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Comment by tedmiston | Hacker News Reader

> New Experian survey explores consumer satisfaction with AirPods and other voice-first hardware

> Conversational user interfaces are now mainstream.

I really like my AirPods, but... this is a strange comment to make about them. The Siri integration / audio controls is the most awkward part of using AirPods. Honestly really hoping they revisit in v2.

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Agreed. I love my AirPods (they're amazing for when I want quick headphones and care less about sound quality) but they'd be a significantly better product if I could control the volume and go back/forward in songs without Siri.

I remapped mine from triggering Siri to simply be play/pause. I'm happy with it but I agree I'd like options. It would be nice to be able to trigger Siri once in a while or skip songs or modify volume.

Agree. I really just want the same functionality that was there with the click button from the old headphones: volume up/down, play/pause/prev/next.

Yeah. Volume doesn't bother me too much, but I'd love a next track thing. I kind of wish I could setup different things for the left and right AirPod. At least then I could have pause on one and Siri on the other (for most other tasks).

How did you go prev/next with the old headphones?

Triple click / double click. If you hold the last click down you can also rewind / fast forward in the current track.

Yes - play/pause works better. I have Siri completely disabled.

If you have an Apple Watch, you can control audio/volume from there. (having the Now Playing complication helps too)

I don't have a watch myself... I've been pulling out my iPhone and doing all of the controls there.

Not sure if my AirPods are defective, but I'm getting a successful detection from a tap on the AirPod sensor maybe 1/3 of the time.

Mine are about 100%, but it does seem to require a decent little thunk. You can't just touch it. I've heard people say they don't like it because it feels uncomfortable in your ear when you hit it hard enough. It doesn't bother me but I'm not going to say it feels good.

I don't think it's capacitive, I think it's based on the little chip's gyro sensor.

Just to be sure—you're both doing a double tap, right? It has to be a double tap. Mine responds just fine unless I hit it weird, which has only happened a couple of times.

Yes. I am.

Yeah, looks like I wasn't thunking it hard enough. I was tapping it with the force of a tap to click trackpad.

There's not a Now Playing complication, is there? I hope I'm just missing it somehow because it'd be my most used complication by a long shot.

Specifically, it's named the Music complication, but it remembers state and will restore the Now Playing UI if it was present.

Yes, but (very unfortunately) it only works with the native iOS Music app.

Untrue - it works just fine with Pocket Casts, for example.

Interesting. It doesn't seem to work at all with the built-in Podcasts app. Come on, Apple.

My AirPods are the pretty much my favorite piece of technology I've bought in at least two years, as far as day to day (or even hour to hour) usefulness.

And yet I still reach for my phone and hold the home button to do any siri-related task...

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