Wireless headphones are about as stupid as wireless Internet.
Just like wired Internet, wired headphones will continue to have a place for people who need certain capabilities or ruggedness or etc., but for most people, wireless headphones are the way to go. Let me walk you through some of the advantages:
1. Working out. Wired headphones constantly get caught on things and sometimes get violently ripped from your ears. 2. Related to point one, any activity or job where you could risk a loose wire being caught is perfect for wireless headphones. It very well may be significantly safer. 3. Wireless headphones have bigger range than wires. You don't have to place your phone in your pants pockets, for instance, to use wireless headphones. You could even have your phone in your bag, and everything will still work. Much of women's fashion either has no pockets or pockets of little value. This is a major reason women carry around purses. But you can't use headphones with a phone in your purse, hence why women are often physically carrying their phones in your hands. With wireless headphones, they can keep their phone in their purse or jacket and still listen to music or respond to calls. 5. Or if you are doing something around the house, you don't always have to have your headphones on you at all times. This could be particularly useful if you are doing something like washing a car where you might get your pants wet and don't want to have your phone on you. 6. With this new class of wireless earbuds that are small and lightweight, you could keep one of two of them in much of your day to answer phone calls or ask Siri or Google questions.
If you cared about watching beautiful movies, would you downgrade to a wireless display with grainy definition, because "no wires"? That's how I feel about audio quality, and why I'm not an apple or beats customer (and why I lament the iPhone7 headphone jack changes).
Of course time will help, and in a few years the sound quality streamed over wireless should be transparent, at which point I'd gladly convert.
Or are you correlating your one experience with half a decade old BT headphones to current top of the line wireless? That's like saying all Wifi is shit because your PCMCI 802.11a Wifi card in 2005 had shit speeds and range.
Now, in the gym, I can throw my phone in my gym bag and not worry about it while working out. I'll never go back to wired.
Exactly, doing anything active with wired headphones on isn't fun. They keep getting snagged in things and get pulled off your ears.
If your ears are ill-shaped for this style of earphone, then they might fall out.
I do active things with wired headphones all the time, and they rarely get snagged on anything or pulled from my ear.
That said, not having to carry the device that provides the sound source is a convenience that's worth something (though nowhere near the additional cost of these over wired earbuds.)
Your risk of losing your headphones is really that high?
If I did need to re-pair, it's as simple as picking the phone from the phone or laptop's recently-used devices list. I usually only have to do that if the phone has decided it wants to keep talking to my headphones while I'm in the car. Pairing from scratch with the phone is as simple as holding the phone to one of the ear cups, but I've only had to do that once and I can't remember which one now.
I'm also enjoying auto-pause when I take the headphones off -- no more fiddling for the pause button when someone wants to talk to me.
Quality sounds fine to me as well. Are there any blind tests that show people can notice differences with Bluetooth? Even if the difference is slightly noticeable I doubt you would notice wearing headphones on the move, at the gym, in the office etc.
> How many times have you really found yourself genuinely bothered by wires on your headphones?
Multiple times a day. Any time you're doing anything active besides just walking (e.g. reaching for things, carrying something) or putting on a jacket the wire gets in the way. Getting them caught on a door handle and having in-ear headphones ripped out of your ears is really unpleasant.
In the end it seems more of a question of which bothers you more:
1. degraded sound quality and drastically shorter (since one is unlimited) battery life or
2. having a wire from your headphones to your audio source.
For me, there's no question that 1. is more of an issue, for others, 2. is a bigger problem. I consider bluetooth an alternative to wired headphones but absolutely not a replacement since both have tradeoffs
That said, I've personally tried a half-dozen wireless headphones over the past few months. I strongly feel that the technology has progressed to where the tradeoffs of battery life and sound quality are minimal for the general consumer.
Right now, price is probably the limiting factor in adoption. However, as the price decreases over the next 3 years, I think you'll find that wireless will become the primary means of audio consumption for the average Joe.
I would happily bet any amount of money that I can tell the difference between my nice pair of IEMs and the stock apple ones every time. It's not the bluetooth transmission that's the problem, it's the actual sound producing hardware. Customers like you dwarf customers like me, so Apple and Beats don't bother to produce great sounding phones beyond a certain point--it even appears AirPods have basically stock earphone sound quality.
I would love the convenience of AirPods, just upgraded with nicer drivers, and would be willing to pay $400 for them. There just isn't a big enough market, so I'm left feeling the pain of people that fall outside of Apple's inner circle.
This is even more perplexing to me because Apple consistently puts screen quality as a very high priority. I'm just flabbergasted at how much they could be dropping the ball for audio.
2) I don't lose things.
This is like a guy leaving a negative review of feminine hygiene products. When a product designed for people with different needs and desires than yours, it’s not necessarily “stupid.”
So IOW, you just don't like wireless headphones, whether Apple makes them or not. Thanks for sharing.
It's a pet peeve of mine. Wireless is a good thing.
I don't need more than 2 hours tops when running, so the 5+ hour battery life is great.
I never had any problems with the current earphones slipping out of my ears while running - rain, wind, or shine. Airpods seem to follow a similar model, so I don't anticipate issues there either.
Try putting your smartphone in a safe place, and have wired or wireless headset, and use some kind of smartwatch to control your phone and receive feedback on your performance. I use a Pebble 2 for that, but there's other alternatives available.
Bonus points is my phone is stored safely without saying to random strangers "rob me".
I don't come across too many even semi-consistent runners who take their phone with them. Most can't stand a big iPhone 6/7 or Samsung strapped to their arm like a piece of armor. I don't think these AirPods will improve the running-music duo at all. The technology doesn't quite cater to us yet. Lightweight, sturdier earbuds (check out yurbuds) with a cord under the shirt down to the waist isn't noticeable and is hard to beat.
Right now I have some cheap headphones I bought at Ross and even if they're wireless, the little rubber headband is uncomfortable when I'm bench pressing.
These things are going to be magic!!!
Still 1) is a good question. I thought they came with a tiny casket, so they wouldn't fall out of your pocket like that. Still subtle when you remove them from your skull.
I'm not sure what I expect with regard to staying in ears, though. They appear to be closely modeled on the wired EarPods, which in my experience don't reliably stay in the ear on their own, to the point where they are best worn with the cable wound around the crease of the pinna - both for strain relief, and so that they're easier to recover and less likely to be damaged when they do inevitably pop out.
Please someone tell em if this is not the case. I really want it to not be true.
Granted, now you have to cary a hard plastic case in your pocket.
I cannot overstate how angry this makes me. It's a very uncomfortable feeling. It can literally ruin an hour. I'd rather be randomly slapped by a stranger.
Second place: the corners of my desk (or maybe doorknobs). Basically, any protruding object in a tight space.
It's pretty unlikely to happen if you're sitting still, but it's routine if you wear them while moving around inside.