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Comment by kofejnik | Hacker News Reader

I am sooo going to buy them the moment they are available; convenience is totally worth it for me, even if they have to be replaced every year

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even if they have to be replaced every year

These are undeniably really nice products for the target audience, but the direction we as a humanity are going with disposable products has been and still is problematic and products like this do not help, on the contrary. Everyone is free to ignore that, but I personally cannot justify it. Especially knowing that just adding a wire buys me a better sounding product which lasts way, way longer. But yes: the wire is not too convenient. Though after 20+ years of using it I also got accustomed so no deal breaker.

you are missing the point; convenience is in having noise-cancelling headphones in my pocket, for when I want to do some coding in a cafe or in flight

for sound quality, I have my Sennheiser over-ears and an external sound card

I'm sure buying 1 airpods per year (per month even) is less waste than buying plastic-packed groceries every day (i.e. what we need to survive). I too oppose this, but to pretend AirPods are the real issue is just FUD. We need to have laws / taxes against this, but they need to be fair - not people e.g. promoting anti-AirPods policies but supporting /ignoring plastic-wrapped veggies, or promoting anti-meat policies but tolerating non-electric cars. Institute taxes that accurately account for the actual environmental impact of a product, and let (1) the people, and (2) the market sort it out (by reducing waste, improving recycling, deciding whether they want to spend more on meat or on petrol, etc.)

I'm sure buying 1 airpods per year (per month even) is less waste than buying plastic-packed groceries every day

It sure is, but that is besides the point. So yes as you mention, time for mentality change/laws/...

Anyway we're pretty lucky here already and can buy fruits/vegetables/seeds/... i.e. a majority of what we eat daily without packaging.

Your comment makes me think of this image: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcTipZ...

what convenience? I do not understand the appeal of air pods over any other wireless earplug.

FWIW it seems like if you stay within the apple ecosystem apple products have a much better user experience

They are incredibly convenient if you use multiple apple devices. You can change from your iPhone to Mac/iPad and watch almost seemingly. with traditional Bluetooth headphones it’s always a hassle to change devices. I either have to press buttons on the headphones and it doesn’t work well with more then two devices or I have to disconnect them manually from my device and open Bluetooth on the other. Connecting to a different device takes usually less then 10 secs with AirPods/Beats, which is super nice.

That being said, if you don’t use Apple products (or only one apple product), they are not really more convenient then any other headphones.

I see, thanks for the explanation, I can see how that might be useful.

Not having an iPad, I always got by with having a single set of earphones plugged in my work machine, and bluetooth ones for my phone, which I use for running.

I can imagine having many more devices and using the same set for all could be preferable.

Have you ever needed to be on a phone call while doing something else with your hands? Running with music and not having cords whip around your neck is pretty nice too.

>over any wireless earplug

Not OP, but let me try:

Have you ever needed to be on a phone call after you took the call on the phone, but would like to switch headset, but because Bluetooth still sucks it doesn't even show the headset in the list, so you have to power down the headset, restart in pairing mode...

Yeah, I've done that plenty of times using a Bluetooth headset. You will never do that using an iPhone and AirPods. You'll just push the button, and it will switch without drama. And it will work that way tomorrow, too. That's why I've paid eye-watering sums for headsets with W1/H1 chips in them.

I'm not sure that I follow, but do you mean be listening to music on the earphones, take a phone call on the handset speaker, then end the call and go back to the earphones? If that's the case then there's literally to switch between earphone/handset speaker/loudspeaker, on my phone at least.

Also, isn't the point of a bluetooth handset that you can make the call there?

And then there is seamless switching between an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV.....

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