Hacker News Reader

Comment by jimbokun | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but other wireless headphones already exist, no?

The reviews I've heard of these and the Beats Solo3 (which use the same chip) indicate that the wireless connection on these is absolutely rock solid. This includes a very picky friend of mine who got a set of Solo3 headphones; he's blown away. I'd like to see the AirPods in the wild for a month or so before I totally believe this, but early indications are good.

I have used cheapo sub-$20 SoundBot headphones for almost a year and a half now, and have literally never had an issue with wireless connectivity.

EDIT: Ah, throwanem (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13170546) points out the crucial difference between headphones and earbuds. For me, earbuds are undesireable, so I didn't realise that the form factor was meant to be a selling point.

Headphones or earbuds? The former have considerably more space in which to put an antenna that extends past the side of the wearer's head; earbuds have a pretty strict limitation in this regard, and indeed all the ones I've tried (ranging in price from about $10 to about $60) have at least occasionally dropped signal with the phone in my front trouser pocket on the same side as the earbud. For AirPods never to do so would be a significant differentiator in my experience.

https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-airpods/preview/

Until, of course, they start to produce some of the same little pops and interruptions I always get from Bluetooth earphones when I'm walking. I don't seem to get quite as many with the AirPods, but the skips and interruptions, when they happen, make me wish for something wired.

Did they stay connected?

Mostly, but I still heard audio pops from time to time. Not as many as I usually get with Bluetooth headphones, but they were still there.

I've never heard pops or skips when walking/outside/etc, and have used bluetooth headsets since 2008, way more than an hour a day.

If AirPods have this issue, they're clearly inferior to 8-year old tech.

(NOTE: I have had skips when leaving my phone and walking into another room, or stuff like that, but that's just because I walked out of range).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com