I hope Apple sees this and pulls the plug. Some people just like to brag too much, a self esteem thing perhaps. If you’re getting perks and benefits that others don’t get, and Apple isn’t obligated to keep giving you, perhaps just 🤐 ?
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Apple Sends Out Gift Boxes With AirPods Max and 'Sweet and Spooky' Snacks to Promote Mac Event
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So there won’t be new AirPods Max in this event then. If there was one it’d look awkward to be gifting them a new pair that’s instantly outdated new.
What do you want this person with the Apple logo hat to do? He's like a puppet, praising how great the event will be or every single thing Apple does (it reminds me of ijustine), people who have lost their critical sense in favor of visibility and money.
Anyone going to comment on the fact that the word “spatial” was used, but Vision Pro isn’t expected to be at this event at all?
If there are tough laws in the UK about things like this, then I’d expect British folks wouldn’t get any? I mean, unless there’s some portion of that law regarding the value of gifts received and the box’s content is below that value?Lovely gesture for the rich! I’m minded to wait until any of the British based ones say anything positive and then report them to the Advertising Standards Authority for not labelling it as an #ad.
Infact I’m going to.
We got tough laws here in the UK about things like this
The AirPods’ roadmap was apparently leaked with new Max models coming in 2024… so no, no new AirPods expected tomorrow…
I caught that, too.
One always DOES have the option to not enter into agreements they find reprehensible. I’ve not been paid for or accepted a discount for posting anything nice and I don’t feel my life has been lessened as a result!“Something” implies one thing which means referring to iMac only and not MBP, but the far more likely interpretation is the something is the M3 chip and thus will include iMac and MBP. So for everyone here hoping for MBPs this would seem to support that.
If you have content creator or influencer in your bio it’s a quick way to get blocked. You really just influence me not to buy your product.
Yes this is a big problem. I have some lossless 16-bit tracks that when played on my iPhone through AirPods, the on-the-fly conversion to AAC introduces a lot of artifacts that ruin the audio. If I instead have the files converted to 256k AAC as they are transferred from the Mac to the iPhone, the artifacts are not there, but it does not sound nearly as good as the ALAC files using wired Sony headphones through the headphone jack on the Mac, which cost me $50.
Nothing says class like "Here's some wrote-off inventory and a bag of chips so you'll promote our products".
People think YouTubers are rich, lmao. What a delusional world. I bet you think they don’t work as hard as your 40 hours a week at your measly job.
My bet is they are the last of the lightning stock they’re trying to get rid of before introducing USB C ones tomorrow 😂
Uuhhh, what are you talking about? Everyone is an influencer. These people just happen to be influencers in the consumer tech space. Whatever job or hobby you pursue, you’re an influencer for that because you follow the trends, offer knowledge and insight to that community and probably get free items or perks from your job or your community of fellow influencers. You might even have a YouTube channel or your own social profile but that isn’t even necessary to be an influencer.
I kind of understand the sentiment, but some YouTube nutter banging on about how great something is that they received for free probably doesn't break any laws. As for the "gift" it seems a bit strange to me... If I was sent a pair of those I would probably not even bother getting them out of the box and setting them up. I suppose I would try flogging them on eBay or leave them to rot in some cupboard. The recent article predicting they will not be updated for another year suggests they have a huge inventory of them to try to shift, so they are literally trying to give them away. It's not a good look for the product.Lovely gesture for the rich! I’m minded to wait until any of the British based ones say anything positive and then report them to the Advertising Standards Authority for not labelling it as an #ad.
Infact I’m going to.
We got tough laws here in the UK about things like this
It's hardly a "big problem". I wouldn't even call it a "problem", to be frank.
People have proclaimed so many things regarding audio quality for years. Companies wanting to push silver cables, oxygen-free copper, lossless, high-res, etc. Yet no double-blind test has been able to conclude or prove any meaningful difference. Regardless of those in the double-blind test being proclaimed audiophiles, industry experts or "regular" people.
Regardless of the equipment used, almost every study can't separate placebo from anything pointing towards these tropes claiming better audio quality results in something human hearing could differentiate.
Silver cables don't provide anything meaningful over copper. In most cases, silver cables are silver-plated. Most of the cable is still copper. And it doesn't make any difference. Neither does oxygen-free copper. Some even promote Gold-plated cables, even though Gold is an inferior conductor compared copper and silver. The only theoretical benefit of using Gold is that it can't get rusted, which won't be relevant for most scenarios.
All studies on digital audio and codecs point to 44.1kHz@16-bits ~192 kbps MP3 as the sweet spot for ensuring the same audio compared to the source. But this was mainly to include the minority pushing things, on average opting for 44.1kHz@16-bits ~128 kbps MP3 was sufficient for most of the study, but this was already reaching heavily into placebo territory. This was using the LAME encoder, as this was the most commonly used.
Apple's AAC encoder is considered superior compared to LAME in pretty much every aspect and scenario. Opting for Apple Encoded ~128 kbps AAC should be transparent compared to the source in almost every case, regardless of the hears or listening, regardless of the equipment being used.
And this is on the topic of encoding—Lossy vs lossless. "High-res" audio makes it even more silly by pushing 96kHz@24-bits and 192kHz@24-bits. This is moving way beyond what human hearing has ever been capable of perceiving. Initially, the industry settled on 21kHz@8-bits as sufficient as it covers the entire human hearing spectrum. But to add leeway, they decided on 44.1kHz@16-bits as the standard for "CD Quality" digital audio by safeguarding by having about four times the spectrum human hearing is capable of hearing.
By going "high-res", you add to the amount of data available. 96kHz@24-bits gives you something like fourteen times the spectrum that human hearing can perceive. This doesn't add anything meaningful. This would be as pointless as connecting your 5400 RPM hard drive using NVME over PCI-Express with 4x PCI-Express 4 lanes. No point of having an interconnect capable of handling 14x the speed of the hard drive you are connecting. It doesn't help if you are driving your car on roads allowing for 150 mph if your car can't do more than 80 mph. By switching to a road only capable of doing 100 mph, your car won't be any less efficient as it didn't push any of the limits. Going 196kHz@24-bits makes it even stupider.
The Apple AirPods Max won't be any different with a DAC capable of 192kHz@24-bits. It will only make people who fall into the placebo category that everything will become much better because they can listen to those high-res tracks sounding no different compared to their original Apple AAC Encoded ones.
I'm no fan of Spatial Music, but at least Spatial Music changes the music—this complete nonsense of going high-res pushing as far as 192kHz@24-bits doesn't add anything.
Of course, including analogue input would allow for changing the audio signature of the AirPods Max by using different external DACs—something many audiophiles would enjoy. My theory on this, and why Apple will never allow for this, is most likely a result of the AirPods Max relying heavily on the DAC and its DSP for the audio quality of the AirPods Max to work. By bypassing it everything would end up sounding far worse without the DSP Apple is doing for them to sound their best. Much the same as the Apple HomePod would most likely sound far worse if you remove the Apple SoC and DSP from the speaker.
And there are, of course, valid arguments for lossless. By utilising something lossless and verified compared to its source, you know for 100% sure you have a perfect copy of the original. By going lossless you remove potential faults from the encoding process, if verified. Purists will, of course, enjoy this—no point in pushing beyond 44.1kHz@16-bits, though, from a technical point of view.
The funny thing with lossless, as we currently have no decent way of transferring 44.1kHz@16-bits lossless using Bluetooth, makes it so that you are most likely getting degraded audio quality enforcing Apple Music to play lossless over AAC when using wireless headphones. Pretty much every wireless headphone supports AAC over Bluetooth. By limiting Apple Music to 44.1kHz@16-bits 256 AAC, you are increasing the likelihood of your wireless headphones not having to do live transcoding of the audio to fit it into the Bluetooth connection it relies on. And, of course, the pre-encoded Apple AAC 256 kbps will have zero artefacts. Still, when you have your headphones enforcing live transcoding of the lossless version, which the headphones have to do on-the-fly and shoehorned into a 96-256 kbps VBR AAC live encoding, you are introducing the chances of encoding artefacts and faults tremendously. You better use the perfectly encoded Apple 128 kbps or 256 kbps versions.
I was under the impression the vast, vast majority of ”influencers” buy the product, make a couple videos, and return it.
And apparently doing that enough times gets you actual free stuff from Apple.
The LAME encoder probably explains why on the same speakers, when I was much younger, I could tell the difference between 128 and 192 MP3s.
The funny thing is with all these discussions of lossless, everyone would be FAR better served simply listening to the exact same files over wired headphones. Bluetooth just sucks. You explained it a lot more technically, but that’s the bottom line.
It’s like when we went from perfectly clear copper land lines to cellular and everyone just got used to phone calls sounding awful.
People's opinions. You may not like the term, but that's what they do. The thoughts of people who are popular, for whatever reason, have always influenced their fans. It's sometimes unwarranted, but that's just the way it is.