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Comment by vlod | Hacker News Reader

I respect the work/hack involved.

However why support a company (by buying airpods) that is this hostile. i.e. I wouldn't be surprised to see a patch to stop this.

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It's less hostile and more lazy. The Airpods use standard bluetooth for everything that bluetooth has. The stuff that doesn't work on non apple platforms is the configuration, changing what the squeeze actions do and loading firmware updates.

There is no way to do this with standard bluetooth, you have to have a custom app for it. Apple just didn't build a custom app for other platforms but there is no reason they would care about someone else investing the resources in to building it. They still win because you bought the airpods and someone else spent the resources on making the app.

The fact that simple VendorID spoofing makes features available tells otherwise.

This is my big conundrum with Apple. Their hardware is absolutely brilliant, but their combative nature against the users freedom on their hardware means I will never use it.

Even if you can hack around it, it is the culture that treats the users as someone to be controlled and coddled that bothers me.

Out of curiosity, what makes their hardware 'brilliant'? I often hear this but never actually looked into why. What is your take on that?

Aside from repairability, the MacBooks are the best laptops in every other respect: battery life, keyboards, screens, performance (especially performance per watt) and overall build quality. They're even competitively priced in the current market. Watches have some of the best sensors in their category. iPhones have the best performance and cameras. I can't say much about the AirPods since I've never used them, but people I know report they work very well.

Not parent.

I believe (I don't own their new M-5) their Macbook Pro are very well regarded in terms of trackpad, battery and screen as one (if not the) best out there.

What's so hostile about it?

They can't _add_ features on top of regular Bluetooth connectivity, that they choose to only offer on platforms they're able to fully control and QA ?

Is even just making a feature exclusive really that 'hostile'? A company can't offer benefits for going with several of their products?

Or you mean they _are_ hostile because you're _assuming_ they will try to patch this?

They did not release any documents about their data model that is used to control their headphones. TBF almost every company does that, but unlike Apple, almost all of them have app on both platform(IOS/Android) to manage their devices so there is little reason to reverse engineer at first place.

In regards to Apple hostility. There's obviously the whole app store shenanigans where devs often feel that they have arbitrary rules. DHH has talked about it as has Tim Sweeney.

I listened to Mark Zuck on Rogan about his experience with Apple connecting his Ray Bands to the AirPods. [0]

In that interview, he suggests they won't help with the integration (for stupid reasons) and that he expects that'll come out with a competing product.

I think being a dev and working with the Apple eco (outside of 'normal') is a pita. Yes it's subjective. I'm hesitant to even purchase Apple's excellent hardware for this reason.

[0]: https://youtu.be/7k1ehaE0bdU?si=HB-ZcXNRtB1ox6dx&t=8463

You're commenting on different Apple practices that could labeled as 'hostile'.

I'm strictly talking about Apple tacking on extra AirPods features on iOS devices that they're able to control and QA.

And fuck Zuck.

Sure on first point.

However Zuck is directly addressing Apple hostility regarding Airpods, irrespective of how you feel about him/meta.

0. For the love of the game

1. Additional freedom for used purchasers, gifted purchasers, purchasers from a past era, whatever

Realistically, there's not any other company selling wireless noise-cancelling earbuds with these features _and_ including documentation for folks to use those feature outside of some locked ecosystem.

E.g.: Bose, Sony, etc don't include any documentation for any non-basic features, and the only way to even enable them is via the proprietary app which run on limited environments (notably: not Linux).

I don't defend the practice at all, but no matter which hardware they picked, the practices are still the same.

i don’t know the devs motivation, but i own airpods and iphone

every few years or so i consider jumping ship to android, but i don’t want to buy another set of headphones for that — projects like this make the migration path easier before fully committing

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