 2y ago
    Much easier to do things like setup buttons and alter the amount of noise cancelling in an app than via the limited buttons on the headphones.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    Why would you want an app for bluetooth headphones. To change settings and to update the firmware. There are no standards for these operations, so you'd have to resort to an an OEM specific app (stand-alone, or integrated into a the OS, like Mac OS) to manage these.
- klausa 2y ago
  That's not exactly true, unfortunately; because Apple's product line-up would be too easy to understand otherwise. Only the couple of first generations of Beats products after the acquisition have used the Apple-branded SoCs. The current line-up uses unnamed Beats-specific chip that has ~most (but not all!) of the same features as the W1/W2 on iOS. From the current line-up, only Powerbeats Pro (2019) and Beats Flex (2020) use Apple branded-chip, and I'm under the impression that the newer models have more Android-specific niceties. I would expect next refreshes of those Beats model to lose H1/W1/W2.

jsheard 2y ago

Oddly enough there is an official Android app for Beats headphones, which use the exact same Apple SoCs as AirPods ever since Apple acquired them. They surely could extend that app to work with AirPods too but they've seemingly made the arbitrary decision not to.

freeone3000 2y ago
Why would you want an app for bluetooth headphones?
- jsheard 2y ago
  Equalizer config, shortcut button config, and firmware updates mainly. There isn't a standard way to do those on Android without a manufacturer-specific app. As for why you might want to update the firmware on your headphones, well... https://blogs.gnome.org/jdressler/2024/06/26/do-a-firmware-update-for-your-airpods-now/ https://blogs.gnome.org/jdressler/2024/06/26/do-a-firmware-u...
- nl 2y ago
  Much easier to do things like setup buttons and alter the amount of noise cancelling in an app than via the limited buttons on the headphones.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  Why would you want an app for bluetooth headphones. To change settings and to update the firmware. There are no standards for these operations, so you'd have to resort to an an OEM specific app (stand-alone, or integrated into a the OS, like Mac OS) to manage these.
klausa 2y ago
That's not exactly true, unfortunately; because Apple's product line-up would be too easy to understand otherwise. Only the couple of first generations of Beats products after the acquisition have used the Apple-branded SoCs. The current line-up uses unnamed Beats-specific chip that has ~most (but not all!) of the same features as the W1/W2 on iOS. From the current line-up, only Powerbeats Pro (2019) and Beats Flex (2020) use Apple branded-chip, and I'm under the impression that the newer models have more Android-specific niceties. I would expect next refreshes of those Beats model to lose H1/W1/W2.