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Apple's AirPods Team Wants 'More Bandwidth' Than Bluetooth Provides
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Well that would make an awfull experience anyway ( ignoring the lack of oxygen and it's rather dramatic impact on your ability to enjoy anything what so ever) but if there is no air betveen the speaker in your airpods and your eardrums you will hear nothing, so listening in a vacuum is not recommended. Anyway happy new year from NORWAY
Forget expanding bandwidth, Apple has bluetooth problems period.
Of all the Apple bluetooth devices I own the only ones that actually work flawlessly are my Magic Trackpad and my Magic Keyboard. My AirPods Pro crackle and garble at the slightest radio interference from another onboard antenna on my 11Pro. Both my AirPods and AirPods Pro randomly connect and disconnect between my iPad, my phone and my computer. Using force touch on apple headphones to pause movies on the Apple TV intermittently freezes the playback requiring at best the video to be reloaded or at worst the Apple TV HD to be restarted. Also, why does apple tie bluetooth pairings across all your devices on your iCloud account. I just want to forget the the pairing on one device, not everything!!
To be fair airdrop does work well, too. Although I guess that is just a proprietary rebranding of old school bluetooth file transfer and about as hard to screw up as a kb or mouse.
Every old tried and true I/O peripheral utilization of bluetooth works spectacularly, so perhaps Apple should just stick to that and stop pushing the envelope on bluetooth and trying to make the IEEE expand the protocol at the expense of UX. Building things ahead of infrastructure can propel good change (i.e. Apple's stance on shifting to 64 bit architecture) but this is just an annoying way for them to say we overpromised and now need help delivering.
Meh, who knows? It may just be that I'm just holding it wrong.
Of all the Apple bluetooth devices I own the only ones that actually work flawlessly are my Magic Trackpad and my Magic Keyboard. My AirPods Pro crackle and garble at the slightest radio interference from another onboard antenna on my 11Pro. Both my AirPods and AirPods Pro randomly connect and disconnect between my iPad, my phone and my computer. Using force touch on apple headphones to pause movies on the Apple TV intermittently freezes the playback requiring at best the video to be reloaded or at worst the Apple TV HD to be restarted. Also, why does apple tie bluetooth pairings across all your devices on your iCloud account. I just want to forget the the pairing on one device, not everything!!
To be fair airdrop does work well, too. Although I guess that is just a proprietary rebranding of old school bluetooth file transfer and about as hard to screw up as a kb or mouse.
Every old tried and true I/O peripheral utilization of bluetooth works spectacularly, so perhaps Apple should just stick to that and stop pushing the envelope on bluetooth and trying to make the IEEE expand the protocol at the expense of UX. Building things ahead of infrastructure can propel good change (i.e. Apple's stance on shifting to 64 bit architecture) but this is just an annoying way for them to say we overpromised and now need help delivering.
Meh, who knows? It may just be that I'm just holding it wrong.
There are ways around the bluetooth issue (LDAC/Aptx) but Apple would have to pay licenses which they will never do.
I actually bought the AirPod Max because I mistakenly believed that they used Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth (like the Home Pods) but that turned out to be rubbish.
I still love the Max but it could be better.
I actually bought the AirPod Max because I mistakenly believed that they used Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth (like the Home Pods) but that turned out to be rubbish.
I still love the Max but it could be better.
Not secretly, it’s called UWB. They made a big deal about it regarding tracking, but it’s capable of a lot more.
Neither LDAC nor Aptx solve the latency issue as both of those have lots of latency. Aptx is better than LDAC (50-80ms as opposed to over 200 ms), but neither are suited to real time feedback of the type required to ensure special audio is spatially anchored around a listener.
Except its not rebranded BT file transfer. AirDrop uses BT to create a second ad-hoc Wi-Fi network between devices, but the transfer happens via Wi-Fi.
The larger size is probably to make them more durable but it wouldn’t be a requirement to make them water tight. That would just require making the casing and contacts out of materials that can be milled to a tight tolerance.There are some out there.
And I’d guess it doesn’t take up a TON of extra space over non-waterproof ones, but it does take up more space than zero.Waterproof Audio Jacks | Same Sky
Conforming to the 2.5 mm or 3.5 mm audio standard, Same Sky's waterproof audio jack connectors carry Ingress Protection (IP) ratings of IPX7 or IP67 to deal with the harsh conditions found in industrial and outdoor applications. Browse models now!www.cuidevices.com
Only in dongle land. Or Apple's lame quality Lightning earpods.
I would expect that Apple probably irreparably damages the devices returned to them and just sells the remnants to a scrap dealer. The only stuff that would actually get recycled would be materials like aluminum which have monetary value since it is more expensive to extract aluminum from the mined ore than to recycle products made from it.
The other companies can't make better wireless headphones that work with iPhones. Only AirPods and Beats can use the proprietary protocols for automatic pairing and higher quality voice+sound mode. That's Apple's decision, and it's about lock-in.
USB-C-only Macs were way too soon, which even Apple sorta admitted by putting HDMI back and keeping USB-A in the mini. The normal way to transition is to have both the new and the old onboard for a while, which at least they did with BT+aux on the iPhone.
Original iPhone was Jobs era. Apple was different, but also they were capturing a lot of non-smartphone customers rather than serving existing ones.
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The original iPhone had a recessed headphone jack. You either had to shave down the plug of your headphones with a knife or wait for adapters to be released before you could use your non-Apple headphones.
They are ear buds they are never going to sound that good, so the Bluetooth bandwidth is fine. Sounds more like Apple is looking for an excuse to come up with some new proprietary tech BS format further tightening their handcuffs they have on Apple Fanboys.
Apple in October introduced the redesigned third-generation AirPods, which have an updated design, Adaptive EQ support, spatial audio, and other new features. To explain some of the design decisions Apple made with the AirPods 3, Apple's vice president of acoustics Gary Geaves sat down for an interview with What HiFi (via 9to5Mac), providing some interesting insight into the limitations of Bluetooth and the feature set of the AirPods 3.
According to Geaves, AirPods 3 were built entirely with custom-made components, using nothing "off the shelf." Apple is using a "complicated acoustic system," "carefully tuned bass port," and a "brand new, custom amplifier" all in the name of the best possible sound quality. Apple can optimize for sound with hardware components, but as What HiFi points out, Bluetooth is the real limitation.
When asked if Bluetooth is holding back Apple's hardware and "stifling sound quality," Geaves declined to say too much, but he said that Apple "concentrates very hard" on getting the most out of Bluetooth, and that "it's fair to say" that Apple would "like more bandwidth."
When conceptualizing the AirPods 3, Geaves said that the AirPods team "looked very closely" at the strengths of the second-generation AirPods. The "effortless open fit" that doesn't create a seal in the ear is a big draw of the AirPods, but designing around the lack of a seal "creates challenges for the audio team."
Because no two ears are the same, Geaves said that the sound people experience will be "significantly different, especially the bass," which is what led Apple's AirPods team to add Adaptive EQ, an AirPods Pro feature, to the AirPods 3. It's designed to provide a "consistent frequency response regardless of the level of fit that each person gets."
When designing audio hardware, Apple works from a "strong analytic foundation" and has done "extensive measurements" and "deep statistical research" to inform an "internal acoustic analytic response" that's taken into account. Geaves says that Apple also understands that listening to music "is an emotional experience which people connect with on a very deep level," so Apple works with an "expert team of critical listeners and tuners" as well. The team is from the pro audio industry, and refines the sound for each product, including the new AirPods 3.
The full interview with Geaves goes into more detail on the AirPods 3 and it's well worth a read for those interested.
Article Link: Apple's AirPods Team Wants 'More Bandwidth' Than Bluetooth Provides
Wasn't there a rumor they will unlock wider bandwidth with a software update? I mean we know Bluetooth is not evolving and it's a continuous security risk. it reminds me of when they had to build lightning since there wasn't matching technology out there back then.
Yeah none of this makes any sense except that they “want more bandwidth”.
Pro audio is never wireless and was never going to be high end. This series is expensive and fits the wireless consumer. But if this “pro audio team” REALLY cared there would be a wired experience also, but that doesn’t exist.
The future of Apple audio will be interesting here.
Pro audio is never wireless and was never going to be high end. This series is expensive and fits the wireless consumer. But if this “pro audio team” REALLY cared there would be a wired experience also, but that doesn’t exist.
The future of Apple audio will be interesting here.
Or, for those who are looking to use the highest quality headphones, a DAC dongle. The highest quality audio has always required a dongle.
I’m hearing just fine from my grandpa’s old AM/FM radio ? iPhone should have FM capability ?
And what about spacial audio ?
They upgraded the jack to support low Impedance studio headphones - the audio quality is still only 24/96 - not HD audio.
The current lightning dongle is 24/48 which is better than CD quality.
Question 1: Would you be willing to pay $200-$300 for an Apple DAC/Dongle capable of true HD audio from your phone ?
If yes
Question 2: Can enough people who own iphones actually tell the difference between CD quality and HD audio to make such a dongle worthwhile and are THEY willing to shell out hundeds of $ for this magical DAC
Somehow I doubt it.
So, you’re saying Bluetooth is not evolving and somehow it’s a continuous security risk? Then feel free to provide examples of how Bluetooth is a security risk and at what cost for a consumer?
Oh I bet they do. Even though it makes no sense and is completely unjustified. All they have to do is embrace great open source, patent-free codecs like Opus, which are transparent even at 96 Kbps (yes, you read that right). But I guess BLE 5's 1400 Kbps (i.e. 15 times more than actually needed) is just not enough to work with for them.
For the record, transparent means the human ear can't tell the difference between that and the lossless material. Just look up some hydrogenaudio double blind tests for Opus. Like this one:
This test is 7 years old, and guess what, codecs didn't get worse since then (but there's a very good chance they improved since then, lowering the transparency barrier even further).
For the record, transparent means the human ear can't tell the difference between that and the lossless material. Just look up some hydrogenaudio double blind tests for Opus. Like this one:
Results of the public multiformat listening test (July 2014)
listening-test.coresv.net
This test is 7 years old, and guess what, codecs didn't get worse since then (but there's a very good chance they improved since then, lowering the transparency barrier even further).
I never understood how Kleer never took off. I had a pair of headphones (must be over 10 years ago). It was lossless, low latency and sounded great.
If it was possible then, it certainly will be now.
Its renamed to kleernet now.
If it was possible then, it certainly will be now.
Its renamed to kleernet now.