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Apple AirPods | OT | Try not to lose them

I

icespide

Banned
MMEF2


Price: $159.99
http://www.apple.com/airpods/

thought it would be useful to have an actual OT for AirPods as the Christmas sale thread has sort of become the defacto OT

I'm terrible at making OT's so if you guys have some ideas for things I should add to it let me know.
 
A

Appleman

Member
Picked them up just before the holidays, they're great. As simple as wired headphones but without the cord, which is all I've ever asked for
 
R

robotrock

Banned
Was pretty skeptical about these but all the impressions I've been hearing since launch makes it sound pretty great.

Will cop once I can walk into a store carefree and find one
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Hoo-doo said:
Proper playback controls when.

Yes i'll keep harping on this damn it, it's killing me!
Click to expand...

Can't buy without an easy way to skip a crappy track in Spotify mixes, or skip ahead in a podcast. Have an Apple Watch but as there is no now playing complication that isn't an option.

Itd be enough just to let me have a one-button complication on a watch face which behaves like an in-line remote (tap 1/2/3 times) and have the crown always change volume

Apple prioritising Siri over the ability to control your music is fucked up
 
G

Ghost Rider

Member
ChaosZeroX said:
DO they fall off your ears easily?

I go to the gym alot and I'm wondering if running or lifting would make them drop.
Click to expand...

Yeah I need to know this as well. I have jaybirds and like them but the pairing can be a pain. I really don't need audiophile quality sound when running or lifting.
 
p_xavier

p_xavier

Authorized Fister
Hoo-doo said:
Proper playback controls when.

Yes i'll keep harping on this damn it, it's killing me!
Click to expand...
Same, it's the only GOAT-missing factor. I'm quite impressed with them so far, especially that they stay into my ears so well.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Reposting my impressions from the other thread.

---

These showed up a day early on Saturday and I've been using them pretty heavily ever since. Around the house, walking around outside with a knit cap on, weight lifting at the gym, etc.

Honestly, they are kind of a revelation. Obviously the sound quality is not going to blow anyone away, but their light weight combined with the complete absence of any kind of wires has allowed me, for the first time ever, to be able to forget that I am wearing any kind of earphones at all. Just wireless sound into my ears. It's really amazing. I've used all kinds of Bluetooth earphones before, but these really made me realize just how annoying the presence of any kind of wire at all is and how much those wires contribute to the earphones coming or loose or falling out. Not once have these come close to falling from my ears, and I typically have terrible luck with earphones staying in, including Apples newest bundled-in earphones from recent years.

The design for these is just great, too. Hats off to whoever came up with the charging case holder design. Auto-pausing when you remove one from your ear is also just amazingly intuitive and has already come in handy a few times at work. They are certainly expensive, but as far as I'm aware there really is no alternative on the market. Truly an amazing life-improving device as far as I'm concerned.
 
jts

jts

...hate me...
Hoo-doo said:
Proper playback controls when.

Yes i'll keep harping on this damn it, it's killing me!
Click to expand...
I think about this over and over and can't come up with a solution that isn't some multiple tapping hell, split by 2 sides.

I guess I take it going back to control-less headphones (it was very common before the iPhone) if it means this wireless freedom. Also, there's always that option, that shall not be mentioned. And pause/play with AirPod removal.

I love them tbh.
 
I

icespide

Banned
Dr. Feel Good said:
They are expensive But they are very nice.

Is there an easy way to check the battery for each bud somewhere on the phone?
Click to expand...

several ways:

- open the charging case near your phone, battery info will show on the phone
- in the audio source selector in control panel
- batteries widget
- ask siri
 
H

hEist

Member
too expensive here so far (179€...)
but I was thinking abut that, but this is just too much money imo.

Btw. not working with the Apple TV or? Anyone tried it? Would be also neat.
 
I

icespide

Banned
hEist said:
too expensive here so far (179€...)
but I was thinking abut that, but this is just too much money imo.

Btw. not working with the Apple TV or? Anyone tried. Would be also neat.
Click to expand...

they work but they don't automatically pair like other iOS devices, you need to manually pair it
 
C

Chorazin

Member
mrklaw said:
Can't buy without an easy way to skip a crappy track in Spotify mixes, or skip ahead in a podcast. Have an Apple Watch but as there is no now playing complication that isn't an option.

Itd be enough just to let me have a one-button complication on a watch face which behaves like an in-line remote (tap 1/2/3 times) and have the crown always change volume

Apple prioritising Siri over the ability to control your music is fucked up
Click to expand...

Huh? Does the Now Playing app on the Watch not work with Spotify or something? It works with every audio app I've tried, but I haven't tried Spotify.
 
Ron Mexico

Ron Mexico

Member
ChaosZeroX said:
DO they fall off your ears easily?
Click to expand...

One fell out literally the first day I tried them as I was getting out of the car. I was hyper-sensitive about it for the rest of the day. From that point on, I'd say almost 3 weeks now of almost daily use, they've been fine. Take them on the train, to the gym, etc.
 
Luschient

Luschient

Member
Tempted to get these for work calls since my current plantronics bluetooth earpiece is constantly disconnecting from my phone.

Anyone had any issues with calls on these?
 
I

infiniteloop

Member
Luschient said:
Tempted to get these for work calls since my current plantronics bluetooth earpiece is constantly disconnecting from my phone.

Anyone had any issues with calls on these?
Click to expand...

been using them for the last couple of days for work calls. So nice not to be tethered to my Mac.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
jts said:
I think about this over and over and can't come up with a solution that isn't some multiple tapping hell, split by 2 sides.

I guess I take it going back to control-less headphones (it was very common before the iPhone) if it means this wireless freedom. Also, there's always that option, that shall not be mentioned. And pause/play with AirPod removal.

I love them tbh.
Click to expand...

One ear - single tap to play/pause, two to skip forward, three to skip back. Just like the single button inline remotes that people are familiar with. Fuck Siri.

Volume you can just reach in your pocket and use your phone. The important part is blind usage (don't want to have to look for buttons or touch a screen for the same reason), and offline usage (no Siri requirement just to change tracks)
 
I

icespide

Banned
mrklaw said:
One ear - single tap to play/pause, two to skip forward, three to skip back. Just like the single button inline remotes that people are familiar with. Fuck Siri.

Volume you can just reach in your pocket and use your phone.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing a single tap gesture would accidentally get invoked too often
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Chorazin said:
Huh? Does the Now Playing app on the Watch not work with Spotify or something? It works with every audio app I've tried, but I haven't tried Spotify.
Click to expand...

Not a complication, it's an app. So you can't just tilt your wrist and tap the screen, you have to press the side button and swipe to being the correct app into view, then tap to bring it into focus, *then* you can control the music.

If they literally just let you have a Watch face which was focused on music so you cut that out. They have one for Apple Music, o once again they're pushing their services over actual usability.
 
B

badcrumble

Member
mrklaw said:
One ear - single tap to play/pause, two to skip forward, three to skip back. Just like the single button inline remotes that people are familiar with. Fuck Siri.

Volume you can just reach in your pocket and use your phone. The important part is blind usage (don't want to have to look for buttons or touch a screen for the same reason), and offline usage (no Siri requirement just to change tracks)
Click to expand...

I'm fine with removing one of the phones for play/pause (one tap would be great too but might require a lot of refinement to read user intentions properly), but yeah, two for skip and three for skip back would be amazing.

Simply holding your finger on them to activate Siri would work well *and* be more consistent with Siri activation on the iPhone. Also, I'm definitely hoping for future 'Hey Siri' support once the WX chip series gets even more efficient and once Apple gets their heads around voice-only UI.
mrklaw said:
Not a complication, it's an app. So you can't just tilt your wrist and tap the screen, you have to press the side button and swipe to being the correct app into view, then tap to bring it into focus, *then* you can control the music.

If they literally just let you have a Watch face which was focused on music so you cut that out. They have one for Apple Music, o once again they're pushing their services over actual usability.
Click to expand...
And yeah, better/more quickly accessible Apple Watch music controls is another option for solving this problem.

watchOS 3 is a massive improvement to the Watch's usability in like every possible way, but the multiple-watch-faces thing is still mostly sort of a waste of UI space that can be put to better use - here's hoping we see playback controls that are just one swipe away (or a great large-sized complication that's able to identify the difference between music playback, podcast playback, and other playback).
icespide said:
the AirPods aren't actually touch sensitive, the taps are all done via the accelerometer. a "hold" gesture is impossible
Click to expand...
Ah, thanks. That's a bummer.
 
I

icespide

Banned
badcrumble said:
I'm fine with removing one of the phones for play/pause (one tap would be great too but might require a lot of refinement to read user intentions properly), but yeah, two for skip and three for skip back would be amazing.

Simply holding your finger on them to activate Siri would work well *and* be more consistent with Siri activation on the iPhone. Also, I'm definitely hoping for future 'Hey Siri' support once the WX chip series gets even more efficient and once Apple gets their heads around voice-only UI.
Click to expand...

the AirPods aren't actually touch sensitive, the taps are all done via the accelerometer. a "hold" gesture is impossible
 
B

badcrumble

Member
These still sound like one of Apple's best new products in years. Kinda funny how the Apple Pencil and AirPods are basically universally acclaimed, in part because they don't have their own visual UI and that's where Apple's screwing up in terms of design.

Likewise, 3D Touch and the attendant force feedback is impeccably well implemented in terms of sensitivity and reading user intentions, but design-wise the OS doesn't really know what to do with it yet.

Apple's actual hardware engineering and low-level software integration game is still ahead of the rest of the industry, and AirPods are proof of that, but goddamn if iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS don't have some basic stability and usability problems these days.
 
G

Ghostshark

Member
Do the airpods automatically change the audio from stereo to mono if I remove one of the pieces? For example, say I'm listening to a song while going for a walk, but I only want to use one of the pods for safety reasons. I put away one of the pods in the case, but leave one in. Will the music channels shift?
 
I

icespide

Banned
Larpington said:
Do the airpods automatically change the audio from stereo to mono if I remove one of the pieces? For example, say I'm listening to a song while going for a walk, but I only want to use one of the pods for safety reasons. I put away one of the pods in the case, but leave one in. Will the music channels shift?
Click to expand...

this is kind of quirky. If you open the case and only take one AirPod out, you're good, it will mix the stereo source down to mono in one earbud.

If you already have both earbuds in your ears and are listening, simply taking one out will pause whatever your listening to. You'd have to either resume playback with siri or pull out your phone and resume playback. at that point everything will come out of one earbud
 
N

NandoGip

Member
If the normal earphones that apple includes with the iphone are too small for you, would this not be a good product for you? These things fall out of my ears constantly.
 
Z

Zeyphersan

Banned
Larpington said:
Do the airpods automatically change the audio from stereo to mono if I remove one of the pieces? For example, say I'm listening to a song while going for a walk, but I only want to use one of the pods for safety reasons. I put away one of the pods in the case, but leave one in. Will the music channels shift?
Click to expand...

Yes. You take one out, they pause, and when you press play again they'll switch to mono
 
G

Ghostshark

Member
Excellent, thanks. This was the concern that held me back from making the purchase. I figured the majority of my use will be with one bud, and if that runs out of battery, I'd swap to the other.
 
B

BruceCLea

Banned
Just got mine. Sound better than expected. About to test them on a run. Kinda scared they're gonna fall out. But we'll see!
 
J

jax

Banned
Had these since day one. They sound great. They don't fall out of my ears no matter how much I've tried. I get loads of compliments on them. The AirPods are a product I've wanted since the original iPod was released and are truly revolutionary.

These are great headphones. But the fact that you can't change song/play/pause by tapping is an insane oversight. Just seriously completely forgotten, and it's really annoying. Walking up to someone and having to like take the headphone out and hold it to pause my music conveniently is really stupid. Doesn't even work most of the time.

The Samsung buds give you different controls on right and left. Don't know why Apple couldn't make left double tap play/pause and right double tap Siri. Or a single tap play/pause. Or SOMETHING. Even with the Watch it's still a huge pain in the ass to play/pause/next/previous.

only having Siri as a command is really a dumb oversight. I'd say it makes these not worth the price until they figure it out, like WatchOS 1, also I've noticed the syncing issue that was supposedly the reason for the delay. Not a deal breaker but annoying. These Pods seem kind of like a beta product still. They're close, but there are definitely annoyances.

Stoked for the v.2. Hopefully they come in black.
 
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