Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by 04rob | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

04rob

Apple didn't come up with the notch. Essential and Sharp (both Android phones) were first:

https://www.phonearena.com/news/history-of-the-notch-and-bez...

View on HN

It makes complete sense on those phones though, doesn't really work on the pixel 3.

In my opinion, LG was first with the V10. It was just advertised differently, as a 'second screen' rather than a notch.

But Android manufacturers weren’t seeing it as “essential” until Apple did it. Same with ditching the headphone jack. The industry makes fun of Apple for doing something, then the next year, copies it

Here we are much later. Not having a headphone jack is still really stupid. Having to use a dongle for headphones is still an inconvenience that detracts from the experience. Every set of truly wireless bluetooth earbuds on the market is mediocre at best. The sound quality is substandard for listening to music (even compared to other earbuds) and the audio frequently lags, making them utterly worthless for everything else.

Even when someone does design a set of truly wireless earbuds that matches the quality of $20 wired earbuds today, its still going to be a total joke as long as those wireless earbuds cost 150-300.

Airpods are fantastic, and nobody who has them misses having their head physically connected to their phone by a cable anymore.

Are Airpods going to work with the Pixel 3?

Or will it be the more typical thing with Android accessories, where you have to buy a Google knockoff and never lose it, and then when you do lose it, you have to buy a seriously off-brand thing from China because Google has lost interest in products they sold a year ago?

AirPods have a Bluetooth fallback using a button on the back of the case to connect

Does that provide the amazing experience AirPod owners talk about?

Because it sounds like it provides, y'know, Bluetooth audio, which is usually a terrible UX.

Nope. Airpods are admittedly a great product and very impressive, but the functionality and stability is going to be an Apple exclusive. They work on Android devices, but not nearly as seamlessly.

Airpods are some of the better truly wireless earbuds, but they are still mediocre and lots of people have the issues I mentioned with them.

I don't miss the cable, but I miss reasonable prices, audio quality, and not having to deal with recharging or audio desynchronization.

Here: Airpods are very good headphones. But not for everybody.

All through this thread you're jumping on anyone who dares criticize any aspect of the Airpods. Speaking in absolutes. "Nobody who has ever used them would say that", "nobody misses the wires", "nobody misses their previous headphones".

I don't like them. I can't wear them. My ears are too small, they slide out. This doesn't distract from their quality.

But I sure as shit miss the 3.5" jack when I have to plug a silly, fragile, unwieldy dongle into my phone to listen to my Earset 3i's. (Sadly, too, their Amazon rating seems to be 2.7/5, and reading the critical reviews, that seems to be almost exclusively because people got counterfeits on Amazon).

Please stop speaking like people are _factually wrong_ for disliking the Airpods or aspects of them.

My in-ears tend to die due to wax, not broken cables. The $150 AirPods would be just as susceptible to that as a $2 pair of wired Huaweis. And that's ignoring the superior UX of just following the cable rather than having to guess which device they're connected to when.

It's also pretty nice being able to just connect the phone to a speaker system, rather than having to mess around with per-phone dongles, idiotic "dock" designs, or pairing to random bluetooth receivers.

I've got a $20 pair of Anker wireless earbuds that I can't distinguish in sound quality from a standard pair of Apple Lightning earbuds. The battery lasts about 5 hours on a charge, which is enough for my commute on the bus and chores around the house. And since I charge up all my devices at night anyway, draining the battery really isn't that much of an issue.

Sure they've got a wire between each earbud, so it could be argued that they're not 'truly wireless.' I can see how, from the perspective of someone for whom a dongle detracts from the purity of the $20 earbud experience, this could be a sticking point. But I haven't found it to be.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com