AirPods | Hacker News Reader

AirPods

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Three things I really hope they do:

1) Come out with a phone case that can hold the AirPods, and ideally charge them (Maybe enhance the battery case they already have?). I don't want yet another thing in my pocket, especially one I also have to remember to charge. Let me charge my phone, which can then charge my airpods. Let me always have my airpods on me by attaching them to my phone.

2) Make a "Find my Airpods" feature that plays a really loud ass beep out of the headphones when they inevitably fall out of my ears/hands/pocket/bag/everywhere

3) Enable more tap commands than just Siri. Siri sucks so much. And I don't want to be on an airplane loudly repeating "Turn up the volume"

You should work for apple because this is exactly right! How can a random guy on HN get it but engineers and executives at the biggest and most resource rich company in the world not get it.

Also, the airpods have some serious bluetooth headset douchbag factor going on. Shoulda made them skin color tones to offset it a bit.

Most of Apple's products have a status-display thing going for them, at least when they initially hit the market.

When the iPod first came out, the white earbuds were a sign that you were listening to an iPod and not to some cheap Walkman. (There was a period of time when people were advised not to wear them in some places, because advertising that you had a $500 gadget in your pocket was a good way to get mugged.) That sort of thing isn't accidental.

These look to be the same way. They're not supposed to blend in, because at least some of the people who buy them initially want to be seen wearing them. At some point in the future once that market is saturated, I suspect Apple will come out with a more subtle version (probably in black, not flesh-toned; it's been a long time since Apple has done earth/skin tones).

I'm not exactly sold on the AirPods, but when I first saw them being worn in the video, I smiled. They say "the future."

The problem is that they look ridiculous. There are similar products (Bragi Dash, a Samsung model, and one other competitor whose name escapes me) that fit entirely in your ear instead of needing a bit poking down.

Like many of the comments today, a matter of opinion. It does seem to be a transitional form. So similar to the previous wired EarPods.

And who knows, for all the ragging on Apple for making form-over-function decisions right now, that part sticking out improves performance. Gotta wait to see what they're actually like to use.

Skin color tones so you look as if you have tumors dangling out of your ears? I don't think so.

A stark white is perfect: high-contrast, but not flashy.

U would be amazed at what happens at mega companies. Blown Away.

Funny story: the other talking to the CEO of a mega corporation. They fired a senior person here, #1 employee. Told him about it, he did even know it happened. And she reported to him. He thought she was on vacation.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Their site specifically markets the bright white device against black skin. They want them to stand out - it's a status symbol.

Skin tone for you is probably not skin tone for me.

If someone isn't warming up an injection-molding machine right now to produce a lanyard / anti-loss-thing for these, they are leaving money on the table.

Best solution is to act like regular earphones while plugged in charging and then you can disconnect

Exactly. They should have a detachable cable which basically turns them into regular earphones (while simultaneously charging them). I suspect many people would simply leave them attached to the cable at all times, just as they do with their current earphones.

Then, you could unhook them if you wanted to go wireless for a jog or something.

"wanted to go wireless for a jog"

I'd probably do the reverse WRT them falling out and getting lost.

True. Maybe working out would be a better example.

This. Have a lightning connector cable that Ys up to both of these and charges them so that you can keep on listening.

Edit: So at the top, these could basically fit into like a sleeve. Could also have an attachment that hooked over the ear or into it like some headphones do. That way they're less likely to fall out.

Man, I wish I knew someone with some manufacturing connections to get this going.

from the linked page:

>... thanks to a charging case that holds multiple additional charges for more than 24 hours of listening time.5 Need a quick charge? Just 15 minutes in the case gives you 3 hours of listening time.

Your wish #1 has come true!

Five hours battery life is a killer. I can't even get through a flight without having to charge my headphones -- a no go for me.

They take 15 minutes to recharge for another 3 hours of listening. Minor inconvenience.

Minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of life doesn't mean it can't be a major inconvenience in the moment. And when I'm out, or indisposed to charge my headphones, in that moment it's a major inconvenience. Especially for a solution that went in search of a problem that didn't exist.

I believe you're firmly in the camp of first world problems. As far as I can tell they are the first wireless earphones to even address this problem with not one (external battery) but two (rapid charging) solutions at once.

If you're spending $159 on wireless headphones for your iPhone, you're probably already the poster child for the first world and are thus entitled to complain about first world problems.

Sure, but we're having this conversation on a forum for members of a rather upper middle class profession using a $1000 computer, talking about a $600 phone. We're all firmly in the camp of first world problems. Being extremely fortunate to have these problems doesn't delegitimize them. Nobody's saying it's on par with anything truly terrible in the world.

Thankfully a pair of wired headphones is included free with every phone, just for you.

What I'm wondering is if you can charge just one earbud at a time while using the other.

For a lot of uses (for example: podcasts, casual movie watching on a long flight, getting driving directions on a road trip), it'd be entirely practical to use one earbud at a time and so have effectively 24+ hours battery life.

That's a great idea. Would be neat to have one earbud in for inevitable siri api integrations too, so I can have my emails and texts and slack messages read to me.

Right at the top: "Optical sensors and motion accelerometers work with the W1 chip to automatically control the audio and engage the microphone, giving you the ability to use one or both AirPods. "

No, it's a V1 product issue, not a "minor inconvenience."

It's a shame, as if it were 10 or 12 hours, I'd have bought them seconds after the announcement.

Oh well. Here's hoping for 2017!

Yeah I think Apple dropped the ball on this one. Hoping the EOZ One headphones I bought on Kickstarter last the full 9 hours they claim.

It's the first gen of a new product. They will only get better from here. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they iterate on it annually to go along with new iPhones.

My 3.5mm jacked headphones are even less of an inconvenience in this regard.

Also, what happens when the battery dies (permanently) on these? Just have to buy another pair?

It's not unusual for me to fall asleep most of a long haul flight. In ear monitors that do a lot of noise cancelation/isolation really are a help in dealing with the noise of an airplane. So, for me, not needing to charge is pretty key.

That said, apple ear buds and my ears never really did get along.

Sometimes, I will use over ear

They claim that a 15-minute charge from the case gives 3 hours of battery life. That seems fairly usable -- perfect for a charge-up during bathroom breaks.

A perfect solution, because there's no way in hell you'll ever want to take these into the bathroom. Tilt your head to the right and plop, you just dropped $75 in the toilet.

At least in a toilet it'll be right next to all the other turds Apple has come out with over the years.

whamlastxmas>> You must be a modern day version of one of Aesops Fables.

You _could_ buy two sets to get around this limitation.

or not

Five hours with a brand new battery. After 365 power cycles expect a lot less.

365*5 = 1825 hours. What are you listening to :O

Slowed down whale song.

I hate wires with a passion and love the concept of wireless headphones. But these look like they are shaped just like the wired apple earpods, which fall out of my ears with the slightest movement or breeze. So now I'll also immediately lose them as they fall out on the street.

This is the problem I have as well. It doesn't matter how fancy they are if they don't fit in your ears. For this reason, I can only wear ear clip headphones, not ear buds.

You might want to try Sol Republic Relays. These are the only in-ear headphones I found that stay in place.

One word missing from this product page is "Bluetooth".

Do these use a proprietary wireless protocol that is only compatible with the iPhone?

So they just deprecated hundreds of perfectly viable audio accessories which have better sound quality than their proprietary premium product just so you are dependent on yet another Apple product? Maximum vendor lock-in. And please don't say "everyone can make a Bluetooth speaker". They will probably come up with some artificial license which makes it "iPhone certified" so that even there they can squeeze some cold cash.

It really bothers me how Apple is so obsessed with making ridiculous amounts of money and the tricks they pull to make it work. And somehow, it works!

> just so you are dependent on yet another Apple product

The hardware requirements of a headphone jack put some very real limitations on phone design (waterproofing, interior space taken up by the digital -> analog hardware, etc).

Whether that was the driving cause or not is in the air, but "getting people to buy Lightning stuff" isn't the only reason to do it.

Certainly not waterproofing, given that waterproof Android phones have had headphone jacks for a few years now.

The iPhone 7 is not waterproof but splash resistant at most. Xperia line is and it has a jack. Interior space? You noticed the camera bulge, right?

It is a fad they are pushing.

I wonder what the loss rate of these will be?

As in, how many will fall out of ears to be lost, as they are not physically tethered to the wearer?

The closest thing out there right now would probably be the Bragi Dash, so owners of that would be the people to straw poll to get an idea.

Except the Dash is very specifically engineered to remain in the ear. It's one of their selling points. Apple made no mention of this and at first glance it doesn't look like they had the same concern. For example, the Dash doesn't have parts that extend out and down beyond the ear itself like the AirPods do. Seems like a simple way to accidentally knock them out.

Seems everyone could wait until they try these on, instead of the hot takes that Apple probably didn't engineer their headphones to stay in the ears.

True, but I'm not spending $160 for the privilege of being the guinea pig.

Yeah - living in New York and taking the subway means I'm never buying these things, because if one falls out of my ear at any point during my commute I'll probably never find it again.

They will get stolen way before we have time to lose them.

I've had these earbuds for a month now, not sure why they haven't gotten more love so far: http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-iconx/

They are pretty much perfect, if only their battery life wasn't so horrendous.

Sounds like you answered your own question.

Perfect and Horrendous all in the same sentence.

Nice.

My problem with wireless headphones has always been two things:

1) Quality of sound. I can often hear artifacts from low bit-rate encoding.

2) Latency. Don't expect to use them in combination with a game or musical instrument attached to a computer.

Any word on if either of these problems have been solved?

As a parent and an owner of an Apple TV rendered useless by them losing the remote, I'll pass.

Can you use the ios remote app?

I could and did until about two weeks ago when the Apple TV decided to disassociate itself from home sharing on my account for some reason. I can't get it back on home sharing without a remote though. Strangely I can still use it with air play just fine.

How can you lose the Apple TV remote, it's not going to walk out of your house on its own?

No but the kids could walk out of the house with it.

They solved hard problems in need of solutions. Kudos to the team designing this!

My problems with earbuds is they fall out, some quicker then others. But they will fall out, making me stress about it and as a result giving me a substandard experience.

I hope improved future versions will give the ability to order personalized earbuds based on a 3d-ear measurement.

Until that time, I'll keep using the Bose QuietComfort 25.

I don't even have these and I've already lost them.

The most cliche joke ever already

I think these look amazing. I've always wanted a pair of tiny bluetooth headphones + mic that don't suck. I am sure that Apple will live up to its quality expectation... if they do, I won't be sad that the stereo-minijack is gone.

I don't know... I'm not feeling the "white stuff drooping out of my ear" look.

Although these have some nice ideas in them, I had the old disappointing Jobs-era Apple bluetooth earbud so I am not going to rush out and try them. Also, they don't seem to work with Apple TV which is a shame.

Also: right and left are distinguished by printing on the device. Why wouldn't they put a flat part or a little bump so you could tell the two apart by feel before trying to get them to stay in your ear?

They are asymmetrical (the "porthole" points to the front) so you can easily tell them apart by feel with a bit of practice.

That's true of the earbuds but I am forever getting them "wrong" too

If Apple has somehow made Bluetooth non-awful, I'll be interested. But I'm not holding my breath.

I can only take so many wireless items. I absolutely hate charging things.

Having them chargeable over the phone's lightning port (like the iPad stylus) seems like such an obvious option. No silly carry case required. I wonder if they looked into this.

Looking at the last slide "Automatic setup. Seamless switching."

What exactly is the W1? Can it work with an older MacBook, or would you need a not-yet-announced MacBook?

The footnote says that it requires an iCloud account.

Are these even Bluetooth? Maybe they always remain connected to your iPhone, and the other devices stream to the iPhone first.

Looks like these are indeed Bluetooth http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEF2AM/A/airpods

Connections AirPods: Bluetooth

And then further down Compatibility: iPhone 5 and up

iPhone 5 has Bluetooth 4.0 So I'm guessing the pairing information is shared via iCloud

I hope Apple will sell an AirPod (either left or right) individually since these are definitely going to be the socks of the technology world.

Perhaps a dumb question, but I assume these don't stop working in airplane mode?

If you don't call these airbuds you are dead to me.

Hell no.

I think this has done it folks. After almost 10 years of iOS devices it's time to move on. Vote with your wallets and reject this garbage.

Either way, I think it's kinda odd how "Think Different" has evolved (and is a footnote) after 100 million devices have shipped.

Surely this is an excellent example of thinking different.

So we have to watch a Flash video to learn more. Oh - the irony.......

I didn't see a Flash video, but perhaps I missed it? There's an MP4 at http://images.apple.com/media/us/airpods/2016/94916564_4bfa_... .

That's not a flash video.

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