Hmmm. I'm still using the dongle that I bought two years ago - and I use it every day. I don't even have to use a dongle, my phone is an iPhone SE and it has a 3.5 mm audio port. So why do I use the dongle? Because the rest of my family has iPhones without the 3.5 mm audio port and so all our audio devices utilizing a 3.5 mm audio jack all have dongles on them. So it's easier to use the dongle rather than take it off and have to keep track of it.
I do use bluetooth headphones while working out and mowing the yard so I don't have the continual distraction of the wire. Though they sound pretty good it's a drag to have to keep them charged and they have a tendency to cut in and out when working outside. So I'd say bluetooth isn't quite there yet.
I despise the removal of the 3.5 mm jack to this day... and I still do not get why Apple removed it. What exactly did it get in the way of and what was made available by its removal? Worst move ever.
Even better sell bluetooth earphones. I have to say I am quite happy with airpods when doing dishes or running. While I am working I still like cable earphones. But all time I see people with wireless ones and it is future.
I still remember buying earphones for my walkman, cheap ones lasted couple weeks because cables broke so often. Don't even get me started on untangling cables after taking those out of pocket. Bluetooth earphones are like magic for me, I don't need hover board I know I live in the future. How do they even fit battery for 3 hours, bluetooth module, antena, charging module (it also is saying how much juice each earphone has), audio playback module.
no argument that wireless is great. but why exclusively wireless? we just want the jack as a backup / for those situations when we're using perfectly good older devices
its like taking away your charger because you have a battery
I have a harder time with the macbook going to all usbc connectors. Sorry, I don't have a usb-c to every-damn-thing-in-the-world connector, and yet I have to get useful work done.
On the phone I can see the motivation. They are down to one connector port, but really they'd like to get to zero ports. And zero physical buttons if possible. Just a seamless wafer-thin card.
> I despise the removal of the 3.5 mm jack to this day... and I still do not get why Apple removed it. What exactly did it get in the way of and what was made available by its removal? Worst move ever.
>What exactly did it get in the way of and what was made available by its removal?
They should have sealed the entire phone by moving to wireless charging. Waterproof unibody design would have been an interesting innovation. But instead we lost the jack and now they do stupid stuff like the notch. Also, I don't get the idea of making a personal computing device that is going to get handled a lot and bumped around so thin and fragile. The first thing people do is put a ugly case on their phone and buy a battery pack since it barely has enough charge for a days worth of use.
I think it's obvious Apple just sees their ideal customer to be totally wireless. AirPods, Apple Watch, iPhone X. It's hard to argue against the convenience of this kind of system, but it's a very narrow funnel that naturally angers anyone who falls outside of it.
Highly inaccurate given the number of waterproof devices with headphone jacks. $150 'airpods' should give a hint as to why they chose to remove the audio jack.
The 3.5mm jack was just fine, and I truly believe Apple removed it to sell us something, to further lock us into an ecosystem. It was a business decision. So is mine to switch to Android. I’ve got a 6 plus with the jack and I’m holding on to it, gently, for the day when I’ll go to the store and say give me the best phone with a headphone jack, knowing it likely won’t be the best phone on the market.
As I much as I am growing tired of HN discussions about Apple products descending into a circle-jerk of "no more innovation" and "dongle-gate", I must state my two gripes that I remain astounded by:
- A new iPhone and a new MacBook — out of the box — have no way to physically connect to each other.
- A new iPhone comes with earphones that cannot be used with any other device than other iPhones (e.g. not your new Mac).
Why have Apple's peripherals been broken for more than 2 years?
I was initially skeptical, but optimistic about the removal of the jack. I thought maybe this would lead to some new headphones with really good DACs or lossless wireless headphones. But alas, it is not so. I’m stuck with my same headphones and a dongle.
Did exactly the same (6s #3 is waiting in storage). And preparing myself psychologically to have to retrain my muscle memory when switching to android. Samsung doesn't seem to have given up. The audio jack is just one of many problems. A highly dysfunctional iTunes (critical to sync my mp3), constant nagging for apple paid services, etc.
I have more of a problem with the ipad. If they also ditch the audio jack on the ipad, I don't think there is a decent competitor to the ipad pro 10.5 (i.e. bigger, high refresh rate screen).
> Why don’t you get an Android phone, to which I reply: I’m not turning my texts green.
So the author is complaining about proprietary tech on his iPhone (Lightning port analog audio adapter) when open alternatives exist (3.5mm jack), while also claiming other proprietary tech (iMessage) in the face of open alternatives (standard SMS) keeps him using the iPhone.
Most android phones that are comparable to iPhone (direct monthly security updates) are a very short list.
Google's Pixel is a great phone, but it has a USB-C phone.
I wouldn't go near any other phone for lack of updates, and premature "death" of the phone from lack of updates. The hardware coming from Samsung is excellent, but their software practices are unacceptable when they are at or near the price point of an iPhone.
I understand the sacrifice though. I've always been an Android guy, but I'm left out of a lot of group chats because of it. I play on multiple sports teams where I'm the only one without an iPhone. They have a group chat for the team, and I'm the only one left off. Same with just difference friend groups. I try and get people to use whatsapp, hangouts, groupme, or just anything else and no dice. I've considered switching to an iPhone just for social reasons, but can't bring myself to do it.
I have the same problem because I don't have a facebook account. I'm left out of a lot of discussion and miss out on invitations because of it.
But if I really look back, I can't remember any of it. Nothing was actually that important. It seems like it is on the moment, but the really important stuff, people make the effort to reach out to me for it.
That's fair. It's just annoying for things like a soccer team. If someone has an update about game time or something, someone has to text me specifically.
Since when does he have to on android? Seeing as google produces about fifteen messaging apps, you get all sorts of color (and style) choices! That's if you choose a locked down phone that doesn't let you make your own themeing choice
No, it's about the fact that Apple signifies non-Apple users with green text bubbles. So he's saying that his iStatusSymbol is such a crucial component of his identity that he's petrified of the social ramifications of his peers knowing that his fealty to Apple has wavered.
Having an android phone in a group text is very much a real issue for young people. I have a very active group text and the iMessage features are used constantly in that chat. The nailed it with features like posting instagrams (and having them be inline, and videos playing) to being able for us to all double tap someones joke and hearting it. We do know a guy who has a droid and we do jab at him about his samsung and how his chats gotta sucks. I don't think you can name a group chat if there is a droid user present either. Right or wrong, people will be left out of experiences for green chat the same way you will miss things if you aren't using the same social media app as your peers.
At work I use Google Hangouts to converse with a few friends, and it blows my mind that when I post a URL, it doesn't inline it. It does now with youtube links, but they wont play inline. Think of it as Slack vs old 90's IRC. I dont know how droid chat shows up these days as I have long left the android camp with no plans of returning, but iMessage is a killer feature for Apple.
It has nothing to do with iMessage. The Messages app handles SMS text messages and iMessages, the former being green bubbles, and iMessages appearing blue. The both coexist.
Kinda. I receive a lot of voice messages from my android wielding parents, and they're always in a format that necessitates opening them in a separate app to listen to them.
It's almost like the open stuff doesn't meet their needs, and they find benefit in the alternatives.
Most people don't find simply "being open" to be a compelling virtue. Maybe more of the open source people need to recognize that, and come up with some other compelling functionality.
Apple's business model revolves around making their customers feel superior to others. That's why customers have no problem with seriously overpriced hardware, since it's an effective gate-keeping measure.
The poor average battery life of in-ear headphones is a huge problem over time.
It doesn't seem possible to be able to use wireless headphones long term, or for long periods - battery life is simply too short for the amount we use digital devices today.
5 hours of continuous use over time, is useless. 10-15 are likely a better goal. I can't just wear in-ear headphones without thinking about having to recharge my headphones. So I own 2 pairs. And then eventually forget to keep them charged too.
I've used bluetooth headphones for about a decade before the first phones lost their headphone jacks. The use case was convenience. Connecting to a laptop and phone at the time with some compromises: battery life, and sound quality (less so now). But, there was always a backup to a wired headset.
Maybe we'll start to see phone cases with a headphone jack, and a lighting/usb-c case integrated into them. Or a way for bluetooth headphones to wirelessly charge. I'd buy one.
You clearly haven't used AirPods, as I said earlier to the other commenter. They charge so quickly that if you remove them for 2-3 minutes for an occasional commercial every few hours, they stay charged all day. They charge shockingly quickly. The only reason you would not know that is if, as I said, you had not tried them. Everyone who tries them and uses them for extended periods instantly discovers this.
The thing with this comment is the assumption that there can be no valid use case possible if you can't see or imagine it. Not sure if you see it. Since you insist on beating the Airpod drum, let's unpack it.
The quick charge on Airpods is 15 minutes for 3 hours. My BeatsX are much quicker and provide a longer use - 5 minutes of charging for 2 hours.
Still, Airpods only have 5 hours talk time, which guarantees and require a recharge for 15 minute in the middle of each day - that doesn't work for many. I regularly end up on 4-6+ hours of back to back calls, plus other listening. Can't have sound cutting out during calls.
My daily drivers right now are BeatsX (8+ hours), which can be charged quicker than Airpods using a 2.4A power source. Still, a dealbreaker when they cut out in the middle of a call on the same day.
There seem to be 2 headsets worth looking at beyond AirPods or BeatsX currently that offer in-ear sound, and 9+ hours of sound:
I've owned more BT headsets (easily over a dozen) than most folks I know, including Airpods, which were promptly returned.
Airpods are very nice for casual listening of short commutes, etc. They may make people feel space age, but they are still not the 3rd or 4th gen where it's worth paying attention to most of Apple's products. They are overpriced and underpowered, but cool tech, especially the W1 stuff. I bought and returned the Bose QC30's too, only because they don't apply noise cancellation to calls.
In-ear Bluetooth sound has to evolve be forgiving enough to provide 10-20 hours of use to allow charging every other day.
What I don't understand is why you can buy a usb<->lightning cable for like $5 at any gas station, but afaict all lightning-based headphones are stupid expensive. Couldn't some company just start selling $10 lightning headphones?
"Bluetooth audio is not that great" -- that used to be true, but not anymore with the modern editions of the standard and its implementations. I can't really tell a difference anymore.
I also have >$100 bluetooth headphones, so that actually is one of the biggest factors in sound quality and lack of cutting out -- the $20 ones off Amazon etc sound not bad, have cutting out issues, etc.
Do you or anyone here have suggestions on the happy versions of the standards and protocols that result in 'can't really tell a difference'? I tried a few years ago and my middle aged 14 kHz roll-off happy with v0 VBR mp3 ears could tell a difference, I finally understood what people were talking about with listening fatigue and the like. Now admittedly it's been a few a few years and my car isn't likely to be able to negotiate a happy protocol but I'd love to get a reasonably priced stereo bluetooth headset that sounded OK.
I'd like to be smug about Android, except that the Pixel 2 removed the headphone jack as well. There are other Android phones, but now that Apple's removed it from the iPhone, the rest of market is free to copy them. See also: user inaccessible battery, floppy drives, USB (over serial) ports...
I suspect its a multi-fold corporate strategy move.
A) It pushes people to buy Airpods.
B) It helps push the image that Apple is avant garde.
C) It will make the transition easier when they remove head phone jacks on their laptops.
That being said, I agree its not very consumer friendly. There is no reason they couldn't have done this in multiple steps.
My guess is that most everyone at Apple has Airpods and that's why they think it's an improvement worth pushing people towards.
I stuck with my wired earbuds for quite a while because I didn't imagine the Airpods were much better than the various bluetooth options I had tried. It turns out that they're much better in terms of range, quality, battery life, etc. They improve the experience of using an iPhone dramatically.
Apple should include Airpods with every new iPhone even it means raising the price of the phone by $50-$100. It's the best improvement since high resolution displays and making it non-standard means most people won't even try it.
Going back to using a wired earbuds after using the Airpods is a stark reminder of the many small annoyances, like untangling the cable, having the earbuds yanked out of your ear when the cable gets caught, not being able to leave your phone on your desk while you use the phone, etc.
I would never choose to go back to wired earbuds after using Airpods and I expect most people would have the same experience.
I was formerly a dongle-hater, having gone through at least 3 or 4 of them, all of which broke under what I consider normal usage. I didn't realize you could get them replaced for free either so I spend like $30-40 on them.
Then I finally gave in and got airpods, and now I see the light. Airpods are just amazing. I was skeptical at first just like the author, but he is fighting the wrong battle. Holding onto wired headphones and complaining about the 3.5mm jack is completely missed out on how amazing wireless headphones are (note: I have no idea if other wireless headphones are as good as airpods).
I can now be charging my phone and walk around my house listening to music. I can seamlessly transition my headphones from my computer to my phone with one click. When I'm working in the shop the cord so longer snags on things and rips the headphones out of my ears. When I'm biking I can just wear one headphone and leave the other one in my pocket instead of having the other headphone dangling down. When running there is no cord bouncing around.
And airpods don't even fit my ears, I have to put a little silicone wrapper around them every time I take them out of the charger and I still love them.
Which wrapper do you use? I went down that rabbit hole a while ago and couldn't find anything appropriate. It was starting to seem like the best option was to actually get the foam earbud things for better grippiness - advantage being the case will even close over them - but they were still too loose.
I think finding a wrapper that fits your ear is very dependent on the person, but in my dongle days I used "Yurbuds Inspire 200" headphones, which are somewhat normal looking headphones with a silicone wrapper you put on them that fit my ear perfectly. When I got airpods, I just took the wrapper off the Yurbuds and it fit perfectly on the airpods and then locks nicely into my ear.
My major complaint about airpods is that I routinely use headphones for longer than 4 hours in a single session. Still, I like them so much that I own two pair and swap when the battery is low.
When running low on power I just charge them one at a time. It only takes about 15 minutes to charge each one, so I just go "mono" for 30 minutes and then I'm fully charged and don't miss any time.
I love bluetooth headphones, but I doubt you can convince a real music lover to go wireless. Unless you spend a huge amount of money, you won't get nearly close to the sound quality of real audiophile headphones.
Actually, just the fact the airpods are in-ear limit the quality of the experience they can render.
Also, I always have both wire and wireless on my table, because there is no way the wireless headphone battery is gonna enough.
This isn't true anymore. Wireless tech is advancing quickly. The latest Apple and Samsung phones now support Bluetooth 5, which supports data transmission at 2Mb/s. This is far more than enough bandwidth to transmit 'audiophile' quality audio, which is at ~320kbps.
2Mb/s in theory. I always divide by 10 the max the spec gives you to get a real estimate of the IRL output. Same for wifi, 4G or landline contracts. Reality is never that good.
Add in the mix anything that gets in the way of the signal, the oh-so-annoying latency, then the lower quality of the sound provided with in-ear head phone and voilà.
Latency is also a problem. I often write music while wearing headphones, and I need to hear the sound immediately, especially when playing very fast pieces.
From what I can find online, the AirPods have a latency of around 250ms. When playing 16th notes at 180 BPM (common for my music), I'd be playing the 4th note by the time I heard the first note.
The latency can be dealt with when watching movies by slightly delaying the visuals to sync up with the audio. That approach doesn't work when I need to hear a sound as a result of doing something.
And yet... imagine my abashment when I sit down for my 5 hour flight across the country and suddenly realize the airplane TV's don't support bluetooth.
I don't know which airline you were flying or which country you are flying across, but in the US all the major carriers that I am aware of that have (or had have, they are being phased out) seat-back video now have the ability to stream to an app on your device. (Though most times I travel I take a pair of Sony WH-1000 MX2s with me. Great noise cancelling, bluetooth or cable attachment to standard ports, overall excellent, lousy touch controls)
Of the last 5 flights I took on Delta out of Hartsfield, zero had that capability. The same goes for Southwest, Britsh Airways, Alitalia, Aerlingus and United.
Oh and the Alitalia flight I was on just last Friday still had those dual mono jack atrocities while the flight attendants only had those crappy stereo ear buds. I think one guy on the whole flight had an adapter while the rest of us got one channel of audio from a stereo signal for 8 hours. The meal was decent though.
All of the recent Delta planes with WiFi support streaming to a phone with their app, but some of the older planes still don’t. Southwest offers entertainment exclusively through a phone though, they don’t have anywhere to plug headphones into on any of their planes.
Fortunately I spent a lot more time on land than I do on airplanes, but for a frequent flyer that is spending the majority of their time airborne that could be a problem.
But even if they did work I'd still recommend a nice pair of bose quietcomfort headphones or some other noise cancelling headphones for those airline trips.
Yes, but they sound like 10 dollar earbuds. (VZ Monks are 5 bucks and are of similar sound quality.)
I can't connect a proper headphone to them, and frankly, batteries go bad. When your battery dies on those, you'll be paying another 1XX dollars. And they'll still sound like a 10 dollar earbud.
Oh, I can also get beats! So then I can get something that sounds like a 30 dollar headphone (like the Monoprice retros) for a 10x premium. If I get a 200 dollar headphone (like... say... the Sennheiser/Massdrop 6xx or the Beyerdynamic DT 770/880/990) then I expect it to last for years.
Or, if we're talking IEMs, perhaps the $100 1More triple drivers...
So, my primary complaint is that convenience isn't worth 200 dollars for something that is guaranteed to fail due to the battery.
I fully admit I'm not an audiophile. I think most people are not. I do understand that for audiophiles wireless headphones may not be the best solution, but that really isn't Apple's fault. Compromises must be made.
The official out-of-warranty Apple battery service on Airpods is $70, and anecdotally nobody seems to be complaining that the batteries life degrades anymore than you'd expect.
I absolutely adore this style of "gonzo" writing. It's like a film directed by Wes Anderson. It's not ideal for every topic, but whenever it shows up I'm delighted.
For those saying Bluetooth is the answer, that may be true for the vast majority of users, but for musicians using iOS to make music, Bluetooth audio latency is too high in many situations. Additionally, if you're connecting the USB adapter (Camera Connection Kit) to plug in a MIDI keyboard and/or audio interface, you'll need to pass those through a USB hub and add a USB DAC to plug your wired headphones into.
I wonder what the latency is on Bluetooth audio with Apple’s newer peripherals? My experience using Bluetooth speakers at home was “not for playing music” (on a keyboard).
At least my ‘SE still has a headphone jack, as does my iPad Mini 2. I usually just use the headphone jack, even if there’s a little bit of noise bleeding across it. OTOH, I do have a powered USB hub with a built in DAC in it, like you mentioned, for plugging in multiple controllers.
Thanks for pointing out this latency issue. Hopefully Apple just might reconsider the needs of a somewhat important customer subgroup. Cuz, musicians are cool :-)
I just want to listen to music on my phone using the same set of headphones that I use for literally every other device that I own, without much/any hassle.
But without the headphone jack, this use case becomes harder. Now I suddenly have to accept a trade off: either I (1) spend a lot of money for fancy headphones (e.g. Airpods), (2) deal with cheap Bluetooth headphones, or (3) deal with dongles.
My use case used to be simple, but now it costs me money, convenience, or both.
If the Macbook Pro had a lightning port, it'd make swapping from the iPhone much easier. Having the dongle floating around while using your Mac is a pain.
My main problem with the jack removal is that not only did it make life worse for many people, but there's really no reason for the removal. You want to convince everyone to use bluetooth headphones, fine! You don't need to get rid of the jack for that.
And the space excuse seems like a silly one: They managed to fit one in the quite thin and small iphone 6. The 5 / SE is plenty thin (my preferred phone right now) and has one. Really, I don't need a phone to be smaller than that, and phones keep getting getting larger anyway!
More generally with apple products, I don't need them to keep "innovating" all the time. My 2013 retina macbook pro is the best laptop I've ever used, and they had to make it thinner and remove a bunch of stuff for no good reason. sigh The latest iphones are marginal improvements over their previous iterations, especially in comparison to how huge a leap each one of the first few iterations were. And this is fine! It means you're approaching a stable, mature product. Stop rejiggering everything. :-(
I've had a LifeProof case on my iPhone for four years, so needed an adapter to use headphones anyway. I recently bought a $25 pair of Anker Bluetooth earbuds.
I'm not going back to wired music on my phone. This is better.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 167 ms ] threadI do use bluetooth headphones while working out and mowing the yard so I don't have the continual distraction of the wire. Though they sound pretty good it's a drag to have to keep them charged and they have a tendency to cut in and out when working outside. So I'd say bluetooth isn't quite there yet.
I still remember buying earphones for my walkman, cheap ones lasted couple weeks because cables broke so often. Don't even get me started on untangling cables after taking those out of pocket. Bluetooth earphones are like magic for me, I don't need hover board I know I live in the future. How do they even fit battery for 3 hours, bluetooth module, antena, charging module (it also is saying how much juice each earphone has), audio playback module.
its like taking away your charger because you have a battery
On the phone I can see the motivation. They are down to one connector port, but really they'd like to get to zero ports. And zero physical buttons if possible. Just a seamless wafer-thin card.
Johnny Ive took "worse is better" too literally.
They should have sealed the entire phone by moving to wireless charging. Waterproof unibody design would have been an interesting innovation. But instead we lost the jack and now they do stupid stuff like the notch. Also, I don't get the idea of making a personal computing device that is going to get handled a lot and bumped around so thin and fragile. The first thing people do is put a ugly case on their phone and buy a battery pack since it barely has enough charge for a days worth of use.
- A new iPhone and a new MacBook — out of the box — have no way to physically connect to each other.
- A new iPhone comes with earphones that cannot be used with any other device than other iPhones (e.g. not your new Mac).
Why have Apple's peripherals been broken for more than 2 years?
Though it's rumored the 2018 iPhones will include a Lightning to USB-C Cable in the box... https://9to5mac.com/2018/05/02/iphone-x-2-fast-charging-bund...
I have more of a problem with the ipad. If they also ditch the audio jack on the ipad, I don't think there is a decent competitor to the ipad pro 10.5 (i.e. bigger, high refresh rate screen).
So the author is complaining about proprietary tech on his iPhone (Lightning port analog audio adapter) when open alternatives exist (3.5mm jack), while also claiming other proprietary tech (iMessage) in the face of open alternatives (standard SMS) keeps him using the iPhone.
https://medium.com/message/its-kind-of-cheesy-being-green-2c...
Google's Pixel is a great phone, but it has a USB-C phone.
I wouldn't go near any other phone for lack of updates, and premature "death" of the phone from lack of updates. The hardware coming from Samsung is excellent, but their software practices are unacceptable when they are at or near the price point of an iPhone.
But if I really look back, I can't remember any of it. Nothing was actually that important. It seems like it is on the moment, but the really important stuff, people make the effort to reach out to me for it.
It's actually a good social filter.
Since when does he have to on android? Seeing as google produces about fifteen messaging apps, you get all sorts of color (and style) choices! That's if you choose a locked down phone that doesn't let you make your own themeing choice
At work I use Google Hangouts to converse with a few friends, and it blows my mind that when I post a URL, it doesn't inline it. It does now with youtube links, but they wont play inline. Think of it as Slack vs old 90's IRC. I dont know how droid chat shows up these days as I have long left the android camp with no plans of returning, but iMessage is a killer feature for Apple.
It's a small bit of friction, but it is friction.
Most people don't find simply "being open" to be a compelling virtue. Maybe more of the open source people need to recognize that, and come up with some other compelling functionality.
It doesn't seem possible to be able to use wireless headphones long term, or for long periods - battery life is simply too short for the amount we use digital devices today.
5 hours of continuous use over time, is useless. 10-15 are likely a better goal. I can't just wear in-ear headphones without thinking about having to recharge my headphones. So I own 2 pairs. And then eventually forget to keep them charged too.
I've used bluetooth headphones for about a decade before the first phones lost their headphone jacks. The use case was convenience. Connecting to a laptop and phone at the time with some compromises: battery life, and sound quality (less so now). But, there was always a backup to a wired headset.
Maybe we'll start to see phone cases with a headphone jack, and a lighting/usb-c case integrated into them. Or a way for bluetooth headphones to wirelessly charge. I'd buy one.
Battery life on them is 5 hours each.
They have a great experience when they have battery life. Just can't charge them 2-3 times a day.
The quick charge on Airpods is 15 minutes for 3 hours. My BeatsX are much quicker and provide a longer use - 5 minutes of charging for 2 hours.
Still, Airpods only have 5 hours talk time, which guarantees and require a recharge for 15 minute in the middle of each day - that doesn't work for many. I regularly end up on 4-6+ hours of back to back calls, plus other listening. Can't have sound cutting out during calls.
My daily drivers right now are BeatsX (8+ hours), which can be charged quicker than Airpods using a 2.4A power source. Still, a dealbreaker when they cut out in the middle of a call on the same day.
There seem to be 2 headsets worth looking at beyond AirPods or BeatsX currently that offer in-ear sound, and 9+ hours of sound:
New Apple Powerbeats 3 (12h): https://9to5mac.com/2017/02/18/beatsx-powerbeats3-and-airpod...
Plantronics 6200 UC (up to 9 hours) with in-call noise cancellation: https://www.plantronics.com/ca/en/product/voyager-6200-uc
I've owned more BT headsets (easily over a dozen) than most folks I know, including Airpods, which were promptly returned.
Airpods are very nice for casual listening of short commutes, etc. They may make people feel space age, but they are still not the 3rd or 4th gen where it's worth paying attention to most of Apple's products. They are overpriced and underpowered, but cool tech, especially the W1 stuff. I bought and returned the Bose QC30's too, only because they don't apply noise cancellation to calls.
In-ear Bluetooth sound has to evolve be forgiving enough to provide 10-20 hours of use to allow charging every other day.
https://www.audiomod.com/audiomod
I also have >$100 bluetooth headphones, so that actually is one of the biggest factors in sound quality and lack of cutting out -- the $20 ones off Amazon etc sound not bad, have cutting out issues, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rykmwn0SMWU&t=42s
They specifically called out Apple for losing the jack, and a year later the Pixel 2 didn't have one either.
That being said, I agree its not very consumer friendly. There is no reason they couldn't have done this in multiple steps.
I stuck with my wired earbuds for quite a while because I didn't imagine the Airpods were much better than the various bluetooth options I had tried. It turns out that they're much better in terms of range, quality, battery life, etc. They improve the experience of using an iPhone dramatically.
Apple should include Airpods with every new iPhone even it means raising the price of the phone by $50-$100. It's the best improvement since high resolution displays and making it non-standard means most people won't even try it.
Going back to using a wired earbuds after using the Airpods is a stark reminder of the many small annoyances, like untangling the cable, having the earbuds yanked out of your ear when the cable gets caught, not being able to leave your phone on your desk while you use the phone, etc.
I would never choose to go back to wired earbuds after using Airpods and I expect most people would have the same experience.
Then I finally gave in and got airpods, and now I see the light. Airpods are just amazing. I was skeptical at first just like the author, but he is fighting the wrong battle. Holding onto wired headphones and complaining about the 3.5mm jack is completely missed out on how amazing wireless headphones are (note: I have no idea if other wireless headphones are as good as airpods).
I can now be charging my phone and walk around my house listening to music. I can seamlessly transition my headphones from my computer to my phone with one click. When I'm working in the shop the cord so longer snags on things and rips the headphones out of my ears. When I'm biking I can just wear one headphone and leave the other one in my pocket instead of having the other headphone dangling down. When running there is no cord bouncing around.
And airpods don't even fit my ears, I have to put a little silicone wrapper around them every time I take them out of the charger and I still love them.
I'm basically always listening to something. Podcasts, news, etc.
Not even music.
Airpods literally don't fit my consumption needs.
Actually, just the fact the airpods are in-ear limit the quality of the experience they can render.
Also, I always have both wire and wireless on my table, because there is no way the wireless headphone battery is gonna enough.
Add in the mix anything that gets in the way of the signal, the oh-so-annoying latency, then the lower quality of the sound provided with in-ear head phone and voilà.
From what I can find online, the AirPods have a latency of around 250ms. When playing 16th notes at 180 BPM (common for my music), I'd be playing the 4th note by the time I heard the first note.
The latency can be dealt with when watching movies by slightly delaying the visuals to sync up with the audio. That approach doesn't work when I need to hear a sound as a result of doing something.
Oh and the Alitalia flight I was on just last Friday still had those dual mono jack atrocities while the flight attendants only had those crappy stereo ear buds. I think one guy on the whole flight had an adapter while the rest of us got one channel of audio from a stereo signal for 8 hours. The meal was decent though.
But even if they did work I'd still recommend a nice pair of bose quietcomfort headphones or some other noise cancelling headphones for those airline trips.
Works for me.
https://www.twelvesouth.com/product/airfly
I can't connect a proper headphone to them, and frankly, batteries go bad. When your battery dies on those, you'll be paying another 1XX dollars. And they'll still sound like a 10 dollar earbud.
Oh, I can also get beats! So then I can get something that sounds like a 30 dollar headphone (like the Monoprice retros) for a 10x premium. If I get a 200 dollar headphone (like... say... the Sennheiser/Massdrop 6xx or the Beyerdynamic DT 770/880/990) then I expect it to last for years.
Or, if we're talking IEMs, perhaps the $100 1More triple drivers...
So, my primary complaint is that convenience isn't worth 200 dollars for something that is guaranteed to fail due to the battery.
The official out-of-warranty Apple battery service on Airpods is $70, and anecdotally nobody seems to be complaining that the batteries life degrades anymore than you'd expect.
Frankly, I rate the AirPods far on top of the list of my favorite tech products. My Apple Watch a distant second, and I love my watch.
It's the difference between me being willing to read this site in front of my little kids vs. not.
Its risky, but when done well...you get this.
I wonder what the latency is on Bluetooth audio with Apple’s newer peripherals? My experience using Bluetooth speakers at home was “not for playing music” (on a keyboard).
At least my ‘SE still has a headphone jack, as does my iPad Mini 2. I usually just use the headphone jack, even if there’s a little bit of noise bleeding across it. OTOH, I do have a powered USB hub with a built in DAC in it, like you mentioned, for plugging in multiple controllers.
Thanks for pointing out this latency issue. Hopefully Apple just might reconsider the needs of a somewhat important customer subgroup. Cuz, musicians are cool :-)
(And Apple is all about being “cool”, right?)
But clearly no-one at Apple ever gets on a plane.
https://www.twelvesouth.com/product/airfly
But without the headphone jack, this use case becomes harder. Now I suddenly have to accept a trade off: either I (1) spend a lot of money for fancy headphones (e.g. Airpods), (2) deal with cheap Bluetooth headphones, or (3) deal with dongles.
My use case used to be simple, but now it costs me money, convenience, or both.
And the space excuse seems like a silly one: They managed to fit one in the quite thin and small iphone 6. The 5 / SE is plenty thin (my preferred phone right now) and has one. Really, I don't need a phone to be smaller than that, and phones keep getting getting larger anyway!
More generally with apple products, I don't need them to keep "innovating" all the time. My 2013 retina macbook pro is the best laptop I've ever used, and they had to make it thinner and remove a bunch of stuff for no good reason. sigh The latest iphones are marginal improvements over their previous iterations, especially in comparison to how huge a leap each one of the first few iterations were. And this is fine! It means you're approaching a stable, mature product. Stop rejiggering everything. :-(
I'm not going back to wired music on my phone. This is better.