Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)
soundguys.com
soundguys.com
They've got a few settings that are software controlled (one being the bluetooth's internal volume) What happens if you get a software update and you open the app on a plane without wifi? You can't use it because it requires the internet to get the latest _required tos_ to use your headphones. You can't proceed further without being forced into an agreement. Clicking "don't accept" pushes you back to the tos screen.
You unpack your Bose headphone, eager to use them. But before that, you have to download an app on the iPhone, then download a software update program on your laptop, which in turn opens a program in the browser that downloads an update, then you connect the headphones with a wire to the laptop that the update gets installed, and THEN you can start using them.
I send both back and now I'm a happy AirPod user.
I do find the Bose UX to be horrible though for another reason, which is the incredibly stupid “feature” that the headphones can be connected to multiple devices at once. Since I use it both with my phone and laptop and they’re often in range of each other, sometimes the audio control will just switch back to the other device than the one I’m trying to use, I assume because of some background process that’s still open, and I lose my sound. If one device is on the edge of connectivity range, it’ll beep every couple of minutes as it connects and disconnects even though I’m not even using it. Then if I ever want to connect a third device like a tablet, it’s made to switch back and forth between exactly 2 devices not 3 so things get even more messed up.
It’s quite annoying, and I feel like I’m the only one bothered by these issues because I don’t see a lot of other people complaining. But I’ll definitely be switching to a different brand away from Bose when these headphones wear out. Probably the upcoming over ear Apple headphones, since I find airpods to not have any of these issues and generally work great at switching between two devices without being stolen back by the previous device.
I found this project which helps with the later problem: https://github.com/odlp/bluesnooze
I suspect it's the generic Bluetooth chipsets, mind, rather than anyone in particular because this happens with the PLT headphones and the Taotronics dongle I've got.
Bose deliberately made the battery enclosure very difficult to open so that you can't replace the battery yourself. Why do you need to replace the battery? Because if you use them every day, the battery degrades so that a full charge only lasts about 1 hour, down from 20+ hours, within just 2 years.
So you aren't really paying $250 for a pair of headphones, you're paying $125 a year to rent them, as they will only last 2 years due to planned obsolescence. This seems to have been a deliberate decision by Bose as the previous model had a removable battery.
I've used my QC35 II's 6 to 8 hours a day for 5 days a week for 4 years. They last approximately a full week on one charge; they'd die mid Friday if I used them a lot that week or early Monday if I forgot to charge over the weekend. I've had them unplugged and unused since March (work from home) and they still had 60% when I tried them just now.
Many Big Tech ask their suppliers to use green energy or reduce carbon footprint.
But, their product is not "green" at all. Many of them make battery extremely hard to exchange. It is quite common in laptop and cellphone.
I have the original QC 35's and they never originally gave us the option to change the ANC. Only through an update and using the app that they switched it on.
If our headphones didn't use can app, we would still be stuck without being able to modify the ANC level.
I kind of like the tether. Harder to lose them under a bookcase. And less of a problem if they plop out during exercise.
Took my bank account months to download my an iPhone to update with.
What is the OP talking about? And why would anyone install an app to use headphones?
Well, you can, but you first have to enable that using the app.
The QC II’s bluetooth range is horrible. Less than half of the QC I’s.
If this is Sony's way of forcing me to use their app, they guessed wrong. I just bought these and am considering returning it.
My experience with the Bose headphones has been excruciating.
They have a feature that’s quite handy to me (the proprietary quick changing from one Apple device to another IFF it has the same Apple ID — so no good for shared hardware like a tv) but “quite handy” is far from invaluable.
You can program a tap on each earbud to do certain things: again, handy but you don’t have that ability I doubt you’d be upset.
Apple’s quite clever on figuring out how much “bleed out” from their own stack works for them (e.g. iPod support for PCs, which open standards to embrace, which not, etc). They are hoping you’ll switch to an iphone next, but even you don’t you are revenue.
You have a valid point that the app can misbehave regarding updates and lack of internet connection. I personally find myself never using the app, it only really provides 3 somewhat useful features; equalisation (which forces the audio codec to SBC which is inferior to LDAC so I've never used it); automatic profile switching, e.g. ambient sound if detecting you are walking and finally, the level of noise cancellation to apply.
This model has a dedicated switch on the headphones to change the profile where a long press even "calibrates" the sound based on atmospheric pressure, not sure I buy into that gimmick, but they're perfectly useable without the app. I have them paired with Android, Windows, macOS and Linux and all work perfectly (with the minor exception being Linux does not support Bluetooth absolute volume). The headphones also support volume control from the unit for devices which have an older Bluetooth stack which does not support absolute volume.
Overall, I agree the app needs improvement but I'm not sure there's anything that warrants burying the company of these decisions. I suspect for many users, the app is entirely useless and not worth installing.
(Well, as ‘alright’ as could be expected. Switching between devices requires slow re-pairing through long power button press, but I don’t think Sony’s app would’ve resolved that.)
If I want to avoid this sort of thing, I'm thinking / hoping it's sufficient to simply avoid headphones that require an app.
Does that seem right?
Every effing time they convince users to install an app they magically have a tool to steal peoples personal data.
Not just headphones: the kids toy drone can be controlled using an app from the cellphone? The security camera just purchased doesn't use standard protocols over a web browser but needs its own app? The IoT system doesn't use standard protocols as well but forces the use of their app? Bad, bad and bad! And so on for every piece of hardware that needs a proprietary app that -betting all my horses on that- will ask for full permissions to access everything.
In this context, headphones are among the easily replaceable accessories with secure and better sounding ones. Just get wired ones and avoid architectures that force the use of wireless phones just to make a bigger business out of a misfeature.
Or you could just get some basic noise-isolating bluetooth headphones. It sounds like most/all of these headphones that spy on people are ones with active noise cancelling.
Or just get one with a good old 3.5mm jack.
Beyer Dynamic, AKG and Shure have several options much cheaper than these Bose or Sony headsets which still give you at least 10x the audio-performance.
For headsets, if you care about usability, portability, longevity and performance, wired is still the no-brainer choice.
It's complicated.
The lowest level opinion is "Bose and Beats are awesome, soooo much bass!!!" That's the typical consumer.
The level above that is what you said. That's sometimes called mid-fi. At least these things don't have major flaws anymore.
The next level is companies and products specifically focused on high performance - Stax, Audeze, Sennheiser, Etymotic, etc and their best models. That's the "audiophile" level (and here truth is mixed with a lot of bullshit also - stay away from head-fi.org, it's a cesspool of pseudoscience).
And the level above that is when you realize imperfections in headphones can be corrected via DSPs, for the most part.
I have the Sony noise cancelling flagship model. By default, it's deeply flawed. It's tuned to the taste of the average consumer at Walmart ("moar basssss!!!"). But apply the oratory1990 corrections (from Reddit) and they sound like some nearly-flawless high end devices. The corrections are based on precise lab measurements of the headphones, and basically revert some of their flaws via digital processing.
The future is DSP.
I’ve returned them and replaced them with much better, naturally damping, closed head-phones. And the audio is so much better, at a fraction of the cost.
Noise cancellation in the hifi-space is just snake oil, and I’m not having it.
There’s still lots of places you won’t find Bluetooth, but there’s very few places you won’t find a connector for a 3.5mm jack.
The WH-1000MX are very good headphones, but sony gonna shit the bed. (PSN anyone)
- Them being hugely defensive about the fan backlash over Tlou2 https://www.altchar.com/game-news/sony-contacts-website-over... - They've removed early release credentials from reviewers who give sour reviews - The shit return policy for the digital only games - The way they are trying to push digital only
etc. I realize Sony isn't the only one doing this but with every iteration it feels like they are trying to be as crap as possible.
I'd hope so - as far as I know there's no way for a Bluetooth headset device to get internet access via the thing it's paired with. It's getting harder and harder to be confident about this kind of thing, though.
As shitty as the app collecting data is it isn't as if the app is required for me to have had an excellent experience with these headphones so I'm not really all that bothered that the app is invasive.
If any real functionality was locked behind it I'd be annoyed, but honestly the app seems like an afterthought with no real purpose other than "EVERYTHING NEEDS AN APP" type thinking.
I'm grateful that you and I both know to be critically-minded, and we understand the difference between essential features and data-grabs, but honestly... my Dad needed me standing over the sketchy wifi thermostat (that required an app and Facebook login), loudly complaining about how invasive it was, to even understand that this was not OK and worth returning the product. And he's spent years osmosing conversations with his tech-savvy, upper-middle class son. Further, many people take for granted that they can trust a brand like Sony, so they're not in critical-thinking mode about this stuff -- it's quite confusing to know what is reasonable when you're just trying to get the thing done that was literally just a male-female plug before.
I do believe you're a caring person (most ppl are), but the practical effect of your position would lead someone to judge that you don't actually care about the data of the vast majority of normal people across many demographics. I kinda suspect that isn't true, so I'm wondering if maybe you'd find some dissonance in your own views on closer inspection <3
However if the app isn't really pushed at all then this is so minor an infraction compared to so many others happening in the technology space it honestly doesn't really illicit a response from me.
I do want to point out that not really giving a damn isn't the same as thinking it is a morally ok thing to do. I definitely agree that they shouldn't be doing it, but again given the state of the industry I'm honestly just glad the app isn't required.
Lastly I do kind of think personal responsibility has to enter into things somewhere. I understand that the average joe doesn't really understand how these work, and that the information you share is greater leakier than you might think it is given how things are phrased - and I absolutely agree that it is terrible. However for years now high profile data breaches have been a thing. The fact that the average joe hasn't defaulted to a "I don't understand why this device/app wants X information or how it could use it, therefore I won't use this app" is what is letting companies get away with this kind of thing in the first place. You don't need technical competence to be wary of this stuff (in fact I know someone who isn't technically competent who is concerned and they ask my opinion on things).
Ah ok, that's understandable. I get desensitized to a lot of this too :)
> I do want to point out that not really giving a damn isn't the same as thinking it is a morally ok thing to do
Good point. I'm glad to be reminded of this :)
> Lastly I do kind of think personal responsibility has to enter into things somewhere.
Ah, this is prob the root of much of our divergence. I recognize that tons of my view emerge from my skepticism of what seems to me a cult of personal responsibility in the west. I lean much more toward collectivist mentalities, and suspect individualistic perspectives in USA are it's achilles heel.
The content and information flow of the world (and so a single life) has become densely packed with so much more context compared to 100 or so years ago when these ideals took form and served us. A founding principle of personal responsibility will increasingly fail us as we become emmersed in an ever-complexifying data and knowledge landscape. imho we can choose to be darwinian about that, or we can insist that our duty is to push knowledge and learning up through the system to _shared_ strata, to higher levels of societal abstraction beyond individual daily affairs. At least that's my hot take :)
Anyhow, thanks a ton for engaging! We may disagree, but your perspective got a lot more "real" to me as you shared :)
I shouldn't have been too surprised, though, given that it was Sony that brought us rootkits on music CDs.
the headphones still work fine without the app, they're just bluetooth headphones that the OS can interface with directly if you don't want the location-based profiles.
This is a textbook example of a GDPR violation. In fact, it is a clear violation of the first of the five requirements for consent.
See recital 43:
"... Consent is presumed not to be freely given if it does not allow separate consent to be given to different personal data processing operations despite it being appropriate in the individual case, or if the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is dependent on the consent despite such consent not being necessary for such performance."
There has been research done on identifying people by their ears. [0]
> You can't use it because it requires the internet to get the latest _required tos_ to use your headphones.
Can't you just uninstall the app entirely? They're standard Bluetooth headphones, right?
[0] https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2010/10/new-method-to-ide...
But I'm also a long time suck fony guy so, I basically accepted it as karma for buying this witch doctor voodoo noise cancelling anyway.
That the headphones does not have electronics and batteries means they will last longer and thus be be better for the environment.
The author cites some idea of "trading" ongoing collection of personal data^1 for features but I can't see how that applies here, assuming the user has already paid for the product, e.g., he has already paid for the headphpones.
1. This does not appear to be a one-time, voluntary submission of data by the purchaser. For example, submitting one's name and a product serial number in order to register for a warranty.
For headphones, I could see tracking the usage by day, and by time of day. I could see tracking the average volume, the dynamic range, the frequency ranges used. How often do I spend listening to music, to conference presentations, to movies? Those would be fun data to have, but not something that I'd want under the control of a different party for privacy reasons.
Partly, that is because I've been coming to the conclusion that the privacy promises of a company are rather meaningless. In the case of bankruptcy, collected data is treated as an asset, rather than as a liability to be disposed of properly. In the case of acquisition, the database gets transferred to a parent company. For example, with Google buying Fitbit, they will have have access to all data collected by Fitbit. Though (as of yesterday), Google is stating that they don't intend to use this for advertising, I don't trust that not to be "accidentally" merged with google tracking ids in the future.
Same reason I don't use WiFi at home but ethernet: it's simple.
Even though I get your point and I am convinced you're using "simple" aptly, I will nitpick the obvious: passive headphones can be deceptively simple or a marvel of engineering.
If you didn't get the chance to listen to some music through proper audiophile headphones, I do recommend to spend some time at the closest audio retailer and live the experience.
Open the laundry chute, it's in there along with a Thinkpad brick, both wired up from the basement. Ends have magnets that captivate them to the chute door for safe keeping.
USB-C to Ethernet
This isn’t necessarily true.
My wireless headphones have been with me for years. My wired earbuds are cheap enough that I can lose or damage them without care. The former are far better for the environment.
10 years of that is a heavy thing to survive. In fact I know hardly any object that would have survived this long.
For my Sennheiser MB 660 I just replaced the ear cushions after about 3 years, but I am still 'worried' that some day the built-in battery will give up. Not because I can't afford new ones, but because I hate if a product dies due to an old battery.
I own a few wired headphones/headsets, but there is none I used as much as my RS180 and when I think about it, I doubt that the cable would have survived the usage. Actually, I had to repair one of the wired headset once. The MB 660 can be used with a (removable) cable, but I use it only on airplanes or when the device I want to use has neither USB (dongle) nor Bluetooth.
While I am privacy savvy person, my bigger concern is about health. Having an active unit all day in such proximity to my brain, makes me wonder if they are actually that safe to use.
Well-built wireless headphones have a lifespan of a few years; well-built wired headphones have a lifespan of ∞, as long as they are designed so that the wear parts can be replaced (earcups, headband cushion, cable).
The Sennheiser RS180, for example, had rechargeable and replaceable batteries inside. Ironically, mine died a few months ago, but I am still not sure what the cause was.
I actually bought a couple spare HDR 185 headsets a few weeks ago, which I'm hoping last me for several decades.
These aren’t independent variables. Most consumers I know will pay more for wireless headphones. They’re more convenient, and they’re anchored at a higher price point.
As such, I’ve watched lots of friends go from buying cheap earbuds monthly to having a pair of AirPods for years.
There is a lot of moralising around wired versus wireless. I’m pushing back against that fad.
These little earbuds are commodity items.
Their modus operandi is to ask you your CPF (it's like an SSN, but not that secret and powerful) and, if you refuse to tell them, you are not eligible for some discounts which can reach 40% in some more expensive items.
Customers happily agree to give their CPFs, completely unaware they are of the potentially disastrous consequences, and we are not even offered something resembling a privacy policy.
Think of the uses of such data. Health insurers could use them to detect and even predict health issues. One could estimate menstrual cycles and even the size of your genitalia.
A Brazilian data protection law is about to become active within the next weeks, but honestly.. such data shouldn't even be collected at all.
I'm looking for support for a bill to forbid drugstores to collect CPFs and to offer any sort of discount to people who identify themselves, but I believe this should be more publicized before being discussed for voting by the Congress. The more active drugstores on the "data business" are part of huge chains and their lobby will definitely be massive. Society should be aware of that and counterbalance for such lobby.
But they usually don't confirm that the number you give actually belongs to you. I always give a bogus, yet valid number (123.456.789-09). It's usually mapped to a customer, so somebody has already had the same idea or it's the remainders of a test database. They frown sometimes (actual CPFs follow very distinct number patterns) but didn't complain so far.
They don't insist that you use a credit or debit card, which are much more common than cash over here. I couldn't confirm yet, but I suspect that they have access to some identification of yours whenever you use a card, so I usually pay in cash, which is pretty annoying because they never have change.
In Brazilian drugstores, there are legitimate situations where they actually need your data, e.g., when you need some injectable medicine. In such cases, they need to send an official notice for government control, BUT they also ask you for an original document.
P.S.: one might argue that government shouldn't have access to data about injectable medicines you take. Personally, given the severe situation regarding drug-abuse of countries like ours, USA and others, I see some valid motivation in such tight controls.
But loyalty discount cards and your drugstore example should have a way to get the discount without giving up your anonymity. This would be better for society.
They would be allowed to ask for your information when buying through app/web, but could never give you discounts or incentives of any sort for buying through such platforms.
And that wouldn't mean they couldn't have a loyalty program: they could give customers stamps on paper cards, paper seals and alikes. It may sound archaic, but some big supermarket chains use this method regularly and it works pretty well.
I'm going to read it thoroughly within the next days.
It has a lot of rules with sharing with unrelated usage, whatever entity is using them (first or third party). On practice, that means they'll have to disclose every way they'll use the data, and get authorization for each one.
It doesn't restrict sharing it by itself, it's just that the third party will use the data, and thus will need your authorization.
Yes, my analogy doesn't go too far. We're sentient coal, being fed bread and circuses as the trade-off for being burned away. We still have some choice, power, and control.
I don't care that maybe, just maybe, company X doesn't sell my personal information as a user of theirs to third parties (though I steadily doubt more and more about the claims of any company promising that it doesn't, and then there are also unintentional data leaks of things they supposedly don't keep stored) I also want goddam company X itself to not pry into my life so much just because I use a fucking pair of headphones or a blender, or a refrigerator or any number of other products that are being designed more often by the day to track everything you do with them and feed it all back to their creators. The sheer arrogance of the whole trend deserves much more criticism than it gets.
They may not, but Beats and Apple — the former is a subsidiary of the latter — lock one into a proprietary ecosystem in which your data is not your data (just try sharing iCloud photos with Android users), you have no right to run, view, modify or share the software you depend on, your message security rests 100% on the corporate goodwill of Apple and any government which can force Apple to do its will (your iMessages are end-to-end encrypted … to whatever keys Apple says belong to your correspondents; Apple can add new keys at will). And of course Apple are also doing their best to replace the standard headphone jack with crufty, battery-draining, CPU-requiring Bluetooth.
Headphones capable of running Bluetooth are headphones capable of collecting data about you, because they need some sort of processor to speak the Bluetooth protocol. Headphones which are composed of wire and drivers aren't capable of anything other than playing or receiving audio.
While speakers are often wired directly to a one-way DAC, that's not always the case. Sometimes the analog lines are all fed into a multiplexer and it can be routed to a ADC. Sometimes it's wired to a general purpose IO pin.
In such cases, reprogramming could turn that speaker into a microphone. I wonder if anyone has exploited this in the wild yet.
My personal favorite is the laser attack that turns any shiny surface into a microphone. When it's not on it literally isn't there.
If you are a hacker who removed microphones from your computer but is worrying about this exploit, fortunately, a simple mitigation is possible - just put an audio amplifier or unity-gain buffer between the speaker and the audio output port, so the audio signal cannot travel back to the audio chip. Any "Hi-Fi" headphone amplifier can be used, but a $0.5 opamp is enough - a daughterboard can be tiny enough to fit inside a laptop.
This is not quite the same thing, but I'm starting to feel that perhaps I am starting to witness that same disconnect. Having read the title alone, I wondered "how are the headphones collecting data?" Oh, there's an app. Why would you need an app for headphones? It simply never occurred to me.
I did not know that!
Utterly disgusting.
Given IoT and 5G how can you stop this?
It's difficult for manufacturers to justify an app for wired headphones, but, now that bluetooth is becoming the new norm, there's suddenly a justification for instrusive, data-collecting apps.
This whole story is a really good reason for keeping headphone jacks on phones.
You know to a certain extent those folks were right. But you look at cars today and I couldn't imagine my car not having a computer. Adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, apple carplay, I could go on.
The problem I see now is that privacy is still a pretty novel concept among the regular user so companies in the mean time can get away with overbearing data collection. My prediction is in the next 3-5 years, users will start to get savvier, and overbearing data collection will become a taboo and no company will do it because users will revolt.
I've toyed with the idea of going back to a dedicated MP3 player for music and audio books, they should be cheaper and smaller than the last time I had one and with actual buttons they have a superior user interface (phones are versatile but a bit shit at everything). After that I could probably ditch a smart phone entirely.
Yeah, I find 90% of what I use my iphone fir, I could really do without, like social media. When this phone dies, I plan on getting a cheap dumb one for emergency calls (I can still communicate with friends over IM on a laptop) and not replace the smartphone.
The experience taught me that I do not need to be stimulated all the time and I don’t need to be connected or reachable all the time. It felt liberating knowing that when I left home/office and was out of wifi reach, that I wouldnn’t get bothered by work requests. It felt liberating knowing that, while inconveint at times, I had to arrange a time and place to meet people, and we had to thennstick to it, instead of “i’ll call you when I’m near, whenever ir whetever that may be”.
The only reason I went back to having a phone is a family member got annoyed and bought me one, but a middle ground would have been to get a dumb (phone calls and SMS only) phone, rather than a smartphone or going without a phone completely like I did.
Apps are quickly becoming this weird add on that I really don't want.
I worked for one for a brief time ~15 years ago (at the time it wasn't obvious what they were doing).
It's the kind of people that would have sent mass mail junk 60 years ago (and probably still send it today!).
Heck, you can see them even on this site, check for some marketing optimization technique articles that sometimes pop up here.
Even a good chunk of our fellow HNers are spammers.
Ask yourself (as the article does): why would they even need this data? (menstrual cycle?? Really!?!)
I signed up for a free trial (and I did send a photo of my ears), but I couldn't tell the difference and the HD library was so small it didn't seem worth paying monthly for it.
There’s also several people saying their experience was like mine.
It’s pretty obvious different people are getting two distinctly different experiences with the company. It’s not a spectrum, just one or the other. That is strange and I wonder was the cause of that is.
As for location, android requires it for an app to scan for bluetooth devices (Not required if you connect via android settings). Maybe you use iOS?
I've come to believe that this can only be fixed with legislation and regulation. There are no technical fixes that could practically be deployed as there is far too much "attack surface" and anyway there is zero incentive to deploy them.
In the meantime: install as few apps as possible on phones, be careful about IoT and personal assistance devices, and use Apple or Linux (not Android) based systems as they seem to have the best record for security and privacy.
When you buy cigarettes there's a big warning label about the risk to your health.
I think consumer devices need something like that. Imagine browsing an aisle and seeing a label on the package like "WARNING: These earbuds phone home with the track names you play, your GPS location and menstruation cycle history." How many people do you think will buy that box vs. the cheap $20 pair with the analog plug?
If you don't agree most of the time the app quits and you can't use the product you bought.
Re: Bose collecting all that stuff
I can see "why" they would want all that, in order to optimize their sound output of their buds to the kind of music and environments for which they are used. That should, of course, be opt-in, but I don't think it is evil.
Do I necessarily like the latter example? No. I believe, like the "cookie policies" that exist on many websites, there should be "Needed permissions" and "Please thank you" permissions, and they should incentivize the consumer to help them out. Amazon does this on their Kindles: $20 off if you let them run ads on the lock screen.
But if all the manufacturers do this, then what competition is there to push them to change?
I bought headphones, I did not sign up for a research project.
We went from paying for software to getting it for free in return for our data and now we're apparently giving over our data even for physical devices that we pay top dollar for.
This is the thing that really bugs me. I don't like the user is the product aspect but I can at least understand it in a free setting. In a high case luxury setting where you aren't even getting a discount? That's just absurd. All they've done is increase their bottom end, give you no choice and no discount.
... Which makes total sense from a market efficiency point of view, at least as long consumers doesn't have perfect information and the time to stay informed about almost everything. Which isn't true, and people won't be, especially since the most basic decision theory that we can derive from our behavior would go almost entirely counter this.
... Which isn't strange at all as the number of new or changing facts that could affect our living situation probably didn't change as much from 150000 years ago, as changed last week alone.
Sometimes I think one of, or maybe the most damaging lie of our century is that we are generally capable of individual, rational thought for everyday decisions. We really are not, not to any significant fraction.
Almost all our decision are derived from observation of very few instances, judging based on survival instincts, and social cost/benefits.
In contrast much of rules regarding eg advertising and much of economic theory seems predicates that everyone has the time and energy to figure out which toothpaste company also are not totally exploiting some workers in some country five shell companies and thousands of miles away. But I digress.
I can't see why they would need so many samples. Wouldn't using the data from (say) 100 Bose employees be sufficient to cover most noisy environments these buds are used in?
I believe it was iOS 10 or 11 developer betas that would, on each beta update, run a trial APFS conversion process against the phone's internal filesystem, check the result for consistency, and then discard the replica and report success/failure w/ logs — so that Apple could find the issues that they couldn't find at 'one hundred users' scale.
https://community.bose.com/t5/Around-On-Ear-Headphones/Bose-...
Seems pretty clear it is advertised to do more than play audio.
If people want to give their personal information out, that's up to them. I personally limit what information I share, and I get annoyed when devices or apps try to sneakily get more information than I'm willing to intentionally provide, but this article is silly.
The younger generation has grown up without a sense of personal privacy, and they're largely ok with it. They will happily give away personal details in exchange for a "free" app or product, and they bend over backwards to expose their entire lives via images and videos on social media. There's always mock outrage when someone "discovers" that the reason the Internet is free is because someone is selling personal data to drive advertising, but everyone knows that. Most people just don't care.
People care. They have no choice.
We're talking about a companion app for one of the most expensive consumer headphones you can get ( $350 ).
I don't think this is about money, this is about using dark patterns and morally questionable behavior to get user data.
Yes, if you're older and wiser you can work around these, disable the app location data, etc. But a lot of people are oblivious to this, not because they don't care but because they are being purposefully deceived.
Everyone knows their customers are highly susceptible to marketing, it would be a gold mine.
Edit: Thinking about this article more, it really goes back to hardware not getting funding unless there's a model for recurrent income. It's going to get a LOT worse before we either wise up or give up.
For older QC35 headphones there's a 'based-connect' repo on github that lets you configure the headphones; unfortunately the newer models such as the NC700 have encrypted firmware update files so I couldn't easily reverse engineer the protocol to get all the BT commands to configure all the options you can change in the app. Actually the app didn't even work on my Android phone without GApps, so I couldn't sniff the connection either...
The digital video transition has been a net good, though I will say analog output is easier, takes fewer resources, but those are plentiful. No worries.
Audio isn't the same. All existing gear remains relevant.
The data collection is something I hate viscerally.
Also why I do not stream music.
For some activities like running having no cables to deal with is a great experience (that you should try at least once)
And unfortunately the app is the only way to set noise reduction to any level other than 0%, 50%, 100% (that is available with the hardware button).
If for example you want noise reduction to 75% you need to use the app.
Same for changing the sound profiles from the defaults.
Not sure if this was intentional, but it made me chuckle.
1. Get as simple and durable as possible
2. If it has to be complex, get something made by Apple
3. There's no rule three
Till such an organization for handing out badges will exist, it will be a hard task to buy any hardware and being able to trust its privacy.
Reality is different, but NGOs can in theory sue to make reality align better with the intent of GDPR. NOYB (https://noyb.eu) is supposed to be such an NGO, and they seem to be doing a decent job so far, although they're limited in what they can do with their resources, facing a never-ending wall of vendors that blatantly violate GDPR.
(I live in the EU, so GDPR is relevant to me)
Option a), consent, is further regulated later. The key aspect is https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-43/ "Consent is presumed not to be freely given if (...) the provision of a service, is dependent on the consent despite such consent not being necessary for such performance". Further requirements in https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-32/
Each option only lets them process the data to the extent necessary, so if they can argue that they need the data to provide a service (option b), they can only use it for that, not for e.g. resale. I think a court also clarified that "but we need it to show personalized ads" doesn't count.
I don't think anyone tried to argue that ads or other common ways to monetize data are in the public interest, and such an attempt would likely not stand.
Option f (legitimate interest) also seems to be popular, but I think that again, a court clarified that invasive tracking for ads doesn't meet the balance.
The problems with GDPR are really more on the enforcement side: The DPAs are overwhelmed and in some cases (Ireland) they seem to be rather keen on not doing their job. Also, it's hard to enforce GDPR against companies that are outside the EU.
I have never even thought about downloading the apps for either of them. I never even thought to consider if they have apps. I just bluetooth to my phone and listen to music.
Am I really missing out?
It’s reasonable to assume that if you can’t audit and review the code of the app and the OS, you can trust neither and need safeguards at lower levels of the stack.
[1] https://www.tjoe.org/pub/direct-radio-introspection/release/...
I’ve never felt better about connecting “dumb” headphones.
But then I had a counter thought: You know how in the early 20th century people said the dawn of recorded music would make 'music dead'? And many other examples of new tech being hailed as dystopian / would cause the end of the world? Sometimes the fear response to newness and unfamiliarity can be a little unhelpful. I think it's our lizard brains responding there.
So I guess what I'm saying is: The fact that a new situation is so different to an old one you were used to, isn't a cogent argument against the new situation.
Some new tech is genuinely awesome, and old things are genuinely terrible, e.g. old forms of industrialisation were terribly pollutive compared to forms used today.
I'm a person who greatly values my privacy, and doesn't follow the crowd - but perhaps one needs to compare on merits alone, not on the fact that things have changed.
If even the rich people can't "muster up the energy" to defend themselves from data collection, I think we're all well and truly fucked.
With music playing the removal of external noise is enough for me. They do well enough blocking distracting noise used as simple ear plugs too. At least the ~£20 Sennheiser ones I use do.
What happened to the world?
People are used to the government being there to prevent companies from doing bad/dangerous stuff. It’s why you can buy any food at any supermarket and be reasonably confident it won’t poison you or be full of cyanide.
People expect the same when it comes to technology companies, and I once did too - I expected that big companies would’ve already got in trouble if they did something bad so it must be safe. The problem is that is far from the truth.
Not just Bose, the Sony WH* series is also guilty of this. Great cans, awful app.
Edit: Bose also had a nice big opt-out button in the app, and asks during setup.
So yes, the previous poster could conceivably be doing the thing that they said they were doing.
When at my desk, I plug in through a Mont Blanc FiiO for my Beyerdynamic headphones. Makes a big difference with some audio. Wireless buds are obviously already a step down from wired, and one step further from amplified cans. And yeah, I'm an outlier and want to be.
But at lowish volumes (used most of the time, don't destroy your ears!) then yes, phones tend to have reasonable headphone amps in them. With decent power output and lowish output impedance. Unlike most computer motherboards, which have excessive output impedance and out power is so low I'd call anemic, when not flawed in other ways (noise due to poor isolation, or non-flat frequency reproduction due to shit implementations of aliasing filters).
I mostly connect the headphones to the phone to play rhythm games like Love Live sif, allstars or idolm@ster deresute, mirishita. My phone (chinese and a few years old) does very successfully drive the HD600 to a pleasant output while playing these games.
As an aside, I absolutely recommend Sennheiser HD600 to anyone who wants a durable (plus tool-free modular with good availability of parts, and compatibility with HD580/58x/650(aka 6xx),660S parts, thus effectively forever) all-rounder open back headphone with a focus on accuracy that's cost efficient and extremely comfortable. Plus they've been around for a good two decades, thus there's no shortage of reviews to base a purchase decision on.
[0]: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r...
[1]: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/m...
They still included a dongle to give you a standard headphone jack.
While Apple could likely have gotten their water resistance even with the headphone jack, they couldn’t have made the phones as thin. People may disagree with the product choice, but I don’t see any reason to think that those weren’t the real reasons.
No. They didn't.
iPhone 5: 7.6 mm thin, 6: 7 mm
iPhone 7: 7.1 mm
> While Apple could likely have gotten their water resistance even with the headphone jack, they couldn’t have made the phones as thin.
Except that's a pretty obvious lie. Not just that the phones did not get thinner (or lighter), they stayed around the same thickness (+- 0.5 mm), while getting larger, much heavier and much more expensive. But also the thinnest Android phone with a 3.5 mm jack is just 5.1 mm thick, for example. Sony even made a waterproof phone that's 6.5 mm thin and still has a 3.5 mm jack, which is thinner than any iPhone ever.
Everything about this argumentation is wrong or an outright lie. The only reason they did this is because they could moneygrab through accessoires better when they eliminate standardized I/O.
It looks like the reason most cited, in hindsight, for Apple removing it was to pave the way for a design without bezels and with more speakers
https://screenrant.com/why-apple-removed-the-headphone/ https://bgr.com/2017/10/06/pixel-2-headphone-jack-iphone-x-d...
Which is, indeed, a very different reason.
https://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/301929-image/iP...
It's like these shit-tier blogs and webdevs, who are tracking every single thing you do on their sites. Are they just incapable of creating? all this tracking...it's anti-creative in the extreme. Mechanical, soulless, lowest common denominator. It's medium.com and web 3.0. Where's the exit bros?