Not necessarily. I feel like they're still very wireless and won't get tangled up and you won't have to worry about plugging and unplugging the headphones. It might also make them look less dorky while you wear them.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
AirPods Launch Rumors Now Include Dates in Late November and December
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Can't wait to buy them. And then lose them. Apple should sell them individually -- not in pairs -- as folks are gonna lose one of them constantly. Or drop one in the toilet...
I can see the benefits. But then why get them? Aren't there cheaper just as good products that already have a cable between the ear pieces? I mean why buy those if you are going to just buy another attachment to make them like everything else on the market?
[doublepost=1479400919][/doublepost]
or lose one out running as they fall off in a muddle of water or something similar...
I hope you post photos of this happening....I want to see it
You won't see any pictures because it's not happening!!!
They are not the most appealing. But not many care about the look who want them. We want the convenience and functionality with the Airpods. The W1 chip, charging capability and five hour battery life are the real selling points.
I was lined up to buy one along with the new MBP that I got. Kinda lost the luster now and have decided against it.
I agree. I am far more interested in the Beats X.
Also, Bose needs to get it together. That neck thing of the QC35s is awful.
Most buyers will have no idea that there are no volume controls... return rate will be through the roof.
I bought some PowerBeats 3s specifically to wear with my AppleWatch 2 while running, and I've been pretty disappointed, specifically because of how poor the pairing "magic" is. Sound quality is fine, comfort is good, battery life is ridiculous, I don't care about brand, and cost is quite frankly not a concern to me. I chose them entirely based on what I thought would be least hassle pairing with the W1 chip.
Where it fails so hard is its inability to recognize that I want to play music from the watch to the headphones. It literally takes minutes, not seconds, but MINUTES, every time, to start up my music prior to starting my run.
First, and this isn't the fault of the PowerBeats, when starting the music app on the watch, you have to force-touch and manually change the source to the watch. Every. Damn. Time. This takes a few seconds. Then you turn on the PowerBeats, specifically while not yet in your ear because it's impossible to distinguish the on-chime from the off-chime so you need to watch for its light to come on. And that seems to take 3-4 seconds for some reason. Not instant. Assuming you still have your playlist already selected, you press play. Now, you have to wait through a full timeout cycle where the watch will inform you it can't find the headphones. I think this takes close to a minute. This also happens every single time you first initiate playback. You then have to cancel out back to the playlist and click play again. A few second later, it'll finally send sound to the headphones and you can start your run. But don't accidentally pass through any wifi locations your watch knows the password to or it'll automatically halt playback. Thankfully in this case you just have to go back into the music app and press play again (it won't hassle you about not finding the headphones), but that's still disruptive when you're in the workout app and trying to run.
That said, they work awesome with the phone. And that's actually the problem. The headphones always want to be paired with and receive music from the phone. All that headache I spelled out above applies only when the phone is in range of the watch, or the watch is otherwise on a wifi network it knows. If you wait to start your music until you and your watch are out of range of the phone and wifi, it actually performs like you'd want. And if the stupid watch app would just remember that you prefer to play music from the watch, not the phone, it would truly be magic. (it still defaults to phone even when it knows for fact it can't find the phone, forcing you to force-touch and switch to watch source).
I also have an iPad Air on the same iCloud account. I've never managed to get the iPad to play to the PowerBeats, but I've never tried with the phone completely out of range. Hand-off type features do work between my iPhone and iPad, iMessages are shared, etc, so they're definitely sync'd up in that regard. The PowerBeats are supposed to work with the iPad in this scenario. But they don't. The iPad can see them; I can switch output to them manually like you can with AirPlay, but it will timeout and say it can't connect to them. Always.
I say all this because the experience has completely changed my mind on buying the AirPods (which I'd have loved to have at my desk for teleconferencing). The W1 chip is not magic, aside from battery life.
Last edited:
I feel you. I got bored waiting for the 2018 Mini Cooper, so I bought a Winnebago instead, and loving it.
Then those buyers need to research the product before purchasing something with a feature which is clearly advertised. It's not difficult.
I still can't believe how stupid the design of those things are. It's Apple's word product design ever.
[doublepost=1479404066][/doublepost]
[doublepost=1479404066][/doublepost]
My $19 Bluetooth ear buds skip tracks, or replays tracks, and raises and lowers the volume with no problems.
Think most would know. Who buys products without reading about them first?
When it comes to Apple Bling ... nothing's ever too unfashionable for the fan base.
They kept falling out of the testers ears.
HAHA, yah i wouldn't be surprised of that!! They should come with rubberized ear thingies to help keep them where you want them! I have problems keeping my ear buds in my ears while im at the gym, annoying as hell.
Uh, what? You can control the volume through Apple Watch or the iPhone.
Fixed your grammatical error in the sentence you were calling something dumb
[doublepost=1479406081][/doublepost]"These are dumb as hell."
Fixed your grammatical error in the sentence you were calling something dumb
Did anyone else notice that apple.com updated BeatsX today in the store to include a "Coming this Fall at..." (with store names and option to check other stores?
I am thinking they're about to launch.
It has said simply "Coming this Fall" all this time, and now a change.