Early Reviews for AirPods Seem Pretty Impressive • Page 2

I just don't see the point, really. I already own a great pair of headphones that I use when I want to listen to music in good quality, and if I'm just casually listening while commuting, I go with the cheapy 3mm earbuds because if they get lost or break, it's only $10 to replace them. What happens if I lose one or both of these AirPods? An underrated function of wired headphones is that they stay attached to your device should they fall out of your ears. Yes, they've got an adapter and all these other circus hoops that you can jump through to get your experience back to normal, but I feel like this is just not a thing I needed a phone manufacturer to address right now. Not to mention plenty of people still drive cars that don't have BlueTooth functionality, so you won't be able to play music and charge your iPhone 7 on long car rides without the purchase of additional components. Why does the product feel like it can do less than my current options, out of the box?

I've been in IT for 10 years, and the media comparisons are not apt imo. Floppy drives, optical discs, and USB flash drives all come and go because of being obsolete. And even then the transition was gradual and overlapping, not ripped out from under you. Eventually there was literally no advantage to having a floppy disc drive anymore, and it just took up space, so it stopped being included in most PCs. I can think of plenty of advantages the 3mm aux jack still provides to this day; most importantly simplicity. I think criticizing it as "fear of change" is disingenuous. I'm not against wireless solutions in the future, I just don't think the iPhone 7 is properly executing it. It reeks of "We know what the consumer wants better than they do." I think they would have been far smarter to keep the headphone jack in for this model, then with the next one phase it out after people had already gotten comfortable with AirPods. There needs to be some overlap and transition period.

We'll likely get to the point where everyone's got AirPod like thingies in their ears sometime soon, but I'm predicting it will be a couple generations from now, and it will be on a universal standard like USB C - not Apple's proprietary Lightning port.

 

The trend: lots of complaining about how "it was better before" and then in 5 years everyone forgets what they were complaining about.

 

And that's why the PC world has had really gross and outdated technology for years past when they should. Apple did just rip that shit out.

It is basically exactly that. Otherwise there would still be VGA ports on our MacBooks.

Bluetooth will have to get a lot better to compete with the integrated solution of the W1. Maybe it'll happen, but, I'd bet on the integrated version.

You already can't play music and charge your phone without purchasing some additional components, cords, chargers, adapters. An aux to bluetooth dongle can be purchased for like five bucks.

 

saying they solved battery life issues is a mighty big stretch

 

As much as I like these AirPods and will be getting a pair, I understand they don't make sense for everyone, let alone all Apple users. It's perfectly fine to stick to the headphones with a chord via lightning or 3mm. That's why Apple is providing a solution for it. The main thing is that Apple is getting the ball rolling on wireless earbuds that don't rely completely on Bluetooth sound quality. Hell, even if these were going to have BT sound, it's still a worthwhile endeavor.

 

Stoked to give these a try, ha even though I'm pretty sure all the Android people at work will be making fun of me when I have them in.

 

Maybe a little longer than it should have been, but I would argue there's a happy medium between "several years too long" and "before it's obsolete, when most users are perfectly happy with it."

I'm just not clear on what the huge advantages Apple's wireless headphones are going to offer to the average consumer. With storage media you have very clear cut size capacity upgrades and read/write speed improvements. The jump from Floppy to CD to USB and now to streaming is exponential. What are comparable advantages that AirPods will offer over 3mm standard headphones? Is "tangled cords" really that big of a deal to some users, or are we going to see a huge upgrade in convenience and audio quality that justifies a $150 price point?

At the end of the day, consumers like options. When VGA ports, Floppy drives and the like stopped showing up in computers it was because we already had the next step up and were willingly using them for the most part. Maybe Apple feels that including their adapter is sufficient to provide their customers the options they need while they're still on the fence about AirPods - clearly a large number of vocal people disagree, and view it as creating a convoluted and complicated experience that seems to pressure them into spending extra money on the "solution".

Maybe this the future, and surely there are plenty of people who are completely satisfied or excited about the iPhone 7's features, but it sounds too inconvenient for my personal experience. I used to be an iPhone user but switched to Android because I grew tired of having my device's capabilities limited. I like universal standards and I dislike proprietary peripherals - that's my bias, just throwing it out there.

 

Maybe there is, but it's literally never been Apple's way of doing things. And if they didn't push forward everyone would still have 5lbs laptops with outdated ports and drives all over them. Instead most now end up copying what what Apple did 4 years later. So the market still lags behind and addresses those not ready for the change.

Well, the price will obviously come down in time, that's now tech works. Headphones were very expensive at one point too, you can buy a bluetooth set for under 20 bucks right now if you want. If in 5 years or so you can buy something similar while standing in line at the grocery store, or a pair come in the box, the price issue will be similar to headphones right now: some people buy more expensive ones, some buy corded ones, some buy cheap ones and lose them and just keep going.

As for the advantage, yeah, not having a cord attached from your head to your pocket is awesome. I'm old enough to remember corded phones and people being like "why would you ever need a cordless one, you'll just lose it." Cords by and large are inconvenient.

That is not true when Apple removed these things. And, if consumers like options, they still have options.

And a lot of people were really mad when the DVD drive went away too and they had to buy an external one if they wanted to use them. People still buy a lot of MacBooks and do PCs even have DVD drives anymore? I wouldn't even know. But if you want the DVD drive, you're not buying a MacBook. Headphones come in the box that work. Adapter comes in the box that works. I don't think it's nearly as big a deal as it's being made out to be. Hell, demand for the new phone already is outstripping supply. I bet the port is gone from most mainstream purchased phones within 3 years.

No one is stopping you from buying it! So I don't really get why you're mad about something you're not buying. I like things that work and the standard of Bluetooth — basically sucks. If I can choose between a universal standard and something that works without frustration. I choose works. When the universal standard gets up to snuff, then great. Until then, gimme the future.

 

My only reservations here are losing them and the charging+aux dilemma in the car. I didn't realize you could get a Bluetooth/aux dongle so that eliminates that. I think these are really cool, im surprised more people aren't fawning over them actually, price point aside. They'll be on my birthday list.

 

The only concern I have is that they share a similar design to that of the standard EarPods, which I find are the most uncomfortable earphones around. Constantly falling out, and the sound isn't great either. Maybe without the wires they're a bit better, but I'm going to have to try them out to see. Thought they would have tried a more IEM shape possibly.

 

The only time I can think of doing that is while at the airport.

 

I bet 80% of our IT development staff does this daily. They're often writing code, streaming music, and charging their phones at the same time.

 

I do in my car. I live atleast 15 miles from any town with a gas station.

Not everyone lives in a big city/town.

Sometimes I forget to charge at night.

 

So I was trying to do some research on the AirPods because the price seemed off putting, but apparently it's a fairly good price for "truly" wireless headphones (according to a couple articles on them). However, I saw pairs as low as 15-20 bucks from a quick google search. What's the difference I'm missing here?

 

W/o doing any fact checking probably the overall internals of the pods. Each AirPod has an A1 chip that allows Apple devices to transmit better sound than Bluetooth. They only use Bluetooth sync to a device, not for sound on Apple equipment. Also, I believe the microphone situation will be better than other products right now because each pod has a microphone.

 

The thing is, it has to use bluetooth to transmit audio in some way. Now that could be compressed in a different way or transmitted in a different way that sounds better, but the fact that it's compatible with existing phones/devices (anything which can run the latest iOS and latest OS X version) which don't have any extra chips in them means they are sending over bluetooth. But like I said, if Apple has some cool codec or design that makes the bluetooth audio better with the W1 chip, that's completely a possibility. But the device with the music on it is definitely using a Bluetooth chip to transmit.

 

Maybe they should stream music from their computer like my wife does...that would solve the phone issue...

Or buy the adaptor. Either way it's a non issue

 

In the quotes I've read from the event last week, they were calling it their "special sauce" that makes Apple devices with the AirPods a better sound quality than other devices. Obviously, I have no idea how true that actually is.

 

Compared to the rest of the market, I think these are great and I am considering purchasing them. My only concern is that they will fit like the regular earpods. But I have heard reports that they are more comfortable than their earpod counterparts. Hopefully, the Apple Store has a try on pair or a return policy for those who find them uncomfortable. Anyone have an idea when it will be released this month?

 

The regular EarPods tend to fit me better than most, so with the loss of the wire weight I have high hopes for em. My main concern then is having to use Siri just to change volume or song. How they thought it was ok to have to pause music to change volume is absolutely ludicrous.