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Apple's AirPods Team Wants 'More Bandwidth' Than Bluetooth Provides
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Airdrop is at best 50/50 whether it works or not and I often fall back to messages or email. Please don't inflict that on my music too, I just want to put my (wireless) headphones on and hit play. I think mixing different protocols is never a great idea...but it seems to me a lot more effort goes into improving wifi than bluetooth.
It has not. A very detailed explanation of what is currently know about cellphones and their hypothetical links to cancer which actually uses the same chart can be found here.
So in other words, this isn’t about audio data compression but about quantization and sampling in the first place.
They hit two nails on the head. Insufficient bandwidth for lossless digital transport and poor fit. I've personally never been able to use the Apple-style hard earbuds, they're uncomfortable, don't fit well, and they never come close to the sound quality I get out of a comparable pair of rubber-cupped buds. The design just never made any sense to me. It doesn't really seem to be holding back their sales though, so without Steve Jobs to egg them on in the name of product perfection I wonder what their motivation is.
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The Airpod 3s sound quite a bit better than the 2, but unfortunately I had to return them as they didnt fit well and kept falling from my ears. I went back to the 2 with no regrets.
I guess it's no surprise, but still funny to see people complaining about audio quality with these devices. They certainly aren't audiophile quality, but no in the ear phones & bluetooth headphones are audiophile quality. These devices are about convenient, and pretty good sound on the move. Moving away from bluetooth would cripple their ability to connect with other devices. Apple knows that convenience is more important with these in the ear devices.
WiFi connectivity for the AirPod Max line would be an interesting. No one outside the Apple ecosystem is buying those. There should be enough space for both bluetooth & wifi options anyway.
I guess it's no surprise, but still funny to see people complaining about audio quality with these devices. They certainly aren't audiophile quality, but no in the ear phones & bluetooth headphones are audiophile quality. These devices are about convenient, and pretty good sound on the move. Moving away from bluetooth would cripple their ability to connect with other devices. Apple knows that convenience is more important with these in the ear devices.
WiFi connectivity for the AirPod Max line would be an interesting. No one outside the Apple ecosystem is buying those. There should be enough space for both bluetooth & wifi options anyway.
Interesting article. Wonder how much change is possible in the future. Apple could some up with some proprietary standards.
I haven’t used wired headphones since I got th
been using Bluetooth headphones exclusively since I got the iPhone 3GS.
The audiophile is quite large and diverse, including differences of opinion in advocating for technical standards/preferences. Many in the audiophile community find the vinyl format overrated, and limited as a true representative of the source (bass levels were notoriously cut on many vinyl albums from the 60s/70s because the dynamic range of vinyl is not as wide as CD). Furthermore, buying a vinyl copy of an album produced after 2000 is most likely a total waste of money. 99.9% of all new music produced in this century was recorded digitally: buying a vinyl copy of an album recorded digitally is the equivalent of buying a 32mm film print of "Into The Spider-Verse" or any movie shot on an iPhone.
Gee . . . if only Apple were a tech company, they might just be able to come up with a solution to the Bluetooth bandwidth problem.
Oh, wait . . .
Oh, wait . . .
Every test I’ve seen where they’ve gone through the rigor of really ensuring that the only difference in a double blind test is the audio signal being produced, the audiophiles are able to get half right. While they may think that means “See? I can hear the difference at least half of the time!” What it ACTUALLY means is that you could give someone a sheet of paper, have them tick the checkboxes of which is which WITHOUT hearing the test, and do just as well.
Do a search for UWB. It’s already in some Apple devices being used for completely NON-Audio related purposes, but it’s versatile enough for audio. And, it’s not Apple proprietary. Samsung’s latest phones has support for it as well.
And the thing is, anyone wanting to use TRULY high quality high-ohm headphones have been using dongles for years…because the iPhone never supported that level. The headphone jack going away for them was a non-event.
For anyone that wants to make sure THEIR devices don’t end up in a landfill, they can do what millions of others do and take them/send them back to Apple (or any of the other electronics recycling sites) for recycling. OR, if they still want to use them after the battery is dead, Apple will offer them a refurbished pair between 50-80 dollars, depending on the device… and STILL take them off their hands and recycle them responsibly.
Anything that ends up in a landfill is specifically because the user desires them to end up in a landfill. Unfortunately, that’s a lot of people.
They have, it’s UWB. BUT, I think you’re right, it’s likely going to take Apple making a move before there’s widespread support and Apple’s likely still looking years down the road.
Your text you copied says it perfectly. The claims are not justified. I can claim that cell phones rot your brain and post it online somewhere for someone to find, but any claim I make to that effect wouldn’t be justified. To be fair, you can find “claims that cannot be justified” about anything, including the plastic used in the keys you’re typing on, the photons emanating from the screen you’re looking at, even the particular curvature of the font your system uses to display this text (and the trace elements in the glass… etc.). The difference between one and the other is how willing you are to believe it contrasted against how much hardship believing and then following it would cause.
I am surprised that Apple was able to get the Airpod 3s to sound as good as they do. I think that the laws of physics would have to be rewritten to develop the technology needed to wirelessly transfer music without (a lot of compression). The Android codecs are still lossy compression. I have been listening to compressed music for so many years that I become accustomed to the lack of detail and realism but having heard some pretty good stereos and wired headphones over the years it is obvious that musical realism takes a hit when compressed.
Don’t tell me what I can and can’t hear unless you’re also a professional musician who spends every waking hour teaching live orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists and has ten years of schooling and three degrees in music. I can hear it.
Holy smokes! You must be an Apple team member or have inside knowledge leaping to that conclusion.
New product design involves making a series of conflicting technical trades, goals and requirements, that are usually at odds with each other on a new/first generation product, such as: physical design vs perceived acceptance, comfort, battery size vs battery life to support performance goals and desired physical size, transport medium vs battery power/capacity, bandwidth, targeted retail price (driving cost and required GPM), performance vs the previous trades, and on and on. There is rarely perfection for a given point in time. There are always necessary trades. Especially on a first or second generation product.
Now that Apple is further along the curve and some technologies have matured, I suspect enhanced bandwidth will be realized as a low-power proprietary variant of UWB as Apple is now heavily invested in UWB technology.
