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Comment by Osmium | Hacker News Reader

This looks fantastic. Love my Airpods, but the 'tap for Siri' feature so rarely works for me, let alone language translation. Language translation is clearly an area Google is really pioneering too.

Shame about the cable though. The one (surprising) benefit of no cable is that the cable doesn't tug on the earphones, making them less likely to come out.

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My immediate thought is that the cable will greatly diminish the chance of losing one or both. Never thought about the tugging.

Yes, the lack of the cable in my experience means that they are more secure in your ears, not less, as everyone laughed that they would be.

They _look_ more silly, though! But I love my Airpods.

Give it 10 years and anyone walking around with cables running from their head is going to look plenty silly. If ever there was a look that defined the 2010s...

I think there’s an elegance to basically keeping the existing design and just chopping the cables off, even if it is showy. Certainly beats the alternative “black amorphous blob” design of some of the others.

Give it another 10 years and everyone with anything in their ears would look silly. HiFi music to your ears via vibrating bones or just "direct" to your brain.

Uh, the 1980s are calling for you. That was the decade of the sony walkman, and headphones. Everyone had one. Or a no-name version, like I had.

I have bluetooth headphones and I just get tired of the battery going out. Besides being cool and not looking dated, is there any conceivable reason why removing the headphone jack saves money, makes them last longer on battery, makes it thinner or anything else?

Sorry, I was barely around for the 80s ;) I am old enough to have had a knock-off portable CD player though...

> makes it thinner or anything else?

I think it's volume inside the device more than thinness, but I agree I don't think it's a fundamental design constraint. I'm sure they could find the room.

I think it's just that (now/soon) Bluetooth headphones are finally good enough. I have the Airpods, and I have almost no issue with batteries (they recharge while they're in the case, it's only a problem if I listen continuously for a whole evening, but even then they fast recharge in minutes), and they have great range. I'd tried Bluetooth headphones in the past and it was the pairing process that really turned me off, that's a non-issue now too. I would go as far as to say that the Airpods are the best/most game-changing product Apple has put out in maybe a decade. They just need to get a little cheaper, and included as standard (at least for the new top-of-line devices).

For people in the audio industry it sucks, but there are adapters. I don't resent them taking it out any more than I do an ethernet port in my MacBook (ethernet is much better than WiFi, but WiFi is 'good enough' now, and I have an adapter at my desk for when I need it).

Dozens of the "conjoined" BT headsets on Amazon - tried a couple of cheaper ones and the fit is an issue.

Could never run with those, but I've run/biked with AirPods with no problems (I thought I might lose one but it was really a non issue if they fit properly in the first place).

> (I thought I might lose one but it was really a non issue if they fit properly in the first place)

Exactly. If they don't fit you'll have issues, or will need silicone covers or something, but if they do fit it's great.

I've tried lots of earphones in the gym, including some cheap Bluetooth ones with a cable that goes behind the neck, and have always had problems until the Airpods. I've never had them fall out, ever. Embarrassingly, I do sometimes forget I have them in though...

I use the Bose SoundSport wireless headphones that have same design and never had a problem with tugging. I use them daily walking from a park and ride to work (~ 1 mile one way) and in the gym. The most I do is move the cord to the front of neck for squats.

I like having the cord as I can pull the buds from my ears and let them hang around my neck when I stop to talk to someone.

I originally got them because I kept yanking the cord of my wired ear buds when walking and found wired headphones really inconvenient in the gym.

the cable also means you can't wear just one bud at a time.

Why not? I have used earbuds in one year for decades.

I prefer it, because I bike with one ear in and the other tucked down the front of my shirt. If the bud in my ear falls out it's caught by the other instead of falling into gears or ground.

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