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Comment by rock_artist | Hacker News Reader

> That’s because AirPods auto-update their firmware by themselves, but only when they’re used together with an iPhone or MacBook, so Android users have no easy way to update their firmware.

From what I remember, advantage of affected Beats devices which also use same chip is they can actually be updated from the beats app on Android

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I use Airpods Pro (1st before and now 2nd gen) with Android phones. And indeed no way to update firmware from Android, no way to check firmware version, no way to select modes, no way to change long press behaviour, no way to check battery level (there are third party apps but they work unreliably). Luckily all that can be done on Mac (except fitting test, which requires iPhone only), though the firmware upgrade process is as confusing as it can possibly be - a user has zero control whatsoever and zero information about status/progress.

One of the support team members in an Apple Store once suggested: you need to leave AirPods connected to the Mac inserted into open case, which is plugged and charging for about 30 minutes to upgrade the firmware. Though in my experience there is definitely a random factor in play for such an upgrade. Moreover I have an impression that even Apple Store employees sometimes have very vague idea how Apple products interplay with any other Apple product excepting the iPhone. Two times I had hardware issue with 1st and 2nd gen Airpods they were very confused that I don't use those with iPhone but with a Mac and Android only.

I had 3 sets of AirPods. 2 upgraded inside of an hour by leaving them connected to my MacBook, while they were charging and the AirPod cases were open.

One didn't upgrade. Annoying.

I left it for about 4 hours.

Anyway, you can force an upgrade by hitting "forget this device" and then re-pairing it. As soon as you do, the firmware will upgrade.

Useful tip. Thank you

How do you even know when an upgrade needs to be done?

Compare firmware version of your AirPods with the advisory.

Select the AirPods under Bluetooth on your iPhone, firmare version is shown as "Version".

>no way to update firmware from Android, no way to check firmware version

To be fair, even on iOS you can't manually trigger a firmware update as Apple in their infinite wisdom decided that's too complicated for the average user, and to make things simpler for them, firmware updates just happen automagically™.

When do they happen? Whenever they fee like it. Just keep your phoner and Airpods close to each other and it will happen eventually, some time. Or not, if you have an error that causes the process to silently fail and the user will have no idea and no way to manually trigger the update or debug it, because that would ruin the AM (Apple Magic™).

> Apple in their infinite wisdom decided that's too complicated for the average user

It absolutely is too complicated for the average user.

No sarcasm whatsoever. 100% sincere comment. ‘The average user’ has utterly no clue about this sort of thing, and nor should they be expected to.

The part before your quote, that you cut off is important.

> even on iOS you can't manually trigger a firmware update as

Having the option to manually trigger an update, and seeing the progress would not affect the average user at all.

Less features, less complexity.

Less features also results into worse UX sometimes. There's a point of diminishing returns, and Apple of recent loves to keep crossing over it, by removing useful features such as being able to trigger a FW updates when the user wants to instead of waiting around for it to maybe happen.

In the UI, yes. But the functionality is already preset. It just needs a button and a progress bar.

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