Heavy is the Head that wears the AirPods Max
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I purchased the regular AirPods and this point was reached even sooner, after ~2 years of heavy usage they don't work longer than 15 minutes.
With almost all other wireless over-ear headphones you can at least keep using them passively with a headphone jack when the battery inevitably degrades. Some even have user-replaceable batteries. I have been using old AKG headphones for > 15 years.
Yet another throw-away product from a self-proclaimed environmentally friendly company.
...without power?
Source: https://www.slashgear.com/apple-airpods-max-water-resistance...
$79 for airpods max battery service [0]. user-replaceable battery certainly would be nicer. but to describe as "throw-away" seems extreme.
[0] https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair/service#battery
And regular AirPods are definitely a throw-away product, since the 'battery service' is really just a full replacement. You'd have to physically destroy them to remove the battery.
Also, why not make it so that they can be used passively? What's the downside?
And, why use the lightning port?! Aside from the price, choosing to not use USB-C for a charging port killed it for me. I like being able to charge all my devices off one power brick, and I'm not spending $600 on headphones if I need a stupid lightning port for the next 6+ years.
My laptop, my work laptop, my headphones, my phone, my tablet/e-reader (remarkable).
It's insanely liberating to know that I can pretty much always find a charger for everything, and I only ever need to pack a single wall-wart.
Flying? One charger. Road trip? One charger. Biking to work? One charger.
Better yet - Leave a charger at work, keep a charger at home, don't need to carry 5lbs back and forth every day.
Forgot my charger? Every person I hang out with has a usb-c charger floating around somewhere.
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You know what I really don't want to have to carry around anymore? Fucking cable adapters. You know what no one will have if I forget my charger? Fucking cable adapters.
Honestly - I probably wouldn't have bought these headphones yet because I'm quite happy with my current headphones.
But I'm very, very close to no longer even considering devices that ship without a USB-C port. And that's a shame, because I otherwise really like the Max, and probably would have slotted it in when my current cans die.
Getting over the hump to convert to USB-C initially was fairly expensive, but my job is good and I can splurge. I don't want to go back.
But your comment seems like it might be contrived to begin with. This headset only really makes sense for iPhone users. That is the target. Those people are already carrying using lightning cables in their life. Pretty much anyone in the Apple ecosystem has to charge a multitude of things with lightning still.
I just yesterday picked up a few more usb-c wall adapters and some 6 feet usb-c to lightning cables to get most of my day to day charging off of usb-a
I'm not really what's contrived about the other poster's comment. If these headphones look good and sound good and have good noise cancelling, why would I only want to use them with my iPhone? I'm sure they'll sound great whether I use them with my MacBook, or iPhone, or my Dell XPS, or my Windows desktop, or my smart TV.
The lightning port isn't a deal breaker, but it can be an ergonomic annoyance. I've recently been favoring on Galaxy S9 over my newer iPhone because all of my other devices charge via USB-C and the iPhone is the odd duck that requires extra work. I have a USB-C to lighting cable so it's not that bad, but it's still extra annoyance I would rather not deal with.
The guy I replied to 20 days ago here on HN, talking about Apple: "Don't buy their shit. Period."
No, they were never going to buy this headset. They are not the target market. What they demand would actually be detrimental to the target market.
Of the actual target market, the majority will have no problem with it needing a lightning cable. Their iPhones use lightning. Any iPad but the newest use lightning. The AppleTV remote uses lightning. The Magic Keyboard and the Magic Mouse use lightning. It just seems to be something that a person who would have no interest in this device would see as a problem (in the same way that people who don't use the Magic Mouse are absolute certain that the charger port on the bottom is an egregious deadly fault, while actual users just enjoy a fantastic mouse and it's an utter non-issue. It's why Apple should never listen to these people).
The chargers that ship with modern devices tend to be USB-C to USB-C (including Apple's own macbook charger).
I have absolutely no desire to fit a lightning cable into my life, and I'm hardly the only person I know who has a macbook and an android phone (about half of my company of 300 falls into the exact same bucket).
I don't typically buy Apple devices because I think they're oppressively locked down, but that's not really something I care that much about for headphones.
Plus, given the whole market for decent bluetooth headphones is ridiculously price inflated anyways, Apple's price here doesn't dissuade me nearly as much as normal.
Basically - I would absolutely consider picking up a Max, but lightning is a serious knock against the product.
No, there was no chance you were ever buying this headset. You may see it as legitimizing your grievances, but I don't think any reasonable person actually buys that.
You, 20 days ago, regarding Apple - "Don't buy their shit. Period."
Of the actual people who would buy this, I'd wager that 99%+ have iPhones. Being able to charge the headset with the same cable you use to charge your phone seems pretty obvious.
Regardless, this complaint is pretty spurious. The device is clearly marketed to iPhone/iPad users, who carry a USB to Lightning cable with them as a matter of normative standards.
People just like bitching sometimes.
I personally think it’s pretty silly that it has neither usb-c nor wireless charging, given the price point and when it’s being launched.
I get I'm not the target market but that doesn't make my point valid. Please don't negate it as bitching.
I have a battery pack that doesn't charge with a lightning port, and can charge my phone without a lighting port (wireless).
When I'm traveling light, I don't need a lightning port for anything.
When I'm at my office, I can top off my headphones/iPad/etc off with the same cable I use to connect my laptop to my screen. I never have to worry about bringing an extra cable with me to work.
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It's just too bad, that's all. Apple seemed like they were ready to phase out the lightning port in favor of USB-C and wireless charging. They've done such a great job with all their other audio accessories that a lot of tech-minded people like myself were looking forward to these.
I have a C cable on my desk, the charger is hidden under it, I don't want to replace the cable ever. This one cable can charge my phone, laptop, power bank, earbuds, gaming headset, Nintendo Switch, heck, it powers my soldering iron – of course I don't ever want to buy anything with a different port!
This is like complaining that the microwave at Best Buy doesn't have a Europlug because you're in Italy and that's what you use. Great, but not important to the actual buyer of the microwave in Milwaukee.
If by passively you mean plugged into a headphone port, the answer is that they can’t because they need power. Their big selling point is supposed to be computational audio. That obviously doesn’t work without the compute part, which in turn requires power.
iPad or iPhone only, apparently. Not with a Mac or Apple TV, or, of course, anything else.
(source: article)
Previously (think iPhone 4S and prior), the phone opened from the back. So a screen replacement necessitated deconstructing the entire device.
Could it be more accessible? Most likely. They could put in removable batteries (like older phones had), but they’ve chosen not to (presumably for space reasons (internal batteries take up less space)), and it seems the entire industry followed. But just because they’re not easily replaceable, doesn’t mean they’re not easily serviceable. It takes a bit, but an experienced person can do it about 30 minutes or even less. iFixIt’s guides help a lot here.
Sites/Apps were already breaking on my parent's iphone 6.
Apple supports devices longer than any other manufacturer. Case in point is iOS 14, which came out a few months ago and still supports the iPhone 6s, which came out in 2015.
That's fair if the device we're talking about is a phone. Those will of course become obsolete much sooner. But headphones don't get worse just by the passage of time. I'd love to still use them in 15+ years. Do you think Apple will still service them then?
Also, why not make it so that they can be used passively? What's the downside?
Re: passive listening, I don't know why they didn't. But I think it is fair to assume there was a real trade-off. Do you really think a smart business like Apple would make their excessively expensive headphones less functional for absolutely no reason?
They didn't when they were just speakers on a strap, but that is a bad mental model for thinking about modern wireless headphones. Remember that a lot of these headphones now have CPUs in them, and they're integrating into a moving spec. The iPhone 6 mentioned here only supported Bluetooth 4, while the iPhone 12 supports Bluetooth 5.0, plus some other addons like LE and A2DP. And that's before we consider any protocols that manufacturers add on top of that, like Airplay.
Even Airpods aren't "fire and forget" devices nowadays. Apple is still shipping firmware updates for Airpods. It's fair to say that long term support for these will be much less costly than an old iPhone, but it's not free.
> Also, why not make it so that they can be used passively? What's the downside?
The simplest answer is probably "Apple customers don't want it". If you really care about using your headphones passively with a wire 20 years from now when the battery is dead and Apple won't service it, you were pretty unlikely to be buying Apple anyways. There are tons of available headphones on the market to serve that set of requirements. And since Apple really values clean lines, removing a jack that they don't think many of their customers will use is a no-brainer for them.
"Your wired headphones are reliable mechanical-electrical devices. Apple is making a computer that you wear on your head, and it just can't compete in areas like reliability, repairability, and Apple's profitability."
Google Glass also aren’t as reliable as my reading glasses, but here we are.
We can argue that it's a trade-off that you should be free to make for yourself... but it's very in-character for Apple to just take a strong stance on that kind of thing.
With a 20 hour battery life I'm personally okay with it. If it was more like 4-5 hours then the need for a passive mode would be more pressing.
> Also, why not make it so they can be used passively? What's the downside?
My quasi-educated guess is part marketing, and part technology. The marketing part: Apple considers these AirPods Pros that cover your ears, and insist that they have all the AirPods Pro features. The technology part: from what I can tell, these headphones are DSP-ed up the wazoo, more like HomePods than AirPods, so there's a good chance that passive mode will sound like crap.
I know a practical counter-argument is "so what, there are other active noise-cancelling headphones that let you switch them to passive mood and they sound like crap when you do that and everybody's just okay with it," but, that is not Apple.
(For the record, the AirPods Max are not on my shopping list.)
When did five years become a massive time for support in general? For phones it is, but there are plenty of things with longer than 5 year support.
Not really in consumer electronics.
I don't like MS, but what they do right, they do right.
5 years is quite a long time for a phone, but nowhere near unheard of for PC's
Apple is very aggressive about transitioning stuff when a decision is made. In 1999, your new, pre-iMac laserwriter became a legacy product when iMac was released. MagSafe 1 laptops were orphaned for power adapters pretty quickly. Many HP and Lenovo devices utilize common power supplies that have been around for 10-15 years.
Other products, like AirPods are engineered with planned obsolescence. It's not a dig on Apple, it's part of their process and part of why they are so good at what they do -- Apple builds for a specific customer persona, which may or may not be you. Similarly, the need for commercial customers to have a common power supply is something that makes HP or Lenovo a good choice.
In the more open market, interfaces live a long time. My dad uses an Epson FX-80 dot matrix printer (which was purchased used when I was like 6 years old in the 80s) to print invoices, on a newish computer he found that still supports parallel interface.
And was sold until September 2018. Two years' support for a newly purchased phone shouldn't be considered particularly impressive.
Please don't — they're recyclable[1]. Recyclers wouldn't normally make money from recovering recyclable materials, but Apple pays[2] to make up the difference.
[1] https://www.apple.com/shop/trade-in
[2] https://onezero.medium.com/what-really-happens-to-airpods-wh...
Apple's "few years" is "seven years after Apple stops selling them", for most countries: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624
This isn't a phone.
How many headphones do you have that are still usable after 7 years?
I have a pair of Audio Technica A700s, about $150 new that are now 12 years old; I'm on my 3rd set of earpads. AT gave me a new set free the first time I asked, and it cost me $10 with shipping to get new ones out of warranty. The current ones are 3rd party that are much better than the OEM pads and cost me ~$20.
So you buy a new set of earpads on those every 4 years. But we can also compare with the same-market-segment-as-AirPod-Max (wireless+ANC+mic) Bose QC35, where many people have to replace their earpads _every_ _year_⁰ at $35 a pair (or $20 for third party ones that might last longer but definitely feel worse). So the question I think will be how long the pads last on these. Do you have to replace them every year like with the Bose ones or only every 4 years?
⁰ - QC35 ear pad extreme comfort but lack of durability is basically a meme among owners now.
Price went up I see, but I've had them for 2+ years now, no complaints. The velour is comfy.
Heck, I just sold a three-year-old iPhone X with a “service battery” warning for nearly $400.
$79 is pretty bad.
Plus, it doesn't really matter the type of battery. You can find pretty much any of rechargeable battery (3.7V, 7.4V, nickel, Li-ion) for less than $15, retail. It's mind boggling to think that people on Hacker News (of all places) think that is sensible to subject yourself to something as anti-consumer and as environment-unfriendly as what Apple offers.
$79 every few years on a $500 set of headphones sounds plausible, the battery alone would probably be $40-$50 retail anyways; I'm just getting someone at an Apple store to replace it for me.
More concerning is that a set of new ear muffs costs $69. I've already replaced the ones on my QuietComforts two times ($20 using clones on Amazon), so that is going to add up a bit.
You can buy a pack of 12 rechargeable AAA for less than $10. A charger is $5.
Also, someone else mentioned a $79 battery replacement for AirPods Max which suggests it is in fact serviceable.
https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair/service#battery
I strongly suspect the the "service" is giving you refurbished AirPods with new batteries in them, but it's still cheaper than buying new AirPods. (Although somewhat marginally in the case of the non-Pro model.)
AirPods batteries, on the other hand, are completely unreplaceable, and believe me when I say we’d love to repair them. They’re small and Apple has filled the cavity around them with glue, meaning even if we had a replacement battery they’d be impossible to replace without damaging the AirPod itself. This is extremely upsetting to me, as someone who invests in and runs third-party repair shops at least in part for environmental reasons. Apple needs to do better on their smaller devices, AirPods included.
It's probably safe to assume that in light of how they're constructed, Apple does not repair a unit when received and send the original repaired unit back. The customer likely receives a refurbished unit. But we do not know what Apple subsequently does with the failed units, so it's unfair to assume without evidence that they incinerate them or bury them in a landfill. They may well possess some trade secret that allows them to be able to repair them in a factory and ship them out later as refurbished units. There are technologies that are much more economical at scale (especially achievable with Apple's resources) that are probably infeasible for a mom-and-pop shop. And possibly more environmentally friendly, too (cf. trains vs. trucks).
It isn't an assumption without evidence. It is an assessment based on a detailed breakdown of the product, a knowledge of the generally understood state of the technologies involved in reclamation. This isn't the random opinion of a shop owner. iFixit has a detailed breakdown and assessment, and they are generally considered experts in the field. What is unfair to assume without evidence is that Apple has some sort of super secret tech no one else knows about to repair them. That is simply a claim without evidence.
>Considering that Apple's battery service fee is $49 per AirPod, that tells me that the residual value of a failed AirPod (a single one, not both) is $99.50 - (depreciation) - $49, so $50.50 in the best case, and almost certainly nonzero in the worst case.
Airpods with Wireless charging case: $159 Retail. Wireless Charging case: $79 Retail. Assessed retail value of Airpods: $80 ($40 each).
Apple replacement of damaged Wireless charging case: $69 ($10 discount off retail). Airpods: $69 each ($30 more than they cost new retail).
Apple “battery repair” of Wireless charging case: $49 ($40 less than retail). Airpods: $49 each (again, $10 more than new retail value).
Given this, there is absolutely no evidence that the Airpods have any reclamation value to Apple and they are just selling you a new ear pod for more than you paid as part of the original product. Apple makes more money per unit on “battery repair” and damage replacement than off the original purchase.
Apple knows how to do all sorts of things in the manufacturing process that even competing companies having resources similar to Apple's scale (Samsung, LG, et al.) can't seem to accomplish. iFixit certainly doesn't have resources anywhere near Apple's. So I wouldn't put recycling/repair tech past them. It's certainly plausible.
The rest of your math is largely fictional because you can't buy a pair of new AirPods without the charging case. There's a market for them (most likely in the black market because they're almost certainly stolen), but they're certainly going to be less than the cost of the combination less the price of a new charger.
Something being plausible is not evidence and doesn't support a claim. You are basically saying "you can't prove it isn't true", which isn't an argument at all. What is evidence is actual assessments and an understanding of the underlying technologies, something we do have and speaks against reclamation.
> The rest of your math is largely fictional because you can't buy a pair of new AirPods without the charging case.
This makes it pretty clear you aren’t even arguing in good faith. We have a device with 3 components (two of which are identical). We know the price of the combined 3, and we know the price of the 1 unique unit, that gives us a very accurate idea of the retail price of the 2 matching units. It is basic math, not some pie in the sky made up numbers. This is what Apple is selling them for, that is the retail value. What is fictional math is your asserting that if Apple is charging $50 for a replacement, the original must be worth about $50 back to Apple. Since their replacement cost is pretty much the same as their initial price point, you are just buying a replacement. This is pretty basic.
If I am charging $6 for a bag with an orange and two apples, and $3 for a single orange, we can be pretty sure the Apples are about $1.50 each. If you get a rotted apple and I say I’ll take it back and give you a fresh one for $1.40, I’m just selling you another apple. I can just throw the rotted one in the garbage.
There is no retail price because you can't buy them retail new. That's the only point I'm trying to make here. I don't contend your math is incorrect in the abstract, but in the real world, it's irrelevant. That's all.
Case in point: A quick eBay search shows that a used working AirPod is about $45. If you are correct, and only the abstract math matters, why would anyone pay $45 for a used working AirPod when, as you claim, it is only worth $40 new? Is the market that irrational? I kind of doubt it.
I also don't contend that the original is worth $50 to Apple (this was a best-case high water mark). It's almost certainly worth less because their incremental cost is less.
I'm strictly speaking in terms of real markets as they are observable today. Heck, even a non-working AirPod is still worth about $10 on the open market. Exchange it with Apple for $49 (assuming the battery is the only problem) and that makes the market value of a new (-ish?) unit $59. (This makes Apple's goodwill worth about $15 per unit.)
You are absolutely right in the iPhone & Mac space, but AirPods are famously unrepairable [0].
iFixit's verdict:
- AirPods are not designed to be serviced. No hardware components can be accessed without damage to the device.
- Sealed-in batteries limit the AirPods' lifespan, making them a consumable/disposable item.
[0]: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+2+Teardown/121471
Also, someone else mentioned a $79 battery replacement for AirPods Max which suggests it is in fact serviceable.
Plenty of reasons why people would convince themselves to buy them:
- I can easily return it if I don't like it (most never do)
- the OS X/iOS integration will be way better than my current headphones (my poison)
- I love Apple
- 2020 sucked, if I can't even go to Thailand this year, I'll at least treat myself to these. I deserve it.
As someone who's been using Apple products for over two decades at this point, I obviously have my own biases, but I would argue that Apple products have historically been popular because they've historically been pretty good. Historically at premium (and sometimes outrageous) prices, not universally the best for all needs, not even universally good, and as a company Apple and their decisions are certainly not above criticism, but in general their products are good.
That's still somewhat true - they do not yet dominate laptop or desktop markets, and outside the U.S. they are not (as) dominant in smartphones.
But they do dominate some of the newer product categories, just as they dominated portable music players - tablets, smartwatches.
I'm unsure how much of the headphone market they harvest.
My point of all this is that many got the pleasure of feeling unique and "smarter than the rest" by getting the novelty Apple items that most people were too ignorant to value. But it evolved over time and now maybe it's something else?
If they're the pro-Apple lemming, how aren't you just the anti-Apple lemming with a statement like that?
How is this good tech discussion if, to talk about this gadget with you, someone has to work out how you were mislead to believe these things are paperweights in a few years and can't be serviced?
These topics always remind me of the Xbox vs PS2 debates my friends and I engaged on the internet at age 16. Just ridiculous claims in both directions. Funny how times never change.
You deserve better than this
First, why would it have to be "user-replacable"? You could take it to Apple, and they'd replace it. Or you could take it to any third-party repair shop (after 5 years you wouldn't have a warranty to care about invalidating this way anyway).
Second, so? People buy all kinds of perishable products... Especially in technology, when after 5 years there will be better wireless headphones out there.
>Yet another throw-away product from a self-proclaimed environmentally friendly company.
Youn don't really believe company's sociatal/enviromental concerns, right? This is empty talk. If a company was "environmentally friendly" they would just close.
Nobody really needs AirPods or whatever Apple and others sell else over the environment, even if they were user replacable. Even more so when the first imperative of any company is "sell ever more stuff to ever more people"...
That is exactly what I'm criticising.
If I understood correctly, you were arguing that people don't value longevity as much as other things, and I agree. But I believe that's worth criticising. I think people should value longevity more, for the sake of the environment, and their own wallet.
So aside from irrational consumerism, I am also in the camp of people that don't understand why one would buy this. It is not portable like earpads, it is made to last like a "normal" headphone and all of the software (ahem, computational audio) stuff can be achieved with any normal computer or smartphone where most people already have and use it as the audio source.
News flash: people don't care about the environment either. If they did they wouldn't be satisfied with token gestures, but do radical changes to the society/workplace/lifestyle (some of that kind, like reduced flights, WFH, etc., came as a result of COVID, but would have been met with huge uproar by the general population on environmental grounds).
>it is made to last like a "normal" headphone and all of the software (ahem, computational audio) stuff can be achieved with any normal computer or smartphone where most people already have and use it as the audio source.
Technically, not really, as it depends on embedded microphones, movement sensors, and such.
It's not just the "3d sound" experience of yore, which was solely processed and encoded as a regular audio stream.
I still reserve judgement for the people that will buy it and the companies that produce this.
It's almost like people on HN have never bought noise canceling headphones - none of the top models have user-replaceable batteries.
Because Apple offers luxury products. People who buy luxury products are willing to pay a premium for it. Not understanding that different people value different things from you is a very weird stance to take. I personally wouldn't pay the premium price to lease a luxury automobile, but I understand why other people do it.
> I purchased the regular AirPods and this point was reached even sooner, after ~2 years of heavy usage they don't work longer than 15 minutes.
That's not been my experience, mine have a few hours of lifespan after two years, but for earbuds that's not too bad. I regularly killed wired earbuds faster than that due to wear and tear.
Everything else on this design seems to me like they'll be longer lived than their competitors. Steel headbands and magnet attached earcups sound much more durable than plastic and plastic. I'd be willing to bet that more headphones meet an early demise due to worn out earcups and broken headbands than batteries reaching EOL, so this might not be a bad trade-off for users willing to pay $500 for headphones anyways.
But understanding it doesn’t mean you cannot criticize it?
The entire point is to be impractical.
Not because the old ones will SOUND horribly worse than the five year newer ones, but because tech is tech — the new ones will work with all my 2026 devices, connect using the 2026 wireless standard, work with the 2026 cable (if any, besides the 3.5mm analog).
The 2026 models will hopefully be able to download my voice profile and predefined commands and maybe will even unlock my front door when I approach, plus _____________ ????¿¿¿¿
Don't get me wrong — I love shit that will last a long time with finality, and I buy lots of things for that reason: knives and cookware and even furniture that I will hand down to my sons.
But headphones? Not in that category any more than smartphones or computers.
But my point is that it's not relevant to computer/smartphone oriented wireless headphones. Most of us are gonna want new ones within 3-4 years regardless of what Apple plans. (Wired headphones, different story.)
Though, in five years, a $60-80 battery replacement doesn't sound like a problem to me. This thread seems like roleplaying that it's a major life event.
These airpods aren't an investment, they are expensive and disposable as I doubt these will be usable in 10 years time. To me, that is a bad investment.
I'm doubt you could get replaceable batteries into something the size of the AirPods and have them light enough to stay in my ears as well as they do.
These beasts are obviously different.
Well, the battery is replaceable in a straight-forward way.
The exact process isn't really that important a buying factor considering you'll do it once in every 1000 days (or something on that order).
I would try these on the premise that my remote workflow might be improved.
Some people are going to buy a new pair of AirPods Max every year for $550. It hurts me deep down to know this fact, and it offends me on a level that's hard to describe with words.
But as long as other headphone manufacturers continue to sell quality and serviceable products, I won't be directly affected by it. I just hope Sony, Sennheiser, etc. don't follow Apple's lead. If they do, maybe I'll have to start looking at cheap Chinese brands.
Neither of those have user-replaceable batteries. They haven't for years.
And if you wanted to replace the batteries on the AirPods Max, it's only $79. If you can't afford it, don't buy them.
I don't see this happening because those brands undoubtedly have a much larger share of the high-end headphones market, whereas Apple seems to focus more on a smaller niche with even more disposable income. The fact that AirPods max can only be turned off by placing them in the case is such a weird design decision beyond the other absurdities of the product design. Hopefully Sony and others adopt the good ideas (like replaceable ear cups) while staying true to their customers.
You do know that these headphones will probably outsell the ones you mention 100:1 or more, right? :-)
Is this a reflection on Apple's product strategy or that there are inequalities in the world?
Especially in a situation as ridiculous as this one, where the alternatives are better in nearly every aspect that matters (except the logo).
Not the $10,000 Louis Vuitton handbag or the $80,000 bottle of wine or the other myriad of consumables and products that are clearly priced by what people can pay, rather than purely for their utility value?
You're going to be offended by a lot in this timeline my friend.
You're not going to have too much difficulty finding people with a strong distaste for those markets as well.
Apple has a huge R&D budget and I'm sure that they could make some very nice headphones if they wanted to, but up against a company that's been making really good stuff for 40+ years, I'm skeptical. If it were an innovation thing, I'd be down to get the hot new headphone experience, but these are just wireless can headphones with some noise cancelling, a product that's been around for quite a while now.
(I've had Bose QCs for ~8 years now (the same set, mind you), I'm pretty happy with them. I'm also pretty happy with the earbuds that came with my phone. so it's not like I'm allergic to spending money on stuff I think will be worth it or I'm some audio snob).
You people are so quick to bash on this company for no reason.
The only headset that I consider on par with this one is the recently released (at 800 euro) bang and Olufsen n95. The price is not always the sum of parts.
- Controls are annoying i.e. you have to swipe 20 times on the earcup and then waiting for a deafening beep to set the maximum volume.
- Loses track of current volume on different devices.
- Pairing with multiple devices rarely works.
- Audio quality is average.
The only reason people rave about is its noise cancelling.
IIRC you can swipe and keep holding to keep increasing/decreasing volume until you let go.
> Loses track of current volume on different devices.
That might be somewhat intentional, Android remembers volume per-device (or in case of wired headphones, one separate volume for all wired headphones). When you connect/plug in a device you plugged in before, the volume automatically changes. Sony could be offloading this logic to the device on purpose.
I don’t know if these will find the market Apple is hoping for, but seriously what is the point of this comment? Just to be negative for negativity’s sake? I’m not trying to be confrontational or dickish—I just don’t get it. Every time Apple launches some new expensive product it’s the same old story, people saying it’s going to be crappy and anyway who would buy it at that ridiculous price? and then it turns out that it’s actually not crappy, and some people buy it and like it a lot. I don’t see why we should expect anything different here.
Airpods don't have the best sound, several rival wireless earphones beat them to that.
> I doubt it's studio quality but I also doubt that of apple's offering (or the need for such quality).
Seems to me that the doubt is on charging $550 for mediocre sound or on whether better sound actually matters, depending on whether the sound turns out to be mediocre or not. That way we can be negative about Apple’s pricey new doodad regardless of whether it’s actually good or not—how convenient!
> Airpods don't have the best sound, several rival wireless earphones beat them to that.
I have not claimed otherwise and probably never will.
Why is being skeptical of a product announcement problematic? Is stone-faced indifference the only acceptable response? Can I also not speculate on a film's quality from its trailer?
Your comment was just pointless, unfair criticism. You start by pointing out that there exists a cheaper product that is broadly similar to Apple's new competitor. Then you claim that the latter probably won't exceed the quality of the cheaper product, and that even if it does, nobody could possibly want or need to pay the premium attached to that exceedance. So in the end you've put Apple in a box where their new product sucks no matter what, because it's not exactly the same as a product that already exists.
That's just obviously not valid, as previously noted—people pay a lot more than $550 for headphones that offer a lot less in the feature department than modern BT over-ear noise-cancellers. If you want to speculate on whether Apple will succeed in pushing the market higher in a way that makes sense for their business, that might actually be interesting, but you haven't offered anything nearly that substantive. It's just vague negativity of the kind that seeps out of the internet's pores whenever Apple releases something new, and it's usually wrong.
> there’s a cheaper product out there that’s inferior to what Apple claims of their new headphones
If your claim is that Apple made a product using expensive and tough materials, more expensive than, say, Sony's counterpart, and thus that is better, you may be half-right.
But if you claim that Apple made a product that sounds better than Bose or Sony's counterparts, and has better ANC, that is not verifiable, at least not until there are in-depth reviews out there confirming it.
What we know now is that Apple did not include support for high quality audio codecs. That itself is quite a red flag.
I would not argue with this and in fact I specifically addressed the does-the-market-actually-exist concern in my comment.
> But if you claim that Apple made a product that sounds better than Bose or Sony's counterparts, and has better ANC, that is not verifiable, at least not until there are in-depth reviews out there confirming it.
I don’t claim any such thing. The point of my comment is that the parent comment implied that there is no real difference, then said that even if there is a difference who cares because does anybody really need better sound anyway?
So my point is, what is the point of that comment? What is it bringing to this discussion, suggesting that Apple’s new headphones may be overpriced wrt. their sound quality, and if not then they’re overpriced anyway? Good sound is something some people care about and will pay for.
I'm going to take a guess and say that, given the facts, there are reasonable doubts about Apple's offering, compared to other products. Mainly two: noise cancelling is not on par with Bose and Sony, as stated by early reviewers, and the lack of high quality codecs.
Functionality-wise then, they may be overpriced.
And I would be the first to admit that I like the overall design. I'm an Apple user myself. But I'm skeptical that Apple has achieved the technical proficiency to make some reasonably good sounding, wireless, ANC cans, that compete with either Bose or Sony.
I see this more as a luxury product or a status symbol, like Bang & Olufsen.
> Good sound is something some people care about and will pay for.
The people willing to pay +$500 for a pair of headphones would be even more skeptical than me, I presume.
Since we’re talking about it now, though ... Apple has a decent record building products that meet a reasonable quality bar, even in markets they’re relatively new to. So I think there is a good chance these will end up being regarded as pretty good headphones, worth the asking price for a certain class of consumer. There is also some chance that they will be regarded as overpriced Beats by Dre trash, though I think that window is closing as more positive impressions come in. Outcomes in between those extremes are, obviously, also possible.
Apple’s hardware design and engineering are first rate, and the things they build with speakers in them don’t sound half bad. Personally, I’d be surprised if these weren’t competitive on features alone, and I’ve paid up to around $1000 for (wired) headphones.
So, without a doubt, people will pay for these. And I don’t know what sources that other guy has, but all the early impressions I’ve seen mention much better ANC than the competition
Anecdote: I drive a newer BMW 328i. I live in the northern US where it snows, and it's a rear-wheel drive car so it sat on the lot because no one around here wants to buy an expensive car they have to park half of the year. I bought it certified pre-owned for under $30k, but the MSRP brand new was more like $50k with the package/options mine has. And yet I get so many comments about how it's an impractical car (It's a four door with a full size trunk and gets 30mpg...) and I must be rich for driving a BMW. Oftentimes I get this comment from people who drive pickup trucks that cost $60k-$70k, but that's apparently okay because Ford isn't a "luxury brand".
I got my "luxury car" for less than the average purchase price of a new car in the US, and I still get comments about how it's so expensive and I must be rich and I've had family tell me not to drive it to family events because it makes people feel like I'm showing off. Because when they think BMW, they think "fuck that's an expensive car" but it's not. BMW makes expensive cars, yes, but mine was not. Heck I was looking at replacing my SUV and the base-model Chevy Blazer costs more than my BMW.
But also yes, I've frequented some Toyota forums for my SUV and I've seen a lot of comments when someone wants to discuss their Lexus because "it's just a Toyota that costs $10k more!".
Which is why I'm sad that they'll become obsolete after a while. I'm sure they'd still make great studio headphones for listening at home in 15 years when the battery is long dead (if they worked passively).
For the Airpods Max they currently list a price of 87€, but as far as I understand there's only one battery to swap. But 87€ every few years is still a high maintenance price, hoping they don't increase that price.
Also, Apple only offers service for a few years. I have a few bloated Macs that would need a new battery but Apple just doesn't service them anymore.
For many devices you can get replacement batteries from 3rd party sellers, but quality is hit or miss -- there's no guarantee the replacement battery is going to last (but in my experience Apple's replacement batteries are also unreliable sometimes).
Most of my Hifi gear is more than 15 years old. I doubt any of Apple's new audio products will last that long.
I was told that the battery has to qualify for battery replacement on some devices. That's because they don't replace batteries on an iPad Pro - they always replace the entire device so unless you quality for the battery program, your only option is device replacement. Which they will do if I want but at a much greater cost. That's almost 1/2 the cost of what I originally paid for it.
I was told this directly by an Apple store employee this week. He said he literally can't select the battery replacement option unless he can prove that it is the battery and without the health report saying so, he doesn't know any way he could.
If that doesn't work out, easiest thing is probably to sell on Craigslist with some disclosure and buying a new one.
There's lots of room to improve, for example, the quality of your voice as picked up by the mic, especially in windy environments. Speaking of that, walking outside on a windy day can be really intrusive with the XM3s because the ANC tries to 'cancel' the wind and you get weird sounds in your ears. Those seem like cases where Apple is well suited to make dramatic improvements via DSP. Tech like the noise canceling the HoloLens 2 applies to its mic (to cut out noise from around the speaker) seems well within their capability. I don't make much use of the XM3's "smart" features because they're pretty compromised. Their 'transparency' mode/partial noise canceling mode is really more intrusive than useful. It doesn't sound like I am partly-canceling background noise, it sounds like microphones are selectively filtering some of what they pick up into my music while I walk outside.
So I think there's definitely enough space for Apple to innovate on sound quality and other aspects of the wireless headset experience to justify the margin.
Edit: Also, multi-device pairing and handoff is super janky with the XM3s. Worth mentioning, I had the XM2s beforehand and the mic was literally unusable on conference calls no matter where I used it - people would complain and ask me what was wrong with my phone every time. Wireless headphones are not a solved problem.
XM3s hardware build quality is excellent. The biggest problem with XM3s is the crappy software. The iOS app that demands always on background location access. Although I’d learnt soon enough that it’s perfectly usable without the app.
This is where Apple really shines, in the integrated hardware and software experience. The multi device pairing support on Bose headsets is slightly better than on Sony headsets, although both done even come close to how well AirPods do it on Apple devices.
I have the B&O H9 3rd gen and I love them. I have no idea whether they stack up to what your write on the tech stack side of things, but the sound is phenomenal I think and that’s what matters to me. The mic is useless, but I don’t ever use them for anything but music anyhow.
There has been relatively little innovation in headphones (and speakers) the last decade or so aside from DSP correction. The last really innovative (from an audio engineering point of view) headphone in my book is the HEDDphone with Air Motion Transfer drivers previously unseen outside some exotic speakers. But it’s $2000, weighs 700g and requires an amp to drive it.
I look forward to hearing the Apple headphones but am sceptical you can get as much of a boost with “computational audio” as you can with computational photography, compared to “dumb” headphones with similar drivers and tuning.
I think the spatial audio stuff is interesting and possibly better than previous attempts on headphones. I think well off people will buy these headphones for the convenience factor (works and sounds marginally better than the next best competitor), and Apple will probably release a less expensive version down the line.
Also no one uses closed back headphones for studio work. What does “mid range studio quality” even mean.
The vast majority of professionals use speakers in a sound treated room for mixing. Those that use headphones do so very carefully, using EQ to get them to sound right (or getting used to the sound profile of the headphones). The most commonly used are Sennheiser open backs in this area - a pair of HD650 is probably most common. In general it’s fairly challenging to mix with headphones accurately though.
I think Apple may also be finding out the same thing. These are clearly awesome headphones, but it remains to be seen for whom these are not just cool, but indispensable.
Finding that out will help them continue to target the right customers when (I assume) they lower the price in the future and improve its capabilities.
(It's too easy to take apart and contradict and argue someone's specific personal circumstances as invalid/wrong/unjustified. That would only worsen my life, as I'm living those circumstances, so with apologies I'm not going to share the specifics of my segment for inspection and debate.)
1. Apple's Bluetooth hardware implementation has been top tier for me in multi-device use, in a mixed Apple and non-Apple environment, with predictable steps to resolve any issue I encounter, across the Beats and Apple headphones products that I've used since 2017.
2. Apple's minimal-choice approach to their headphones provides the bare minimum necessary to operate them in on-device functionality, which removes all opportunities for hidden settings, unusual interactions, and other "am I at fault?" interactions with my devices.
3. Apple's noise canceling implementation is strong enough to cancel out general background noise without preventing me from hearing someone speak to me, and weak enough that I can forget that I'm wearing headphones with noise canceling enabled, and doesn't induce nausea in me the way that new (but not old) Bose QuietComfort headphones do.
4. Apple's frequency prioritization for their products is more natural and less modified and bass-heavy to my ears than Beats and other popular products in the market, which aligns with the customizations I requested for my modified DT770s when having them recabled to balanced XLR.
5. Apple's surround virtualization algorithm has been better to my perception than that of Astro A50 headphones (the previous contender for best in class), while causing neither confusion nor nausea when used for extended periods of time.
EDIT: And to save time on replies, here's a per-item FAQ for each of the above, so that I might save folks some time on back-and-forth.
1. Yes, I have experienced significant Bluetooth frustration issues when combined with Apple beta operating system releases, and at one point was able to diagnose a 5GHz wireless interference issue that was fixed before general release to the public. Yes, the original AirPods v1 had sporadic issues, that were resolved by firmware and hardware updates. No, those issues didn't cause me to give up on Apple. Yes, I'm aware that other people have issues with Apple products. No, I'm generally able to resolve any issues within a few seconds. Yes, once in a while the audio blips out, as do my non-Bluetooth wireless headphones as well.
2. Yes, I know they don't use aptX with Android. No, I don't care what codec they use to communicate with my devices, even the Android devices. Yes, I'm aware that aptX is higher quality than Bluetooth AAC. Yes, I have a 192/32-int lossless DAC stack for my wired headphones. No, I'm not trying to simultaneously multi-pair my wireless headphones, or share them between multiple iCloud users or etc. Yes, I know that competing headphones can do all sorts of complicated things that I don't desire them to do for me. No, I don't want to be able to modify any settings on my wireless headphones.
3. Yes, I can still hear people talking. No, I don't get perfect silence on airplanes, even with -27dB custom-molded in-ear earplugs underneath them. Yes, the first time I tested the new QCs, I nearly barfed. No, I don't have that problem with the old QC-15s. Yes, there are settings for the 'level' of noise canceling on the new QCs, see also #2.
4. Yes, I know that Apple owns Beats. Actually, I have 'Beats Pro Studio Wireless 3', the one entry in the lineup that doesn't amplify bass like the rest of the Beats line is prone to doing. Yes, I prefer balanced sound in my listening experiences, both with wireless and wired headphones and in my car.
5. Yes, I know that the Astro A50 when combined with a modern Xbox and Dolby Atmos for Headphones no longer uses the A50 algorithm but instead uses a version of Atmos specifically tuned for my exact headphones. Yes, I know that Apple is using Atmos somehow as part of their virtualization experience. No, I don't expect Atmos to upgrade the notes in my music to sound higher fidelity. No, I don't expect that I'll get the full Spatial Audio experience on most of my devices. Yes, I know that it's possible to tune virtualization algorithms to create a better headspace, see also #2.
Interesting mention on the Astro A50s, I used to have a pair and I thought they were brilliantly comfortable and sounded superb in a gaming context. Unfortunately I destroyed the microphone.
The most likely (90%) cause of having to give up and return AirPods Pro Max will be if they can't fit over my annoying skull. Second most likely (10%), they end up weighing too much. We'll see!
Like most luxury goods, it's a status symbol, and thus the price justifies itself.
Rolls Royce is a luxury company. Rolex is a luxury company. Apple sells a product that's in the pocket of every other snot-nosed preteen.
However, they charge a larger-than-normal markup, so people feel like it's luxurious.
EDIT: There seems to be some misunderstandings of what a "luxury" good is. Something isn't luxurious just because it is subjectively a little bit better than the competition. Bosch makes the best dishwashers but they are not a luxury brand. Similarly, the Golf GTI is an absolutely incredible $30K car, but that does not make it luxurious.
A Rolls Royce is a luxury car because it is full of extravagance and opulence. There is absolutely no concern with keeping costs down, and there is no expense spared to make the car as comfortable and luxurious as possible. It also fits the economic definition[1] where spending on luxury cars increases with income. The richer you are, the more money you spend on luxury cars. This isn't true of Apple products because it is a mass produced, mass market good. A billionaire can't buy a better iPhone. That's the opposite of what it means to be a luxury, exclusive brand.
Of course, unlike Apple, Rolex makes products that last decades. So older, less collectible models become affordable to people. But the fact that the "mass market" is willing to fight over the heavily used, least desirable of all Rolexes proves its exclusivity and "luxury".
This is fundamentally true of all luxury goods, so this distinction is not meaningful. Which is why it is commonly used as a marketing tool, you can create this distinction at any level you want, to make your customers feel exclusive.
Sure, apple plays at the lower-price-broader-market end of this than say, McClaren automotive, but it's the same game.
Speaking personally, I have zero interest in brand except as a marque of quality. But for those who are optimizing for quality over price, Apple is a choice that rarely leads to disappointment.
That's a different proposition to most luxury brands, which primarily target aspiration. A Louis Vuitton handbag may not be a higher-quality handbag, but as I understand it, their consumers are buying it for the logo more than the craftsmanship.
> However, they charge a larger-than-normal markup, so people feel like it's luxurious.
This doesn't seem to me to be a complicated "dichotomy" to square/understand where with phone hardware, at least, any markup is sometimes "larger-than-normal". It's very easy to be a phone "luxury" brand when so many phones are sold with thin to no margins. Apple certainly props up their "luxury status"/"luxury image" with much higher margin products in the margins outside of phones, but it is easy to see why the bar for "luxury phone" itself is so low that it can also be a mass produced/mass consumed object.
Seriously? This comes up within the first few comments in just about every single internet thread about Apple I've ever seen.
Premium products are more expensive than mass market products, typically with higher margins, but at the same time they tend to have greater value for the price than mass market products, provided the price isn't out of reach. Luxury products are much more exotic than premium, with much lower sales numbers, and their price is often almost entirely based on things like scarcity, manually intensive assembly, use of precious metals, etc.
A well-designed premium product should be as good or better than the equivalent mass market product in terms of getting what you pay for, but in the luxury world there's really no concept of value. It's expensive because it has to be and because the vendor wants it to be, but the value proposition is often nonexistent.
The people Apple will make their money on selling $550 headphones to probably make a lot less per year than the readers of this comment do.
This luxury product looks cool. Paying a lot extra for that is not new. The price premium over competing products is just not that much for many Apple customers.
In case the noise cancellation when on a plane turns out to be head and shoulders above Bose and Sony...that extra 200 USD now does not seem so bad.
I can't imagine someone saying a wireless headphone with noise cancelling is "studio" anything. From the delay to the processing to everything, if I want to use a headphone for studio work, I'll want the flattest wiredest analogest of headphones because I don't want them to changing whatever comes in at all.
IPhone was up against some groups with decades of making phones. Tesla is up against companies with literally a century of experience. SpaceX is up against companies that have made rockets for decades. Etc etc etc. I am surprised anyone on HN would be skeptical that a company with billions of dollars of cash at its disposal and world class engineering talent could do a passable job here all because an incumbent has experience. Also, are you suggesting that experience of one set of engineers with mastery of obsolete technologies 40 years ago is somehow a gate that a current company needs to pass through and excel at before they can compete with that company’s current engineers on current technology?
The iPhone wasn't the first phone, or even mobile phone. It was the first mass market SmartPhone.
Those products each have a differentiator. "Cool Wireless Headphones" isn't something new or novel.
But the AirPods Max may have a technical differentiator (not even just an Apple logo!) — AFAIK they’re the first wireless headphones without an on/off switch! (perhaps some of the earlier ones that don’t work once Apple stops replacing the batteries, as well?)
That might well be, but the original AirPods were the first bluetooth headset I got that Actually Worked. BT earbuds quality was shockingly low before. It might well have been the classic Apple Timing phenomenon, when they release a product at the exact right time a technology is mature enough to work (e.g. large modern touchscreens etc), but they undeniably scored with what where, otherwise, pretty mediocre earbuds. They generally know what they are doing.
This said, $500+ for earbuds of any kind is too much, for my values, particularly this year when people and countries are literally starving. It's bad taste.
I don't even want to imagine what people will get with non-Apple audio sources.
The iPhone was the first capacitive touch, finger friendly UI phone. The first OS release wasn't even that "smart" in that native apps could only be installed with a jailbreak.
Remember Blackberry?
Yes. Not a gate, but a bar they need to clear. Audio is not easy, and I disagree that most of the skills in question are obsolete. The electronics, sure. But the NC algorithms and driver are old yet still unsolved fields.
Of course, as you say, billions of dollars and poaching those employees will help them do it in less time.
> Tesla is up against companies with literally a century of experience.
And Tesla sucks at stuff that years of experience helps you get right. Like doors that close evenly, and windows seals that don't leak. The simple, little things.
The exact same people that buy Beats headphones instead of AKG or Beyerdynamic prior to Beats getting acquired by Apple. In other words people who buy them as a status symbol, not for their function, because they themselves are not informed consumers.
For the $500 a pair of Airpods Max is going to cost, though, you can get some /serious/ headphones, that gets you straight out of dynamic transducers and into the entry grade planar magnetic and even entry electrostatic earphones.
There's simply no reason to spend that much on Airpods Max compared to the available market if you actually care about performance and sound quality.
Also they do seem to care more about nice materials and Style than other brands, which is reflected in their commercials as well.
If you happen to have a link handy, I'd love to see what you're referring to specifically?
There are a many technologies present in products like this that a company that is purely "focused on producing the best headphones" wouldn't normally concern themselves with such as a DAC, amp, DSP, microphone & wireless protocols. When these components are tightly designed together, Apple can disrupt much in the same way they're doing with their M1 line.
Where are you seeing reviews that show that they're not of this quality?
Just watch as others copy these overpriced headphones.
How many wireless headphones have "user replaceable" batteries? Certainly not any I have bought in recent years. If these last long enough to need a $79 professional battery replacement[1] in 5 years, then I'd say they're money well spent!
[1] https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair/service#battery
I have a pair of AT's that happens to have Bluetooth and the only time I've used it is when mowing the lawn as a sort of ear protection with podcasts as a side benefit. Shitty audio quality would have been fine for this situation!
The market for this is the same thing as the market for a Gucci purse, basically, and that's fine, who cares; let it be for those people.
It's in some ways lesser than AirPods Max, but it's hundreds of dollars cheaper, you can choose the ear shape and quality that you want, and it lasts forever.
I thought it was ridiculous that an expensive headphone needs to be thrown away after only 5 years of light usage, but there you go... if you only had your AirPods for 2 years, sounds like I had a decent run myself :)
I still bought the newer Powerbeats model because they're quite nice and I couldn't find anything similar with as good quality. The newer model's battery lasts forever (well, a couple of weeks of light usage took them to around 25%) but I know that, in a few years, it'll get to a couple of days maximum between recharges again... hopefully a bit more than the previous one with better and newer technology.
Edit: I've had a much tougher time with the Apple Watch I pair with the AirPods while I run. My first one only lasted about 1.5 years before its battery became unusable for running.
Apple gives people a dreamscape where they can transform their homes and workplaces into a creative paradise and share in a world without material tech problems. 'It just works'.
Replacing the current iphone with the next one is always attractive for the customer as long as it keeps everybody dreaming.
Sony’s XM3 is arguably the most successful noise cancelling headphone in the market and doesn’t do either (it does play unpowered but sound quality is significantly worse).
It is almost impossible to wear a $550 device on your ears and not become immediately biased about how "real" the sounds are.
The better way would be with a double blind test. Would require some sort of device to conceal both the brand and the weight of the damn thing hah.
I wouldn't be surprised if the headphones end up being in line with the rest of the existing offer from other brands.
Not saying I disagree about confirmation bias at play - especially given that TFA states at the beginning that they received a pair for review purposes - however I've personally become upset by dropping large amounts of cash on lackluster products before. Not everyone is necessarily susceptible. Some might ask for their money back. In this case, the author didn't even pay the $550 though.
If they have to send them back then I'd say it is fair, but I doubt that is the case.
You will find it quite difficult to locate any instances of John Gruber saying anything negative about Apple on Daring Fireball.
He's basically like an unofficial arm of Apple PR, and he seems to know that his access is likely dependent upon his continued service in furtherance of Apple's marketing agenda.
That is literally their job, indiscriminate reviewers aren't worth a damn. Gruber isn't a reviewer primarily, but other reviewers have said these sound great too.
Sound can be analyzed extremely objectively.
Another issue might be the variety of plastic qualities that are hard to tell apart from a quick impression. Something that our launch followed by rush to quick reviews society can't adequately test. Glass and especially metals tend to have more predictable durability profiles.
I think the main problem that we haven't solved in plastics is hardness, so glass screens are here to stay, but I wish we could move away from this plastic == low quality perception. I think it would result in better products at then end of the day.
It's a hugely important material but I can't imagine ever perceiving plastics, even the higher grade and durable ones, to a premium feeling. I don't associate that with brittleness but more with aesthetics and touch feel.
Most of the visible metal bits in any consumer electronic will be aluminum, which is notoriously soft (softer than gold) and scratches easily. Likewise, most any product made of wood (moving beyond electronics now) will be made of a wood that's soft enough to scratch easily. I'm not convinced that scratch-resistance is the metric for instinctively classifying the cheapness of a material.
OTOH, those robust lenses from the 50s to early 80s survived until today and are often still used and adapted on modern mirrorless cameras.
Overall, agreed, though.
Ironically, since these lenses often need much smaller adjustments and don't need as much to be readjusted after taking them apart, I find it easier to repair them than some complex metal lenses.
I wouldn't expect any gear made today to have that much of a lifetime.
That is to say, the electronics are fairly standard. You could easily make a single board that can drive the electronics of pretty much every lens. Projects exist going in that direction.
As for the construction, it's pretty damn solid. It's not fully metal, by very high glass fiber percentage nylon and polycarbonate. Very, very durable materials, in some cases even more than metal.
And because of advances in manufacturing tech and the fact these are made of multiple simple plastic parts, you can fabricate replacement parts fairly easily.
Given the fact that the Tamron lens lasted 15 years with the only issue being the aperture cable getting damaged and two pins getting bent out of shape, and that even the cheapest modern lens was fabricated similarly, I think it's not unreasonable to think they could last 40+ years given sufficient effort. Certainly for the most worthwhile lenses.
Of course, when parts need to be made out of metal for mechanical reasons, they often still are. For example, mounts, threaded rings, and so on.
http://jaredlichtenbergerphoto.com/blog/mamiya-645-pro-mirro...
To the point that Beats headphones seemed to have random bits of decorative metal added to it simply to increase the weight and make it feel more "premium":
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/we-took-apart-some-beats-head...
https://medium.com/@BenEinstein/how-it-s-made-series-yup-our...
It's consumer theatrics
But I think I agree that it's overkill, as the weak spot is definitely going to be the usb port.
Even if many consumers can’t tell you directly that something feels cheap to them or why, they are subconsciously aware of it. There’s a classic story from the history of industrial design where in the development of a desk clock, the designer, Henry Dreyfus observed consumers in a store evaluating competitive models of clocks. They picked them up and sensed the weight. By adding mass the product became much more successful. [1]
In the course of my work as a product engineer, I’ve designed many docks and stands for devices, and torn down competitive products. These kinds of things often have added weight in the form of stamped steel plates or die cast zinc. The weight helps keep the dock stable so it doesn’t tip when the user puts in the device, and it also adds to the feeling of quality and security.
[1] “In 1939, he designed the Big Ben Alarm clock for Westclock. After a year of development, it was ready to market. The first customer was the John Wanamaker department store in New York City. Henry Dreyfus, in what is considered to be the first live ‘user testing,’ observed potential customers pick up the clock, examine it and put it down without buying it or asking any questions. Eventually, he questioned customers. Why were they putting it down after examining it? What was wrong?
Their response: it felt too light. Something so light couldn’t be substantive. Whether they were right or wrong, Dreyfus realized that people were associating weight with value even though he knew there was no connection. In a radical departure from the notion that ‘less is more,’ he added a 3 oz. weight, serving no function whatsoever, but to create the perception of greater substance. In this case, more weight equated to more value. He said, ‘people want the experience of knowing that their alarm clock had something inside.’ Weight was an attribute that had meaning and relevance… it created a cue that led to a perception of value and substance.”
However the metric is too simple, and easy to game, and it seems that this simplistic weight == quality is emphasized by many reviewers.
I have an internet router, I don't routinely lift it, its weight is immaterial, except ... it has a power lead, internet lead, and some RJ45 leads connected to it, and if they move slightly, it falls over. I approximately never go near it or think about it, but the only times I do when I have to check something or connect/disconnect something, I'm annoyed by how it's designed to stand up precariously, and does so poorly because it's too flimsy cheap and plasticky.
This reminds me of the "I'm clever because I see the lottery is a tax on fools" sayings. Well, gambling is fun and mass is useful and stable clocks don't get knocked over when you dust the bedside table in their vicinity.
If I picked up some very light electronic, I may suspect that it's simply not very dense, and it was made bigger to (try) and fool another "quality signal", size. You know, knock-off products made to look like something bigger/higher quality but containing mostly air.
It is a shame though, since light can be very strong and high value. I personally wouldn't want almost half a kilo of headphones on my noggin, and this article's emphasis on weight is ... disappointing.
With plastics, I think there are subtle differences in flex & texture that can clue you in you quality.
The plastics used for electronics in the 90s didn't exhibit these problems as much, generally being thicker with a nice matte textured finish. Perhaps the key to winning the public mind back over to plastic would be to mimic those 90s plastics.
In some ways, possibly.
Here's what's nice about Aeron chairs: they last essentially forever. I got a second hand one for cheap. It's easily a decade old, possibly more, judging by the armrest mechanism (which had a redesign, mine is old). Using it every day for two years, on top of what it already had. Still looks brand spanking new.
In case something breaks, I can easily replace any component. There is a healthy replacement parts market. In fact, the person that sold it to me was essentially living off "flipping" Aerons - they would get them wholesale from companies, and then refurbish them.
If you are buying them new, they are covered by a 12 YEAR WARRANTY. Parts and labor.
The AirPods price would be totally justified if they were even remotely like this. Make the battery user-replaceable (even better if they are swappable, for more run-time) and provide user-replaceable parts, plus a healthy warranty, and this could be potentially the Aeron of the headset world.
It isn't, though. The battery is the most egregious issue. Sure, we can understand why Airpods don't have replaceable batteries. Not that it's impossible, but at least it's understandable - they are tiny. It's also possible to understand why Macbook batteries are not easily replaceable - they occupy most of the internal space and are rather fragile.
I don't know what Apple's excuse is, this time.
The arm rests got janky in mine after 2 years. Maybe they are replaceable...?
Even if you mean the arm rest mechanism, that's replaceable as well. As are cables, the seat, lumbar support, gas cylinder, you name it.
I would guess that the batteries on the AirPods Max are not user-replaceable for the same reason. We'll know more once the iFixit teardown is out.
But stepping back: it seems that the parts most susceptible to long-term wear are replaceable. That is the ear cups (user-replaceable) and batteries. Hopefully the headstrap is more durable than it looks.
Glued-in batteries are not a necessity contrary to what Apple wants you to believe.
Similarly, Samsung somehow managed to make their Galaxy Buds Live (small airpods pro competitor) very user-serviceable with standard replaceable battery without making them much bigger.
This has always surprised my as someone who's owned a couple of pairs of B&W P-series headphones (P5 then PX). Portable headphones should be built to last, not just flimsy plastic. B&W got it right with metal construction (and with the newest PX models forged carbon fibre), no surprises Apple is building robust headphones too.
What B&W provide though, is a really solid benchmark (of many) (with the exception of spatial audio - which from Gruber sounds like it still has some shortcomings to overcome). They're £200 cheaper, really substantial and solid construction (with a proper hard carrying case - although similar limited folding), the newest carbon models will be noticeably lighter (if still a substantial 310g).
Obviously the Sony XM4s and Bose 700s are well in view too (although plastic construction can make them seem a less premium alternative).
I expect these will sell relatively well, but I can't see them flying off the shelves like their in-ear namesakes in such a crowded and competitive market, even with Apple's software bonuses.
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/12/08/airpods-max-shipping-es...
Good plastic is not flimsy.
Polycarbonate, an almost commodity plastic, is really strong and light. The next step: composites are way better than any metal if you want a good strength-to-weight ratio. The best, most expensive bikes are made out of carbon fiber composite for a reason.
Plastic is commonly used as casing material for stuff designed for rough environments. Portable power tools, PA speakers, even guns. So if something designed to be used on the battlefield can be made of plastic, there is no problem for headphones worn, at worst, in the subway.
The only problem with plastic is that it suffers from being cheap, as in, not expensive enough. People want expensive products to be made of expensive materials. Also, subconsciously we associate weight with quality, so much that cheap manufacturers sometimes add metal inserts to their otherwise low quality products to trick people into thinking they are better than they really are.
That it to say, unless you put a premium on look and feel (nothing wrong with that), don't hesitate to buy plastic headphones, they can last you a lifetime as long as the right plastic is used at the right place.
That said, the B&W v-shaped sound is not my favorite. Not unlistenable, but maybe not what I'd choose again.
However those cans don't have bluetooth, noise cancelling, a microphone nor adaptive EQing. They're literally just a high quality speaker, headband and copper wiring.
By contrast, the Bose and Sony headphones, which feel more flimsy in comparison, I can wear for hours without issue.
Also to consider, AirPods Max can be extremely well built but you still cannot pack them in a suitcase like you can the Sony or Bose, due to the shitty pouch that’s included...
It's a non-issue.
Indeed a non issue (assuming you also own a money printer).
Try setting your audio input to something other than the headset on the Windows machine.
Most audio you listen to on a mobile device is compressed already is not extracted and compressed a second time.
> Apple does have the control to make sure better codecs are supported and used. It can be pretty hard to determine and control what codecs are supported and which one is used, this is almost always hidden and never mentioned anywhere.
Nonsense. Few developers want to add the complexity of shipping and supporting their own audio decompression inside their app so they just use the ones Apple supports.
There are exceptions, FLAC for example isn't supported by Apple, but I believe FLAC takes too much bandwidth to work over BT regardless.
As long as sound quality is top of class (which they appear to be) then to some extent the thing comes out to "is better pairing experience worth a $200-300 premium over something like Sony MX4s?" For now, I will stick to my MX4s ($280) until maybe Max's come down in price.
Gruber is writing primarily for people who are familiar with Apple's products. That they pair easily with multiple Apple devices is assumed based on the original AirPods. I suspect if there was any regression he'd have mentioned it.
I honestly thought the Headphones vs Headset was just a bluetooth/audio bug and now I feel like a dunce for installing new audio codecs to fix this issue when it was right in front of me the whole time. Sigh.
that really is not accurate. macbooks are notoriously terrible with bluetooth. with my macbook pro, it is impossible to play music on a bluetooth speaker, as it starts stuttering within seconds of use. this is a common problem over many years, and there's a litany of solutions on the forums, most of which don't work. another common problem is iTunes automatically opening and even playing when bluetooth headphones connect. in many cases, there's no way to prevent it. in my case, the only thing that stopped it was renaming iTunes, which required a lot of ceremony to even do. it seems in zoom meetings, it's always the people with airpods that are having audio trouble. i thought it was well known that apple has terrible bluetooth, at least on their macbooks.
My experience with Bluetooth headphones are Airpods 1, 2, and my Senneheiser Momentums.
I think I can count on one hand how many times the Sennheisers needed a re-pairing, and that's using them pretty much every work day. The Airpods are far from reliable. I use them for running 3x a week, and I probably have to re-pair them once a month. This has been consistent with the 1 and 2.
However, this is due to what Apple is trying to do. The Sennheisers just pairs and plays music. The AirPods are detecting what ear they're in, connecting when in the ear, tapping, Siri, etc. There are much more opportunities for failure with the AirPods.
I missed that one. I'll revisit them when they release the S/Pro/Max version.
Just saved future me a cool 500 quid, cheers John!
I don't even like wearing earbuds on a forest path. I really can't imagine over the ear headphones around a city, even sitting in public transit.
Not Airpods, but I wouldn't be surprised if Airpods offered similar qualities.
https://hearinghealthmatters.org/hearingnewswatch/2020/airpo...
In both cases those 'transparency modes' do filter out a bit of useless noise, and I do feel a bit more 'aware' of things/people outside me with that mode on. I've often thought that's also at least partially because I intentionally switch to that mode for a reason (then switch back to full noise cancelling when done).
I live in a busy hipster neighborhood that’s also a major traffic hub... and I like it. I’m a city rat. The music is supposed to come with the roar of cars at a green light and the dozens of half heard conversations on busy sidewalks.
I have the-cheapest-model Sennheiser open airs and a with-mic-for-Zoom-calls JBL. The JBL absolutely isolates the environment mechanically. This is good for a meeting (except for the fact that you hear your voice from your skull, but heck.)
The original Walkman came with headphones [1], but they were light and fluffy. For a long time after, the trend was toward lighter, smaller. People wearing large headphones out and about are definitely a later wave.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2014/7/1/5861062/sony-walkman-at-35
People have worn on-ear headphones since the early days of Sony Walkmans. Y'know, this kind: https://retrospekt.com/products/retro-orange-headphones
Wearing over-ear headphones in public wasn't really a thing until Beats and such came into fashion in the last 15 years or so.
Basically you have two axis:
Size/Fit: Earbuds and myriad variations; Supra-aural (on ear), circumaural (over the ear)
Isolation: Circumaural/over-the-ear can be open-back or closed-back; and they can have various degrees of noise isolation and cancellation.
As for the look and age, it's really a subjective perspective - I personally feel I'm old enough not to care about wearing over-the-ear outside :D
We've got the ocean, got the babes
Got the sun, we've got the waves
The mountains and the rain
And high-speed train
Why would you live anywhere else
Sweat corrodes stuff.
If you took public transportation or go any place young people hang out you would see them too. (Malls or coffee shops)
All the wireless buds used to be those ones that were strung together at max wirelessness
I've found doing face pulls at the gym significantly helped build up all the supporting back/neck musculature that I was beating up sitting at a desk all day. Rows also were pretty helpful for my lower back.
It'd be sort of difficult to do without equipment since it's a cable exercise. If you didn't mind buying some resistance bands, and have a reasonably stable point somewhere at head-height to loop them through as an anchor, you could do that at home. (It's an exercise that you're supposed to do with reasonably light weight, so it wouldn't need to be too sturdy.)
EDIT TO ADD: this article has some explicit advice on how to adjust it to do at home on resistance bands: https://athleanx.com/articles/shoulders-for-men/stop-doing-f...
It's actually better to start without equipment because those muscles are typically very weak for people who haven't specifically exercised those muscles
Though there are other ways to work the rear delt. I prefer some rings at home.
I had shoulder surgery after blowing out my AC joint weightlifting. I went to one PT place that, while good in some areas, focused on strength of my rotators and neglected my mobility. My shoulders got worse after initially getting better and I thought I would need a second surgery. Fortunately I screwed up my lower back so I sought out a new PT place(Catherine at Fields in Motion, Campbell, CA) which not only fixed my back, but identified what was wrong with my shoulder and helped me fix it. It's only now, after months of flexibility and lower-trap strengthening that I know what a face pull is supposed to feel like.
Keep those sternums out, shoulders rolled back, and always keep your core activated(squeeze your cheeks and tighten abs) when you do anything physical. It seems so obvious now, but I went 45 years without figuring it out.
He complains it's too heavy, but then puts down other, lighter products made out of plastic.
He also puts down using it wired, even though it seems like a product to use at your desk (since it's heavy and doesn't have water resistance). Keep in mind, an audio cable is not included in the box, so maybe Apple is sending a signal to use it wirelessly.
Also, he doesn't think this device needs an off switch. This means you get to carry around the case just to put your device in standby. The case is an elaborate off button since it doesn't offer much protection.
Well, yeah? That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Metal ones are going to feel more solid and reliable than plastic, but will be heavier.
It is, because it tells product designers that there is a gap in the market that no one is serving, and that they could release a product to fill that void.
And it's working.
He says they are not meant for use as wired headphones primarily, so recommends against them if thats what you want. Seems reasonable.
Regarding the Switch he says: "I’m not saying they should, but it’s very Apple-like that they don’t." To me it seems like he is staying neutral on the need for an off Switch right now - just commenting that he's not surprised.
I don't think they are bad takes. They are tepid takes at worst!
It's in fact possible to list the pros and cons of something so the reader can decide for themselves which matter to them without forcing a specific opinion onto the reader.
it's almost like he's describing various pros and cons so that the reader can decide which of those things matter to them.
This'd be an instant killer for me.
They have on-head/off-head detection and pause playback when you take them off, so that immediately reduces power draw. Presumably they also have an accelerometer and can go to sleep when they don't move for a few minutes.
The case induces a deeper sleep mode that preserves more power, turning off bluetooth, and the processor that's monitoring movement detection.
No, that's not what he said. They do enter "deep sleep" mode after a while, even without the case. Source in his video: https://youtu.be/UdfSrJvqY_E?t=458
I'd still find it somewhat problematic that they'd wait 2 hours before going to sleep, but not the "my god how did they not think of this" issue I thought it was
If these were about $200 less, I'd probably have pulled the trigger on these already. At $550, it's a pretty tough pill to swallow when fundamentally there are some damned good ANC headphones for quite a bit less.
For the moment anyhow, I don't watch TV on my iPad or phone enough for spatial audio to matter. So the only big features which make it stand above much more affordable competitors is: transparency mode, easy source switching, and overall niceness. Worth $200?? I kind of think no. Maybe I'll revisit this when more reviews are in and the wait time is less than 3 months to order them.
Edit: Gruber also mentioned this, but worth noting. They would be a lot more appealing if the Apple TV supported spatial audio.
IMO transparency mode is perhaps the most interesting thing about these and the AirPods Pro.
Even with the AirPods Pro, I'm so baffled by this.
Why does the source device need to be location-aware?
Wouldn't it be enough to just orient the spatial audio to something like your "median" head orientation? Obviously, the vast majority of the time you're watching something, you're looking at the screen.
Or for something fixed (like a TV), just click a button during setup while wearing your headphones saying "I'm looking directly at the center of the screen now."
I'm curious what I might be missing that makes it so critical for the source device to have an accelerometer and gyroscope.
(As a side note, I guess I also don't actually understand how your AirPods know how to orient themselves towards the direction of your device in the first place -- I don't believe they have an internal compass component.)
What would could do, I suppose, is put the headphones on top of wherever "home" is and use that...
I assume that the iPhone/iPad is constantly re-calibrating user orientation using the camera and depth mapper.
I imagine two ways that Apple could make AirPods Max work with Apple TV:
1. Add a camera to the Apple TV. Some people would be uncomfortable with this.
2. Add an orientation base station to the Apple TV and add receivers to the headphones. This will increase weight, cost, and power consumption (battery weight).
It's possible that Apple already added the sensors. Has anyone done a teardown to look for orientation signal receiver chips?
I tend to disagree. Most people underestimate good passive isolation and have never tried good closed back headphones.
Just spend $99 on Sennheiser HD280PRO, try them on a flight trip and make your own decision.
I've had good closed headphones before, and they're... okay... but nothing like a good active noise cancelling headphones.
For example, the Sony WH-1000XM3 is already a relatively good closed headphone! If you put one on with the noise cancelling disabled, it still provides a quite decent amount of isolation. But then instant you press that little switch... near total silence.
I used to tell people that first class tickets on planes are a waste of money because: You're still on a plane, it's still noisy, you just get better food.
But now with my Sony headphones, cattle class feels like first class. It's bliss: I can sleep. I can watch movies and actually understand what people are saying. I can read a book without feeling like there's a running hair dryer behind my head the whole time. The cries of babies are completely inaudible.
You get much more leg room. You are getting much more space than an economy.
Now, business class or whatever they call the thing where you can recline your seat almost horizontally, that's something. I can't really sleep sitting.
Depending on the configuration you may have a real (narrow) bed feeling, or you may be lying in a sort of tube with not much space to move, but definitely completely flat.
If the price is not outrageous I always go for a business flight on long haul.
Absurd means in the 6000$ range from Europe to Asia and I agree that's over the top compared to, say, 700$ economy with a reasonable airline.
Then again upgrading is an option and sometimes really great bargains can be found.
I flew Zurich Bangkok return with Oman Air in business for less than 2'000 in February. In my opinion a very reasonable price for a great product.
Also funny how you yourself come up with the ridiculous salary of $500k, something ~nobody here will ever make, as the amount that finally makes $3k sound trivial to you. I agree with that much. That's the salary that would make me finally consider paying $3k for leg room.
You need to be level 7+ in a FAANG anywhere else in the world to make anything near that. And you definitely won't be there with "a bit of Javascript".
It is not. It is a great Bluetooth/NC headphone but certainly not a good closed one compared to other closed back phones specifically built for passive isolation. It is also targeted at consumers.
Have you actually tried the HD280PRO I specifically talked about? It is a professional headphone that is very popular with drummers for a reason.
I own the xm3, i own the Beyerdynamic DT770 which is way more popular with studios and drummers; passive isolation vs ANC is not even a discussion
But maybe this is just me :-)
1. Buy a good pair of closed back headphones 2. Take them on a flight 3. Make your choice
If AFTER you have done this, you still prefer NC (and are willing to pay it) then fine by me.
You also get more legroom and a less cramped seat.
If you're flying "only" five hours this may not be a big deal. If you're flying >10 hours (e.g., across the Pacific), then it can make a huge difference to comfort.
First is nice when I get upgraded, but I'd rather take say Qatar Business than BA first.
That said, the headphones I has on a US Airways Business from Manchester to Philidelphia were amazing - far better than the BA ones, so much that I bought a pair (QC25s) while I was in the States.
What with 2020 I haven't been on a plane for over a year now, and I've been on 3 trips on a train, so I've basically forgotten what "out and about" headphones are like. I do wear one on my ear if I'm watching something in bed (hook over ear). Never seen any wireless ones, fortunately I haven't downgraded from my iphone SE so can still use them.
Yes: for some reason I missed "first".
The upgrade to at least business is probably worth it (budget permitting) for flights ≥8 hours, but going to first is probably diminishing returns.
Whenever I tried using noise cancelling headphones, I always felt what I can only describe as a high air pressure in my ears. The best I can describe it is the feeling of needing to pop my ears but popping them providing zero relief.
Is this common at all? Does everyone feel this but somehow are able to ignore it?
Anyway fully agree that good passive isolation goes a long way!
If you fall into this camp, then passive isolation is the only viable choice for you.
https://www.soundstagesolo.com/index.php/features/178-eardru...
Earbuds don't tend to exhibit it nearly as much as headphones.
I feel pressure almost immediately but it doesn't the level of even mild discomfort until 7-8 hours of continuous use (my employer provides a pair that have an ANC option). Even then I can deal with it for longer if I'm watching a movie or something after work.
also if you already have earbuds that you like but they don't give you enough isolation, you can always wear earbuds under construction earmuffs, which is what I was doing before getting the Vic Firth isolation headphones.
Interestingly the AirPods Pro are explicitly engineered to avoid this, and I don’t have this problem with them.
I wonder what the deal is with the Airpods Max?
Passive isolation most noticeably outperforms noise-cancelling for transient noises.
And the sound quality is really excellent for the price.
Nice Sennheiser over-ear cans are okay on a plane, but honestly aren't as good as solid in-ear options (e.g., Etymotic).
Sennheisers (or others) with ANC that are also over ear are FAR AND AWAY superior. It's astonishing how nice it is for the drone of the plane to just VANISH vs. being merely muffled.
Is your claim that Sennheiser HD280PRO headphones do a better job than these? Because I've got a pair, and I agree 100% with the author: the first time I tried some noise-canceling headphones was the last time I took my HD280PROs on a flight.
If that's not your claim, then it doesn't seem like your statement makes any sense.
Sure, HD280PROs are better than not wearing anything over your ears. But the flying experience is dramatically different once you have active noise-cancelling headphones, so different that, euphemistically speaking, there's no going back.
> “Is it a $550 click?” I asked.
> He clicked it a few more times.
> “It’s not not a $550 click.”
This is the most Gruber line ever. I can just imagine John thinking, 'My work here is done'.
The verbiage makes it sound high end, but they're decidedly not talking to people who already spend a lot of money on headphones. There are some audiophiles using wireless these days, but always lossless. Apple has, to that market's dismay, been using lossy bluetooth. The silence here suggests they still are.
It's too expensive for the 'anything that works' crowd but is definitely not an audiophile product. Noise cancellation? Crowded market. Not sure where else this could fit in.
It's similar to the Apple watch. On the low end it really doesn't have any competition. Other smart watches look awful in comparison and you get a lot for $400 or whatever they cost.
But the high end of their range? I know zero watch people who have swapped their mechanical watch for a high end Apple watch. They might wear a low end one occasionally, but an expensive watch that has to be plugged in daily -- well, that's electronic at all -- is the antithesis of high end watches.
More succinctly: An audiophile AirPods is like an Hermes Apple Watch. Cringey, expensive, but will probably find an audience somewhere in the gap between low income and high taste.
As a motorcyclist the weight of a helmet is a real concern usually rivaling the safety rating but always higher than airflow which itself is high on the list.
I really do not see myself wearing any set of headphones that weigh this much, the XM4s by Sony are noticeable so weighing half again more has to really stand out. That he emphasized their inertia pretty much eliminates them completely.
I still really feel that the team involved here reached a ship it or shelve deadline after four years of development. Even the case looks like a last minute tie in which reveals two other sore points, they don't fold and they don't have a means to turn them off outside the case.
I expect the rest of the industry to copy Apple to make affordable versions of this product as has been the case with other products, so it should be a net positive for humanity.
It probably is.
> $500 for headphones seems like a very arbitrary standard for what is excessive.
You could say that about any number. "Raise the minimum wage to 100 USD/h" "That's excessive" "100 for an hourly minimum wage seems like a very arbitrary standard for what is excessive" There is 0 insight there.
> They would consider spending $50 -- or even $15 -- on a restaurant meal to be obscene.
Yes those dumb poor people cannot see the difference between a 15 USD meal satisfying a human unavoidable necessity and a +500 luxury item.
> It's all relative.
So Einstenian of you.
You and the average HNer have all sorts of spending excesses in your life from rent to UberEats to your phone to your vehicle to your grocery lists to your hobbies to the things you buy your children to all the crap in your house that dwarf the price of some nice headphones.
Scraping together $500 is not a lot for something you will use daily for years. I think it's a better investment than a TV. The only difference is that you apparently don't want them.
For some reason people will scrutinize the price of something they don't want while being blind to how much they spend on all the things they do want.
e.g. we don't have to go very far back in time to have tallied up $500 you've spent in your life on unneeded food that gave you seconds of pleasure only to be shat out hours later, yet you're disgusted how someone else might choose to spend their $500, and on something like a tech gadget. It's a very weird judgemental reflex and quite a bit obnoxious to see.
Also interesting because in a comment some time ago you mentioned. [0]
> I worked for a top-20 Fortune company
So I assume you might be trying to be sarcastic with this 1 USD
Yeah I agree parent is making a lot of assumptions about the average commenter of HN but they might not be far off seeing many of us are connected somehow to the Tech Sector which well paid around the world.
https://www.dw.com/es/salario-m%C3%ADnimo-en-venezuela-092-d...
> Also interesting because in a comment some time ago you mentioned.
Nice work there Sherlock. I assume your sharp mind realized that I used the past tense.Life is complicated, not everybody is a 20 something yo working for a FAANG.
Anything else that I can be useful to you sir?
It's not that they're $550, it's that they don't need to be $550. Choosing higher quality groceries, ordering delivery instead of going out during a pandemic, or even just buying things that will bring you and your children joy is on a different level than "I will get these $500 headphones instead of the $300 ones that do the same thing just because I can afford them".
Even if you're not explicitly trying to be as moral as possible with every purchase, there is a tangible difference between buying things that will improve your life or the lives of those around you, and buying things that are expensive just because you can.
This oddly assumes in this example that somehow the Airpods Max don't bring a person joy because of the price tag
It's no different comparing cars or any other items. Option A can do what Option B does but is cheaper. People buy B because they want to. Why would this be any different here.
Anyone who doesn't want to spend $550 on headphones don't have to.
> "I will get these $500 headphones instead of the $300 ones that can do the same thing just because I can afford them"
But that isn't entirely true. If you want over ear headphones that support Spatial Audio, these are the only option.
I'm not saying Airpods Max being this expensive makes sense. I'm not saying they are definitively better. But there are differences and regardless, not a good reason to be repulsed about pricing. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Also the high end is a lot more than just pro headphones, in fact I'll go ahead and claim that most mastering-oriented headphones (not that many, I'll give you that) I heard tend to have a tonality that I dislike.
These definitely are in the "gadget" rather than "tool" category, and while there may be worse things to spend money on, or better ways to distribute wealth, I won't disagree that these headphones belong in the same category as Gucci handbags.
Making headphones out of metal with magnetically-adhered foam ear-cups makes a lot more sense when several people are going to be sharing them — i.e. a rotation of producers working in the same editing booth, where the headphones belong to the booth, not to the user. Metal is a lot easier to disinfect than plastic, and each user could have their own personal set of earcups, swapped often, without that wearing down any latching hardware. And the weight isn’t a problem if you’re just using them at a desk. High-impedance studio monitors are always heavy!
No current Mac can actually work with these headphones, but I don’t think the idea is that everyone is supposed to DAW on their iPads; rather, I presume that these headphones are meant to presage that the next Apple Silicon pro-level Macs will have the right features to support working in regular desktop DAW software with these headphones. (It's curious, though, that they released them well ahead of announcing those new Macs. They could have just put the announcements together.)
Also, don't knock earbuds as being innately less noise-cancelling than over-ear headphones - in-ear monitors (IEMs) that enter your ear canal and produce a good seal can passively filter a great deal of sound, musicians use them all the time and I used to wear my pair (without any active noise cancellation) on airplanes—they work at least 75% as well as Airpods Pro active cancellation does, while sounding really great.
But after a long period of listening like on a long-haul flight, the physical pressure of those get tiring on my ears... and active noise cancellation also makes my ears tired after a while too... so seems there's no silver bullet. Honestly I've just gone to not using headphones of any kind for extended periods of time and listening with speakers whenever practical.
It will be interesting to see the teardown video.
So, the hardware is all there. Apple could have done the same, bringing spatial audio to whatever place you want.
I've had these for 2+ years and I tell people "you forget that you're wearing headphones" and that's exactly how Gruber describes it too..
So I'm also really surprised to hear that the spatial/positional stuff on Apple's headphones only works when paired with a compatible device, and it's just phones and tablets.
That's... lame.
Like it or not, there's your answer.
When was the last time you calibrated something from Apple? They don't do that, it either 'just works' or it doesn't.
It's a consistent design philosophy with some stark tradeoffs.
I own a nice pair of Sennheisers with active noise cancellation. They're AMAZING on planes, or other noisy environments, but like any full-sized set of headphones they're not something I'd wear moving around. Since COVID happened, mine have been on a shelf -- if I want headphones in the house, I just use my AirPods or the older set of wired Sennheisers semi-permanently set up next to the couch.
But yeah, I'm interested in these for the post-COVID world. One thing gave me a little pause, though, prior to Gruber's piece, and that was my assumption that Apple wouldn't make it possible to use these in a wired mode at all. My Senns CAN be used that way, and it makes a big difference on a long-haul flight. If you can use your own nice headphones with the seatback system, you'll have a much nicer time, and I just assumed Apple wouldn't do that.
I'm VERY pleased to see they allowed for that: "You can use AirPods Max as wired headphones with a Lightning to 3.5 mm headphone jack cable".
There's lots of stuff I like about my wireless ANC-equipped Sennheisers, but they don't sound as good as the wired set by my couch. (I mean, no surprise; the older wired set is like $300, and the wireless ones were half that.) Additionally, the wireless ones have all the sorts of goofy interface bullshit and dodgy Bluetooth things going on that I associated with basically all non-Apple Bluetooth things.
I'd absolutely pay a premium to have wireless headphones that rival my fancy wired Sennheisers, include ANC, and operate seamlessly. That'd be a no-brainer.
But, as I said, only if travel actually becomes a thing again. ;)
I also think it is super super likely that Apple is about to hit Bose and other higher-end headphones makers by surprise with how good these sound. We'll have to wait for some real world usage tests and whatnot, but most $500 headphone makers are pretty hidebound / kinda into the woo-woo world of audio. These could be pretty disruptive -- especially if, in year or two, they introduce a lower-end model (AirPods MaxSE?).
His comment here surprises me, because I'd have assumed Gruber knows the headphone space really well. He should check out a pair of Sennheiser HD800s or Audeze LCD series. At the high end, headphones definitely don't feel cheap. There are also plenty of models in the $500 range that don't feel cheap. In particular: headphones intended for the same use as the AirPods Max apparently are (stationary, high fidelity) usually don't feel cheap, and are also usually heavy!
The rest of the review seems fine. The AirPods Max look nice and probably sound nice; if I didn't already have a pair of LCD-2s I might buy them. But I don't need another pair of headphones unless they're designed for portability. Based on what Gruber's saying here, they are not.
If you’re looking for a solid AirPods Max review as headphones, not just as an Apple product and where it fits and yadda yadda yadda, this is not the review you want. I haven’t seen the review you want yet, but it should show up somewhere soon.
> It’d be nice if [spatial audio] worked with MacBooks... But the device that’s just begging for spatial audio support is Apple TV... It’s crazy that Apple sells a premium movie-watching set-top box and very premium movie-listening wireless headphones and they don’t work together for a premium spatial audio movie-listening experience.
So, AirPods Max are not water resistant and are heavy enough to feel intended for stationary use. Yet the two unique selling propositions of these headphones are: seamless transitions between Apple devices and spacial audio.
Seems to me, if you're not going to be using these on-the-go for comfort reasons, you also won't be benefiting from the only two unique features they offer.
The weight thing seems like a design decision that gives insight into the job to be don’t by these headphones, which is very much not the job(s) handled by AirPods and AirPods Pro.
I’m not saying he takes orders from Cupertino but there’s no need for that. Heck, I was once a fanboy and I didn’t get freebies.
Btw, I wonder how they will let people try them in the stores. Seems like putting something on your head/ears that others have tried before you feels a little icky.
I mostly use bottom end Airpods though because they are more convenient and sound just as good!
All that to say -- I'd think all things being equal, good-quality plastic & lighter would be the way to go.
Sure, the beats pro are aimed at a different type of user but when comparing the two products is $550 really that much of a surprise?
I thought they’d come in cheaper, but on reflection pricing them lower competes with Beats (other than the aforementioned pro model, the Beats Studio3 Wireless Over‑Ears are $350)
It's never going to touch your ears anyway, but your fingers might stay glued to them if it's freezing.
I realize that this is going to get buried in the 633+ other comments, but you can not adequately review a product like this in one day/24 hours. Give it a week or two, at least to see if they're really better, or just different/new.
Or is that not an option, and the only wired audio support is via the Lightning to 3.5 mm cable, which adds an additional analog conversion into the chain.
That said, while spatial audio does sound different than stereo, the purported ‘surround sound’ effect is mostly lost on me (even testing just now with G’s recommendation of The Mandalorian).
Am I missing something here?
Somehow I feel like the audio quality and build quality is not going to be as good as the companies that actually make headphones for a living.
Edit: Also, the fact that these don't fold, and that they're supposedly for using in public, make these even less attractive.
https://macdailynews.com/2018/11/05/apple-is-the-worlds-lead... (2018): “When its three headphone brand categories are combined (EarPods, AirPods, Beats – an Apple company) Apple has the leading market share in headphone ownership with 24%. Sony is second with 22%, followed by fellow traditional CE stalwarts Panasonic and Bose”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-27/apple-ced...: “The AirPods have come to define the true wireless (TWS) earphones category, with Apple accounting for nearly half of all sales in 2019 and expected to grow to 82 million units this year, according to Counterpoint Research data. More affordable alternatives from Chinese rivals, however, have eroded Apple’s lead and the Silicon Valley company now finds itself with just over a third of the market, at 35%”
Audio quality? Maybe not. Although it probably depends on how you precisely define audio quality. I’m not aware of any competing headphones that have a feature equivalent to the directional audio that these AirPods have.
But build quality? Apple will give any remotely comparable product a run for its money. Very few companies can match Apple’s expertise when it comes to mass producing hardware products with high-end materials and matching build quality. I think it’s close to a certainty that any headphones that are undeniably nicer than these ones, will also be significantly more expensive.
AirPods are better than EarPods, but they're still in $25 earphone range.
AirPods Pro are nice, but you can get wired IEMs for <$100 that sound just as good. In that price range you can get Pinnacle P1 ($200) or ER4XR ($250) which dump all over them. I use AirPods Pro daily, not for quality, but for convenience.
HomePod is probably the biggest disappointment I've ever heard. $300 and it sounds like a plastic box, despite "computational audio".
At $550, you're solidly in headphone big leagues. Beyer DT770 or DT990 are close to perfect and they're <$200. Beyond that point you're hitting diminishing returns in audio quality; double price is going to get tiny marginal improvements in quality.
I'm eager to hear them but I can't imagine them outperforming DT990s, despite costing twice as much.
(Yes, none of these options have bluetooth or ANC. Get an ES100 for BT. If noise is a problem, get IEMs or AirPods Pro.)
Who knows whether or not I am right or not? What I am quite certain of, is that I'm not likely unique when it comes to not being able to appreciate the small differences in quality that cost the most. Which is to say that for me and a lot of other people, it seems pointless to get hung up on whether one pair of very good headphones sound marginally better than another pair of very good headphones. Unless you're working in a studio as a sound producer, at a certain point the audio quality simply ceases to be the most important attribute of a pair of headphones. I don't know if it's true that you can get a pair of wired IEMs that sound better than the AirPods Pro, but even if it is, it's irrelevant, because the AirPods Pro sound fine to most people who buy them.
Through the years I've owned several different brands of headphones in the price range $100–$150 that I bought because reviewers claimed they were extraordinarily good value for the money when it came to sound quality. And maybe they were, but I've hated most of them for getting mostly everything else wrong: Wrong length of wire, wrong placement of microphone and buttons, and just horrible build quality.
I use the AirPods Pro not because they sound the best, but because they sound good enough and the convenience factors make them worthwhile.
I dump on the HomePod because it lacks any convenience factors that are meaningful to me [1] and it doesn't even serve the "speaker that sounds good" purpose [2].
So I really want to know what the value prop for AirPods Max is. They're not convenient or useful for travel because they're too big. They're not "best audio quality", because that's been done at lower price points. Spatial audio and ANC? Already solved, better, by AirPods Pro, at half the price. They're not even usable for critical listening or gaming because of Bluetooth.
So what are they for? Fashion? (Nothing wrong with that, but I'm sure as hell not going to spend $550 for it.)
[1] Siri can't understand me and it false triggers constantly.
[2] It wasn't even like, "hey its good but there are better speakers". They sounded like a cheap plastic box. They were better than my $100 Google Home. They're worse than the $120 soundbar I put on a TV. It's a low bar.
Almost every other pair of headphones in this price range offers replaceable headbands, and many of them can be customized with off the shelf products.
As soon as Apple realizes they can incorporate batteries into the design, and sell different colored batteries so people can have their own custom "look", they'll suddenly be replaceable and marked up 70%.
I can't wait for the $250 AirPod Max hard travel cases to start showing up (with built in charging). But what about expensive charging stands so you don't have to put them in the purse/pouch to turn them off?
On the other hand, at least Apple has figured out how to turn commodity computing into an aspirational luxury good instead of an inevitable race to the bottom and low margins. Their recent moves are all intended to give them more control of their experience and extend that strategy out for as long as possible.
So when I was reading the section about the content having to be played on an iPhone or iPad, and how he can't use it with his Apple TV... I got really confused. Can you really not just stream your mobile content to the Apple TV? Then you'd have the big screen, but you could use your phone or iPad for keeping track of your head's orientation. Or can you stream it, but not, like, configure the location of your TV or something, for the purposes of the spatial audio?
0: https://9to5mac.com/2020/12/08/apple-didnt-include-its-u1-ch...
Interestingly, the low-latency audio breaks apps that provide their own video player (Twitch & YouTube), since they aren't aware of the low latency features and they try to compensate for a system feature on their own.
Since a few years ago, this is a solved problem.
Is this actually true? I’ve always intuitively thought it was the other way around since the Airpods plug your ears (they’re not actually earbuds).
I also subjectively tested both in an Apple store and the AirPods blocked out sounds better.
(note that I'm not implying the QCs have poor build quality, just that a heavier product implies better BQ. I am implying that the QCs aren't difficult to beat on sound quality though)
This is not the only example: bought a 2020 Macbook Pro, an external Magic keyboard and trackpad and couldn't even connect them because they came with USB-A cables. We had to wait until iPhone 12 (correct me if wrong) to get a phone that charges on the same manufacturer's laptop. It is a mess.
Does it? If you assume that 99% of the time I am looking at the screen and just do that doesn't it provide basically perfect audio? Until very wide-FOV screens become common place it doesn't seem like you need to know where I am looking, it is within a couple of degrees from the center of the screen.
But that device also has other tricks in its sleeve.
Hearing about the rumors of Apple headphones I postponed any purchase, as I was curious to see first what these headphones would be like and quite willing to buy them, even if more expensive than what I had before. So why arent the AirPods Max not an instant buy for me now?
First of all, the release 2 weeks before Christmas is odd timing, but that probably was beyond the control by Apple, they were not ready for production early enough, also this means limited stock. Basically the question was already decided as there was no chance to get them with the initial run and now are out of stock till spring.
A rather big gripe of mine are the colors. It is great to have different colors, buy why are they all so toned down? For the same reason I don't like the identical colors of the iPad Air. For some things I really like the colors to be ff0000 or 0000ff, alternatively at least 000000. I would like to see whether the "space gray" is dark enough, in the video by iJustine they looked nice, would like to check that out in a store before ordering.
The other one would be the rather weird case. Not only is it odd and I really don't need a case for my headphones in the first place, it is also mandatory to use to be able to switch them off. Which is probably the reason I won't get them. I don't want to have to put my headphones in a case every time I put them off for more than a very short while. Especially not in a goofy one. There needs to be an off switch on the device. Shouldn't be difficult to reprogram one of the two switches to work that way.
The other one is of course the issue with the device compatibility. As Gruber points it out: the spatial audio is great, but there seems no way to actually use this. I am not going to watch movies on my iPhone (I actually did this once to test my Homepods as a movie sound stage, which worked great. But I did it exactly once for satisfying the curiosity, watching a movie on the iPhone is no experience I want to replicate). This is a huge stinker and I don't know what Apple is thinking. It is already more than aggravating, that you cannot (reasonably) use Homepods as your Mac speakers. I just set up a new MacBook Pro, and indeed, my Homepods appear als sound output devices in the audio control, but as separate devices. How is it possible, that they don't communicate their pairing to Macs? Again, what is Apple thinking?
As a consequence, I am quite undecided yet. They do tick quite a few boxes, good build quality, probably great sound, Apple certainly has used all their vast acoustic skills on those. Battery and earpads are exchangeable, they should have a good life time. The price certainly gave me a short pause, this is not impulse by territory. I would be willing to pay it though for a product I am convinced about.
Is it that objects off screen and to the left can be heard before they enter the viewing area?
I wish these had the Ultra Wideband antenna for spatial location applications. That would have been a fun API to mess with. That, and like the reviewer said, this has to happen with the next Apple TV.
I don’t know if Bluetooth has a profile that supports surround sound. Maybe the spatial audio only works on devices with the U1 chip.
The idea is that if you move your head with 5.1 surround sound the headphones will 'maintain the position' of the 5 speakers relative to the screen, which is supposed to stop breaking the immersion and makes your brain think the audio is more 3d than it is.
This actually had me dying. That bluetooth latency is just a killer.
Planes[1] without aluminum? Ouch.
Cars[2] without plastic? Ouch.
I prefer ThinkPads because the use high quality plastic chassis and keyboards. Polycarbonate, ABS or whatever doesn't matter to me. Inside the use also magnesium and aluminum. High quality plastics are better when used with skin contact, especially regarding the keyboard and mouse. I regret that phones made with polycarbonate are gone, removable back cover, Qi without glass at back and they don't shatter when you drop them like the 800 $/€ stuff from Apple or Samsung. What I don't want on my lap is a MacBook. When it get hot, that not comfortable.
TLDR What looks good in first sight isn't good to use or in long term durability.
[1] Actually they use a lot composite material within modern planes like the B747-8, B787, A350 and so on :)
[2] Excepting the original Audi A2, a great piece of aluminum :)
PS: I've seen people buying keyboards and mice made of aluminium. I cannot imagine something more uncomfortable.
So she sent it in for service. When she got the computer back, they had replaced the entire bottom of the computer, plus replaced the battery. Great, right? Except now the bottom of the computer is a different color than the top of the computer, and the battery is a 3rd color!
It's ridiculous, but that's the thing you get with plastic. UV light changes the color over time.
edit: only the spatial audio feature works only on iOS
I never really understood the combination of noise cancellation and home use only. I think noise cancellation really shines when out and about in public, like the subway. But I can't imagine anyone using those things on the go, at least not where I live.
Less safe than say Oslo, Amsterdam, Edinburgh or Copenhagen.
Basically in the middle among major European cities.
Compared to the US it is much safer than Chicago, Detroit or Atlanta and less safe than for example Denver or Boston.
If someone tells me that Östermalm is now a place where people rob you more easily than 10 years ago, then I have enough of a feeling how the social landscape changed. In Stockholm, I've experienced a couple of crime-ish situations in those 2 months that I didn't experience to such a frequent or great extent in Amsterdam (where I live).
In short: it might be that things in Stockholm have gotten a bit more sour.
It’s an isolated anecdote of which there are tens of millions of others just like it in the cities you mentioned. Crime stats should be based on up to the minute evidence not anecdotes.
I dislike reading anecdotes as evidence as well. However, sometimes I personally simply feel free enough to express myself on HN and don't think any further than that. In most cases, this is fine, but in some cases I become part of the problem (posting anecdotes that are interpreted as "evidence").
So I'm happy you posted your reaction as I feel it's the reason why I've been downvoted a couple of times as well. Upon rereading my comment, I agree with your comment. I'll try to finetune my behavior accordingly.
Sure it has a couple of dodgy areas, but I lived in Sodermalm and Kungsholmen and never felt unsafe around those, I moved from Brazil and my hometown gets as many robberies reports in a day as Stockholm gets a year.
I can understand some people might be targeted for these status items but I never had any issues moving around even with an expensive laptop, phone, headphones with me, taking the public transport every day.
These huge numbers in combination with really poor integration has lead to a very segregated society. You now read about gang shootings, rapes, humiliation robberies (they rob the victims then piss them in the mouth or cut off an ear or so, just for fun). These things are happening daily now, it used to be maybe once a year you read about a shooting or particular nasty rape/robbery.
Oh my god.... And then I realise last time I was there it was before GFC. This is very sad to hear / read.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2020/11/28/why-sweden-strug...
https://www.economist.com/europe/2020/11/28/why-sweden-strug...
https://www.thelocal.se/20200923/the-situation-right-now-is-...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50339977
and realize Police simply lets criminals walk free without charges.
Remember Gizmondo? Failed mobile device startup from around 2005 that turned out to be a big scam? You might remember famous Ferrari Enzo crash in LA https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-ferrari28feb28-story.htm... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gizmondo That was part of Swedish mafia.
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Rape-r...
Not sure how it is remotely relevant to life today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden#Birthplace_of_p...
Is this recent enough?
Heck in 2018 they passed a law that says "Any sex act which does not have explicit consent is rape"[0] including those where there are no threats, coercion or violence of any kind.
I mockingly considered creating a "consent" app which could be signed with BankID.
Sweden is also unique in that it counts every offence as an occurrence of rape- meaning that if you're "raped by your husband 12 times a year" those are 12 separate cases of rape and not 1 (like it would be in the UK).
There is also speculation that in Sweden they take rape reports very seriously, which leads to more people coming forward with cases of rape.
This line of thinking has been discussed before, sadly by the extreme far right.[1]
I'm unsure if I'm reading the way you worded this incorrectly or not.
Are you saying people who are too scared to say no are only included because the definition is "incredibly broad"?! Do you think people too scared to say no shouldn't be included?
If so, I'd argue you must have a very narrow personal definition, which worries me.
However I'm saying that the definition of rape in Sweden is broader than other countries and encompasses more things, so the same action in the UK could be classified as domestic violence or sexual harassment (thus, not rape) but in Sweden it would be rape.
For one (of many) example(s), in the UK it's impossible for a woman to rape a man, because legally the perpetrator needs to penetrate the victim. This is not the case in Sweden.
So 'rape' is the crime that's really not worthy of easy comparison between nations.
Like if you were a grad student, literally doing a thesis on it - ok, but otherwise, it's just a chunky one.
Look, if there are people there's gonna be crime. That's just the way it goes. But as far as moderately large cities go, Stockholm is far from dangerous. Like anywhere else some areas will be worse than others, but the parts being discussed in these comments – the inner city – are not the favelas these people seem to claim. Stockholm is a perfectly fine city, but haters gonna hate and all that I guess.
Thugs getting off too easy though, now that's a real thing.
I would definitely not wear 500-600 USD headphones in any of those areas.
But I think crime in Stockholm is a bit off topic. However I don't think the inherent risk of being robbed - wherever you are in the world - is off topic for the discussion.
People rob kids of Airpods all the time, because it's a status item. These new Airpods will be a status item too. This will increase the risk of robbery - be it in Europe or the US or elsewhere.
I'm sure there are larger cities in the world where the likelihood of getting robbed is low (Tokyo?), but that'd be the exception rather than the norm.
I would say that the risk of being robbed in any of the mentioned areas is very low, even during night-time (if you don't actively are looking for trouble)
I used to live in a very dodgy part of Spain near Gibraltar. I was never mugged or beaten up. I've been told by people "You look like you can handle yourself". Some of work collegues which were skinner, more fresh faced got robbed, beaten and in one case had what they believe to be a gun pulled on them. I never had any problems. I don't look like an easy target due to my appearence and size, those guys unfortunately do due to their size and appearence.
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/y3G4Pg/polisen-varnar-k...
On top of that, tech doesn't have nearly the same resell value as high-end watches.
I have always thought Stockholm as somewhat safer than ( Greater) London in my book.
Some peoples' perception is entirely driven by watching too much local news, and yet they somehow convince themselves they or their friends have personally have experienced all of this. Hook them up to a lie detector and it would draw a perfectly flat line as they spin their tales.
A discussion about Sweden and you couldn't help yourself huh.
I don’t follow.
A flat line on a polygraph (whose accuracy is a debate for another time) would indicate they are telling the truth, or rather that they believe to be doing so.
I get that you’re claiming their perception of reality is skewed, but deriding people for saying what they genuinely believe to be true is odd.
It's the reason why boomers swear they were present at every major event during their lifetimes, as though we're surrounded by Forrest Gumps.
That sentence appears to argue that you think them passing the polygraph is a bad thing—why make the comment otherwise—which doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t affect your larger argument, but it doesn’t support it either and thus stood out. It’s as if you had ended your post with “bananas are radioactive”—true, but I’d be left wondering why you had felt the need to mention it.
If that answer doesn't satisfy you then call it observational humor regarding urban & suburban neuroses. Not really sure what you're driving at otherwise.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45269764
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50339977
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden#Birthplace_of_p...
The vast majority of the immigrants is also men which has skewed the male/female ratio in certain age groups.
The violence we see now is mainly from second-generation immigrants because they have no real connection with their home country and they have no real connection with Sweden either since they have grown up in areas where there are no Swedes.
These aimless young men + a system that have failed them + a fast growing gangster culture that promises money and respect + no real consequences for young criminals (4years max for murder, rape is a couple of months maybe if anything at all) leads to a very fast growing criminal networks / gangs.
The gangs now also have an endless supply of young men willing to do whatever it takes since we a constantly taking in more people even thou the system is showing no signs of being better at integration people.
I wanna be very clear thou, this is not due to race/skin-color or other racist bullshit, it is simply input vs output, ANY system in the known universe that gets overburden crashes or starts behaving in unfavourable ways and that is where we are now.
Atleast that part of your claims is wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_area
The page shows how they have evolved since 2015 but if you go back to 2000 or so, they were just a handful.
Basically, the immigration has been larger than the society can "organically" integrate, and the result are new structures in society which did not exist before.
136 robberies of expensive watches in an area with 2.3 million people. Of them 64 happened in the city proper (1 million people).
Yeah, "it's just a matter of time".
Got it.
Open plan office spaces and public transport, including airplanes ;-)
Outside, that's a different story.
WFH kids, dogs etc. AirPods pro help a lot with that situation for me.
Mostly because criminals know that the resale of apple goods is entirely on the parts, which is not worth much.
Isn't that mostly due to activation lock? Is there any kind of similar mechanism for the AirPods Max?
FYI here are some examples of why I swear by my noise cancellation headphones while working from home during a pandemic in a densely populated city:
- Washing machine and dishwasher running cycles during the day - The fridge vibrating at higher frequencies (don't know much about fridge mechanics but this soemthing fridges to do maintain a certain temperature) - Other people in the household talking, cooking, making coffee, fetching cutlery and plates etc. - The high decible hum of delivery scooters/mopeds usually accelerating much faster than they should in what is supposed to be a quiet road - Road noise from delivery vehicles which are heavier than your typical car
(ps admittedly the last two points are only a problem when I have the windows open but occassionaly someone revs an engine which can be heard through the windows)
- During summer months with the windows open, passers' by can be heard from my desk. I live on just off a "quiet road" in my city, my desk is on the first floor and is on the other side of the room from the road. Yet people's conversations are loud enough to make a noise.
Individually there is little wrong with these sounds (except maybe mopeds which I wish were quieter) but collectively they cause noises during working hours for which I am grateful to have noise cancelling headphones at home.
PS I guess Apple are also targeting people who will take these to the office eventually.
I've had mine 7 years and swear by them.
Sadly, you can't (realistically) wear them in bed while you sleep.
https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/wellness/noise_masking_s...
“Unlike headphones, Sleepbuds™ don't stream music or podcasts. They play content only from the Bose Sleep app.”
The original AirPods weren't, but the Pro are, at least for me.
If you recall, the early iPhones were stolen the lot until Apple tied the devices to the Apple ID. This allowed you to lock the device and make it a worthless piece of hardware when the owner wanted it to be.
In principle, with all the electronics on the AirPods, one could imagine a situation where they are locked to an Apple ID and if they are stolen they could be locked down. This would dramatically lower the resale value and prevent future thefts if Apple were to implement this.
- With the assistance of a friend, I rebuilt my kitchen. He swore by his AirPod Pros, I dealt with hours of tablesaws and sanding with foam in my ears.
- Then my building owners jackhammered apart the rooftop overhead in an asbestos removal project.
Now I’m thanking my AirPod Pro every time my neighbor’s baby wakes up at night.
But when it happens in Sweden, do they call it “Stockholm syndrome”?
Some of us have kids banging around the house all day.
I never wear headphones when walking/biking etc, but I’ve worn mine pretty much non-srop at home for the past year. The computer fan, neighborhood noices, fridge, all is quieter and the music is better. I focus better.
Where they really have shown themselves to be indispensible though is on my 2h30 roundtrip daily commute by train[1], complete bliss.
[1] On hold since March..
Sony’s competitors, however badly named, cost 350$ (before the usual discounts on Amazon and retailers), and have audio in, and support higher audio input fidelity. They still use low quality amp+dac, but still the end result is much better than this.
Where is this info form, btw? I'd love to read more specs. BT5 has a 2Mbit throughput for LE.
Seriously. Opus is close to transparent already at 128kbps.
There’s more to it, perhaps.
The ecosystem integration, materials are apparently above the plastic-y norm, the just works without fiddling with EQ...
Oh and buying them is not compulsory. Really very little reason to even login to post this, given reality on the whole.
Thanks for sharing I guess. Not sure how salty hot takes make HN “better” than Reddit. The rules mean nothing.