The worst thing about it is that I now have to carry 3 pairs of shitty Bluetooth headphones instead of one good pair because switching connected devices is such a pain that this is literally much easier to live with. I hate it. Bring the headphone jack back.
AirPods solved this for me. I'm not sure exactly what apple did that is different from the regular bluetooth audio spec, but the seemless integration and transition between devices is fantastic
Do note that using the microphone will degrade the playback and recording quality to rotary-phone-levels. For the sake of everyone in your Zoom call: please buy a $50 wired microphone if you're going to spend $150 on Airpods.
I did not know that, I'll have to check next time it comes up. To be clear, I use them as a backup, like when I'm traveling and didn't bring my normal headset.
It's specifically only an issue when your Airpods are being used for playback and recording. If you're simply listening to the meeting on your Airpods and using your Macbook microphone, you probably won't notice. Most people don't seem to set that up though, which leads to the cellphone-quality audio that people associate with wireless earbuds.
It's not an Apple issue. Works perfectly when you use a Mac + AirPods. The issue is when you try to use Windows. All bluetooth headphones I've tried (with microphones) sound horrible with Windows, if they work at all.
Airpods do not have better duplex audio on MacOS. The problem is that AAC cannot support high-quality recording and playback at 330kbps, so it has to degrade the quality of the recording stream to fit within the Bluetooth bandwidth. MacOS might default to using your laptop's microphone, but that's something you can also set up on Windows. Hell, it should be the default on Windows as long as you have AAC support installed - there's no reason a headset should be using SBC over Bluetooth unless the last version of Windows you used was XP.
I actually normally use my headphones through my phone, but I doubt ios is doing anything differently compared to macos.
The point isn't that there's only so much bandwidth for mic + headphones, the point is that the bluetooth stack on Windows just doesn't work. I tried connecting multiple bluetooth headphones (Airpods, Beats, Sony) to a new Windows 11 computer (Microsoft Surface). I only got one set paired and it defaulted to the headset profile immediately. It was horrible. The others never connected or the connection was unreliable.
The process was so bad, my son recently bought a set of wired headphones just to avoid the entire issue.
If you've never been in the Apple garden and used headphones + device, it's a night and day difference in experience.
I haven't used Windows in years, it's a pretty bad point-of-reference for me. However, I can say pretty confidently that iOS, Android and Linux all have more reliable Bluetooth stacks than MacOS. In fact, the stack on Linux is so good that I don't lust for Airpods at all. I just turn on my Sony XM4s and it automatically connects to all my devices. No muss, no fuss.
Oh, and neither MacOS or iOS support high-bitrate audio playback. They're not even on the same eschelon as Android or Linux, which support codecs like LDAC and APTx, with 3x the bandwidth of Apple's 330kbps AAC stream. Come to think of it, if Apple switched to APTx for their newer Airpods, they would have no problem recording and playing audio back at the same time.
All bluetooth devices do this on all platforms when you use both sound + microphone. It has to split the available bandwidth between the two.
My Sony headphones will go into "headset mode" on Windows and Mac and sounds horrible in both, just have to make sure no programs are trying to use the headphones' microphone and then you get full bandwidth for audio.
>That’s not a problem with AirPods. You pair them with one device and they are automatically paired with all of your devices and auto switch
And how do AirPods know whether I want to use them to take a conference call on my work laptop, listen to a YouTube video on the personal laptop, or watch a quick video my friend sent me on WhatsApp on my phone?
Do they have telepathic powers that I don't know of?
Oh, and will they prioritize the work phone call over an incoming call on my personal phone too, unless it's something really important?
Simple, if I am listening to a podcast and then I take a conference call on my computer, they automatically switch. If I am watching something on my iPad, and I answer a call on my iPhone, they automatically switch.
If I’m actively playing a video or listening to audio on my Mac, my iPhone, or my iPad and I put my AirPods in my ear, sound is automatically rerouted to my AirPods from the device.
If I’m watching a video on my iPad and then I click on a video on my iPhone, they switch.
My AppleTVs don’t automatically switch. An AppleTV is a shared experience most of the time.
But even if you turn automatic switching off, I still don’t have to pair my AirPods with my iPhone, iPad, Watch, two AppleTVs and my Mac individually. I can just click a drop down and they automatically show up on each device or any new device I use with my AppleID.
In all the pairs I own it's some arcane combination to enter pairing mode, and then have you tried adding BT headphones to windows when the same ones were paired in the past? You have to remove them first then go back into pairing mode again. It's more bullshit than I'm willing to deal with. With a jack you plug them in and they work.
If they are(or were) connected to my laptop and phone and both devices are nearby, then they will default to my phone. There is nothing I can do on my laptop to force them to connect there instead(and believe me I tried). I have to either remove them on my phone(pain) or enter pairing mode and re-pair them with the laptop(even greater pain).
Work phone, personal phone, work laptop, personal laptop, tablet, desktop.
Good luck pressing that button five dozen times to take the call on your work phone after using them with your desktop, only to find out that your glorious BT device only has 4 memory slots like a videogame from 1991, and unlinked your work phone when you used them with your tablet.
My Samsung Galaxy A22 has headphone jack (which gets used all the time), dual SIM, dedicated SD card slot, NFC, all day battery, and 5G support.
It came out this year — there are plenty of sane manufacturers releasing phones with features that people want out there.
Use cases for 3.5mm jack that Bluetooth can't handle:
* Never having to worry about headphones running out of charge
* Zero added latency - critical for music making apps (somewhat remediated with latest BT versions, but good luck finding latency specs on the box)
* Switching between devices instantly (work/personal laptop and phone) - especially not fun if you use more than 2 of them
The last issue is especially annoying. It's 2022, I should be able to pair my headphones instantly by tapping them to the device I want to pair them to, without screens and buttons. Accelerometers exist. Proximity sensors exist.
But noooo, apparently, UX is not a consideration in the design of this godforesaken protocol.
agreed. until bluetooth earphone batteries can go for a few days between recharging, and can quick charge in, say, 15 min or so, I'll keep my wired. I also have AirPod Pros, but I keep my Bose qc20 around and still find myself using them multiple times per month when the APP go low (never get more than around 3 hrs from them).
