Wireless anything is a hard no for me due to poor experience with it. Even though I did order the Apple headphones it’s always good to have a back up. I guess you never have guests? How am I supposed to look at that and not come to the conclusion that the wireless market is still wildly inferior to the cheap, reliable, high-quality audio devices that came before? I use the WF-1000XM3 and WH-1000XM4 and the pairing of the WF-1000XM3 works fine for me, but the ANC of the over the ears XM4 (as well as your WH-1000XM3) is superior. I'm happy to trash Apple where appropriate and I've got plenty of complaints. Sucks to be you, time to buy a new iPhone again ($$$) if you don't want your headphones to stop "just working. I'll probably never buy another pair of corded headphones. > I see you’ve never used AirPods between multiple devises. ...as far as I'm aware, Spatial Audio does /not/ work on ATV4K. I bought the airpods when they came out. MacDonalds make the best hamburgers because they sell so many of them? XM3 was 200 on BF. My entire argument has been in the previous posts that the XM4 isn't worth the price over the already excellent XM3. You do not need to spend $500 if all you need is headphones that do their job. If what OP is saying is true, then a $50 over-ear pair of Koss headphones will be more reliable and have fewer daily annoyances than most bluetooth-only headphones. The same with Apple. They're reliable and sound quality is perfectly fine for what I want from it. Audio manuals and audio service pdf instructions. Target has curated thoughtful gift lists filled with lots of ideas for all the special woman you know. People buying and gifting pair of > 200$ headphones every year as if speakers are some kind of tech that gets outdated. But my response isn't much better. You can get Sony XM4s for $279 right now. no! The cost isn't just $500, it's also the opportunity cost of going with any other competing (and possibly better) product in the future. > They call out fake third party batteries. I really wish Apple would figure out how to make stuff just work. If my kids are asleep we turn the TV volume down. But when it comes to my devices, I really don't want to waste my time trying to figure out why this or that device, doesn't pair with, or work well with, my other device. Especially considering that Jabra's official support had confirmed to me that you can only be actively paired to 2 devices at a time with the Elite headsets (, I don't really care if you believe me. Regardless of the cause, imagine that someone discovers a market appeal to the effect of: "The problems are not your fault, we have stuff that just works." I mean, one dead laptop is the equivalent of many lifetimes worth of AirPods in terms of waste. The number of times I’ve had to pull my laptop out of the overhead compartment on a flight to turn off Bluetooth so I could pair them with my iPad meant I eventually gave up using them. "The SFO airport gate" is actually "one of the gates at SFO", which is to say, it's a gate in San Francisco Airport. Happens to me with Powerbeats Pro too (usually the left one for reasons unknown). - Apple runs one of the most comprehensive recycling and trade-in programs out there. Better microphone? Does your solved problem bluetooth headphones RELIABLY connect to your current device (without having to unpaid with another device). Far from SF? I can fool the system easily by rotating my head at a speed that is slower than a snap rotation, side to side. No I'm not (overselling). Little things like that make it a really nice experience that I haven’t seen other vendors match. I already don't need a new phone, but the further lack of a headphone jack dis-incentivizes me from considering further. Expensive tech gear is somewhat like an entry level luxury vehicle for the masses. Model, please? And if you do struggle with it on occasion, having the option to flip between Bluetooth & 3.5mm is easy peasy. The $30 Q10s literally sound better. Second, the relationship between your ears and the sound sources don't change with headphones. It was one of their most praised features. If the tech exists for in-ears though, hopefully it will/does exist in over-ear. Yes. I'm an Android developer so they're handy to keep around.). Lots of stuff works with non-Mac hardware. Chinese font issues I've given up on entirely and I just have the UI in English. >. With both of these, there have been times when the cord got annoying, but I really like having that option. But only if you're using an iPhone. For what it's worth, connectivity for me with the Pros has gotten much better with Big Sur. I've recently installed OS X 10.10 - macOS 11.0 dozens of times each with no eyes or hands, and at least one of the people involved was frustrated every single time. I feel like this is a pretty standard feature of most earbuds but I don't think there are many headphones/cans that do that. > You do not need to spend $500 if all you need is headphones that do their job. There is no universal algorithm that works for everyone. 3,023 Likes, 39 Comments - William & Mary (@william_and_mary) on Instagram: “Move-In looks a little different this year, and we know there are mixed emotions right now. Find the user manual you need for your audio device and more at ManualsOnline. For that reason I basically never recommend Apple products as if they are the only ones to "get it right.". While I like the ergonomics, I'm wondering how much of the lack of it in non-apple headphones products is the result of Apple not fully supporting them and thus, monopolistic practices. No clue what happened to this company, but the AirPods are undoubtedly the most frustrating Apple product I've ever owned. There are headphones in that price range that are much better sounding too, I bet. SBC is barely passable for music, and has hundreds of ms of latency. Inventing arbitrary character flaws because someone wants to do something as harmless as be able to switch audio sources seamlessly, and then being so uncreative that the only reason you can come up with is to procrastinate work. I've used at least a half dozen bluetooth headphones on at least a dozen different laptops/desktops/phones over the last decade... they have all had some issues with connections at various times. Yes, for the 5 years I’ve had Bluetooth headphones this has never been an issue. Sure they're $500, In my experience AirPods work like magic 99% of the time, but the 1% that they don’t is. Having wireless headphones that support a Bluetooth standard (because no two implementations are the same) that allows multiple speakers for a single source, is very nice. The outcome isn't decided by you alone or what device you are pairing with - guaranteed. I've had these new ones almost two months and have probably charged the batteries once. Sure - stuff out there works - but figuring out the perfect phone carrier / phone provider for example is annoying. You can even pair two different sets of AirPods now. Part of that, I suspect, is because you have to use the stupid Bose app to pair your BT headphones. Nothing else "just works" like that, and it's one reason people like to stay within the Apple ecosystem. This can be fed into the software algorithms to create more accurate spatial cues for your unique ears. Or my phone will try and connect to the non-charging one in the case, leaving me with no sound when I'm not actually using ear phones. They signal you have enough disposable income to buy them. Mostly because I doubt that vast majority of people use that metric as a baseline measure of high quality. Decades-old Bose QC 15 headphones still work because the battery is replaceable. Bluetooth still can't support simultaneous high-quality voice and audio. They cost half as much as the Apple cans and are all but guaranteed to sound better than the plastic cones Apple uses. Apple is a premium brand. You don't need the app what so ever unless you want to do a firmware update. I don't know your situation, but I have a feeling you might have gotten a faulty unit, in which case a warranty request might be helpful. Is it embarrassing to admit, op helped me understand the joke with the additional lines? My Airpods don't. Their case looks worse. I also like NFC but it's less adopted. Yes, you can get most of this functionality on a windows or linux machine, with an android phone, airpod replicas, and an android based smart watch but the fluidity of the apple integration is unmatched. I’ve never had a firmware upgrade fail on my set of Jabra Elite 75t’s yet, and I think I’ve done three, maybe four since I got them. No, and with the update process it really shows. Maybe with a heatgun? Reviews I read suggest only a marginal difference in ANC area. I loved my AirPods. It's been frustrating. I guess I'm lucky then. The same is true on macOS, but the ecosystem does not tempt you unless its something you actually need. Google in particular is extremely bad at this. Agreed with the first, heavily disagreed with the second. For some situations... Not in my home, where I use them. I've always had a no-bullshit customer experience - fast and easy returns & replacements, generous policies & even being able to return outside the window, no haggling about issues. Will you guarantee me that samsung won't jam ads onto my TV after I buy it? I have a pair of Anker in-ears (Liberty Pro 2) for working out and they're great for that. Nevertheless, they have the highest NPS / customer satisfaction scores in the industry, if we're to go by the data. Only one is playing. I guess "it just works" as long as you keep upgrading to their latest. My QC35s disconnects every 10 minutes on Windows desktops or Apple Macbooks. I have the XM4s, and the multi device support does work. Wireless noise-cancelling over-ear headphones are not a solved problem byfar. I'm not trying to make the point that one is better than the other, my point for apple users is that the experience on windows/android isn't as bad as they think it is and my point for windows/android users is that you're not missing out on much or anything at all from the apple ecosystem. I setup a macro with BetterTouchTool on my Mac to turn on bluetooth and connect to my Airpods. The button shuffle is only needed to switch to other previously connected devices (and that also takes only another few seconds). But if your headset is with bluetooth 4.2, then for above first step, You can take out the two earbuds out of the charing case, and press two earbuds for three seconds, the earphone are turned on. And while I'm sure plenty of people disagree about bluetooth reliability, enough people here do seem agree with them that their comment is the first one you see when you enter the discussion. Same. Talking like other bluetooth headsets don't work is also not my experience. Of course. If Apple manages to match and/or beat Sony's sound+ANC quality, but bring all the connectivity and great multi-device pairing features of current Airpods to Airpods Max, I am sold. I recently got an Apple watch and the setup process was sublime. And they are super functional - pockets with zippers are super handy for AirPods, Passport, wallet etc. Any third-party devices don’t get special audio, as far as I’m aware. I'm clicking on another video, sound is coming from the loudspeaker. It seems to me Apple's way of doing business is if it's not an Apple product, we have no interest. This is some solid capitalism. I draw the line with replacable battery because it renders the device inherently useless for its purpose (mobile use case). But don't all other bluetooth earphones also work 99% of the time? Once the OS releases became free and were no longer distributed on physical media there was a time when releases would be downloaded from the App Store. Except for the wire part, these are great! If other headphones have these features, I'm open to them. Removing that little wire apparently makes this a difficult engineering challenge. There was an article on HN recently about someone who took apart their AirPods. You can use a third party tool on MacOS or an SMB client on Android. Yeah, it seems Apple has figured out the way to make people accept their ads and upselling - brand everything Apple. For I'm not sure how long, OS installations have been effectively click and approve the license with no other input required for the past decade (and with increasingly less information displayed during the install process). I wonder what goes wrong for you. Have taken the blessed path on Ubuntu 20.04LTS with a Lenovo workstation, however on updating the bootloader spontaneously decided to Bork itself. I get this use case, but I'm always suspicious how useful the workflow such "integration" supports may be. My bose qc35 II headphones constantly drop connection or connects to my ipad instead of my laptop. I have a different take on this. Their biggest defect in my use has been that their folding mechanism leaves a slight indent on one point on the earcup foam. Audeze LCD-4z owners laughing at $500 being touted as expensive. Spatial audio is a replacement of true surround sound to you? You can use airpods with android phones or your tv or whatever other device supporting bluetooth headsets, just like you would with non-airpods wireless headphones. It's amazing that people think AirPods Max will be the first ever good set of on-ear wireless headphones. I'm sure visual sensory input factors somewhat into how audio positioning is being processed by the human brain. I think this is partially because they just elect not to support anything that would make it too hard to do that. I have a few different sets of headphones ranging from cheap workout bluetooth ones to the over ear I use for work. Some headphones block outside noise, some don't. Android pairs newer bluetooth devices essentially the same way apple pairs airpods now and windows doesnt still have all the issues from windows vista that made them switch in the first place and has support for way more devices than apple ever will. I'm watching movies with this. A Tesla contains orders of magnitudes more plastic, electronics, and batteries that will one day be junk and you will go through maybe 3 sets of AirPods before you trade in for a newer model EV? They should charge even more. Almost all bluetooth headphones on the market have a 3.5mm jack on them at least currently and every device that dropped the jack works with one of those very cheap usb c to 3.5mm adapters. The real lock-in begins with the AirPods, iWatch, etc. I think Apple does it's best when the integration of hardware and software is really important and there is a very low tolerance for, I won't say bugs, but issues. Updating OS on wife’s MacBook seems like comparatively opaque process. I have had issues with Windows and Linux, but nothing close to bricking my machine. Humans have limited ability to discriminate between directly in front and directly in back based solely on cues encoded in the audio. Apple's spatial audio head tracking is unreliable at best. I just got an apple TV and I laughed when I saw that. Works fine for taking meetings, calls, listening to music, etc. You have to believe in your joke and be OK that some people won't be hit over the head with it. They don't see the future implications of being locked-in. I still use a three year old iPhone 8 and it just works with latest OS updates. In the past ten years, I've spent about 400 dollars for a pair of Yamaha studio monitors fit for professional audio use, certainly for light audio entertainment as well. There’s a physical switch that you can hold to enable Bluetooth pairing. Now it's truly magical 100% of the time. (Amazing feature for Zoom calls! If someone tells me my bargan-tier Samsung phone is slower than molasses, I'm not gonna say "yeah but I like the blue color". The XM4s were a bit of an impulse buy when I needed good ANC for my frequent Zoom calls while sharing an apartment with noisy family. Oh it’s plenty obtuse, but you can get a lot working in a very reliable fashion. My only real complaint with that is it has to be initially configured in the companion app, and enabling multi device support disables certain higher quality codecs. You’re not seriously rich enough for a S-Class Benz, but you could live that aspiration via older model CLA. In my experiences Apple products don’t always “just work”, but since they’re designed with the overconfident belief that they. When switching between the iPad and one of my MBPs I have to manually disconnect from the iPad first, but that's only with the iPad for some reason. As a software developer I don’t subscribe to the “no adults in the room” attitude, but I know this stuff is hard. The Jabra, OTOH, requires literally zero interaction for me. Every company does ecosystem lock to some basic level but Apple takes it to a whole new level and clearly people seem to be ok with it (and even praise them for it?). Ever hear of AptX or LDAC? That's a perfect market. A lot of this research was done at NASA Ames in Mountain View. https://support.roku.com/article/360057488733. Shop Target for Speakers & Audio Systems you will love at great low prices. Even with the short battery life they have quickly become my default headphones. Other than iphone I'm very late to apple's world, but as I get older, I just love that stuff works and I don't feel like I'm getting scammed every second. The environmental impact alone should give one pause. Not even kidding, night and day. When you turn it on it pairs to the last device it was paired to. Choice is what makes things great! Can you guarantee my Samsung TV won’t start showing me ads? Power-management issues I've learned to work around - but again is something that requires regular actions/changes in behaviour that serve as a continual reminder that there are issues. One person will constantly be cursing at their machine, running into indescribable hang-ups, and so forth. My old android tablet has been unsupported since the DAY I bought it. All Apple in ear Airpods get destroyed if anyone replaces the battery. If you're not familiar with Apple ecosystem, it might seem peculiar. Literally a walking cliche but may as well own it. If you have any issues all you can do is the “put them back in the case and hope that kicks them back in line” dance, to mixed effect. > they'll describe something that makes it clear they haven't tried any Linux distro in a long time. An iPhone and a MacBook are all I need, I don't pay for any of their subscription services (Apple Music) etc. You can slide and release the power button from the middle position to the forward position to jump to the next connection. I’ve never had to use or been tempted to use an app for them on the PC, only using the one on my iPhone. Nice alternative for someone with no other living human around. I have tried Jabra headsets, Sony, Bose, and others and none of them even come close so I have to politely disagree with that statement. Actually, as a both an Apple user and high-fidelity music lover, I'd happily pay $549, if and only if they sound comparable to the peers at this price point. Because in the past most Bluetooth headphones were terrible and pretty much everyone got in pairing hell at some point. You have to use the Bluetooth Menu, but I haven’t seen any issues. It ruined the brand for me and I can't imagine buying another pair of AirPods. Haven't had a chance to test that feature myself tho, so YMMV. At times, I don't even have listen to anything and it still works. It's no Sennheiser, Grado, RHA or similar but, they're not a pair of cheap cans either. Which one is the high-end, comparable non-Apple model that I can slap a pair of AA batteries in? The sound quality is trash but I'm ok with that as I got them for active noise cancellation. One nice thing is the EQ in the Jabra app - it’s not “adaptive” like AirPods, but I consider manual EQ a better feature if it’s an either/or decision. The question this product answers is "How can we have consumers get used to another $500 Apple expense every two to three years? This is the most HN discussion of a joke I've ever seen. Yes, but you can only do that with 2 active devices at a time. Compare to XM3/4 3.5 mm, Bluetooth, superb ANC, USB-C (in contrast to microUSB or lightning), and the battery is good... but I doubt it still is in 3 years. I agree, save I wouldn't describe it as dramatically better. So, why would not apple devices only support these features on Apple headphones? I think this is much faster than going to either OSs bluetooth settings menu. ... Crock-Pot 4.5qt Manual Slow Cooker - Silver SCR450-S. 4.5 out of 5 stars with 477 reviews. For what it is worth, I have the Sennheiser Momentum Bluetooth headset. Apple has also a multi-year lead on things like chip performance in their devices (and more subjectively hardware design, software performance too). I have Macs and PCs and the only device that I can use wirelessly without any issues are my Airpods. And I have used bluetooth headphones for over a decade, I find it hilarious that when apple suddenly had a offering that it suddenly became obsolete with cords. > Does your solved problem bluetooth headphones RELIABLY connect to your current device (without having to unpaid with another device). - Do an in warranty battery replacement (within 1 year). I've seen people take apart them on YouTube for silly mods before, should surely be possible? I also recall some issues when developing Arduino stuff because of the USB connection to the Arduino. minutes of talktime. And no, other companies you buy your totally wireless bluetooth headphones from do not make all this easier, but MUCH MUCH harder. And I use bluetooth headphones every day. There's no way to set the codec on the Mac unless the individual software has an option for it. ", Yes. We put up with it only for the exclusives (Apple TV, HBO Max) and Apple only features (Apple device mirroring). It's a new shiny toy that they know will work excellently within their ecosystem. On numerous occasions the right/left airpod gets unpaired. Agree with basically all of this. In a world of disappearing headphone jacks, it's important to be able to use your headphones effectively.Whether you're listening to music, taking in a podcast, or watching video, Bluetooth is a great way to go. 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