So if my iPhone was playing music via AirPlay, the alert sound would go to, you guessed it, the AirPlay speakers. Completely pointless.
There was no disruption in the audio. In fact it didn't occur to me until I got back and saw my phone on the table that anything had even happened.
https://macintoshhowto.com/hardware/extreme-emf-exposure-fro...
Note: I own AirPods and use them regularly at the gym. That is to say, I'm not afraid of my own AirPods, but acknowledge that they broadcast pretty loudly.
That said, I own AirPods, I am surprised by how great they are, but I rarely wear them because the radiation worries me.
I still enjoy them for music. But the battery life alone for calls is weak — I only get about 1 hour of talk time.
You don't want to walk around the town with earphones that isolate too much. My coworker was hit by a car as he was jogging while wearing IEMs. He couldn't hear the car horn and he was hit by a driver who couldn't stop his car in time. He didn't suffer any major injuries but he learned his lesson and now only jogs with open earphones.
I’m talking about external background noise that the mic picks up.
In both cases I have received no complaints, and have even inquired about how the noise is recently. People can't hear my obnoxiously loud road noise at all, it gets canceled out.
Active noise cancellation is not the same thing either. See https://krisp.ai/ for what you really need, and this is not something best done at the physical device level.
When I got hired for my current job I did both interviews from the parking lot of a local Starbucks for exactly this reason.
They're not much cheaper than the airpods however.
The very best feature, though, is that they’re much less conspicuous than AirPods. AirPods are a visual distraction.
Does my wire get snagged and the earbud falls out? Sure it does, but that probably happens to me once every 6 months and that doesn't get me pissed off enough to hand apple $160. Airpods don't come without their costs, too. You loose that super handy control/microphone on the wire, you have one more thing to keep charged, and in 2 years when the battery shits you have to pony up $50 per ear to replace them. I still use the headphones that came with my iPhone 5, seven years later.
- You don't need your device on your person. I leave my iPhone around the house somewhere and use these while cooking, or run with AirPods + Apple Watch (cellular not required, I just download podcasts or audiobooks).
- You are not tethered to a listening device. I don't worry about the cable catching on kitchen drawer handles or gym equipment (this happened to me way more often than every 6 months). I can jump from phone podcasts to a video call with a few clicks or taps, instead of changing headphones or transferring cables.
- Your call quality improves dramatically from wired headphones. Others are complaining about background noise, but wired headphones are far worse, with their microphones on their remotes (IIRC). I hated "speaking up" by holding the little remote to my mouth.
The concerns you mention are also minimal in practice. The case has excellent battery life, requiring a charge only weekly or so. If you're on a streak of calls, you can charge one AirPod at a time to stay connected. I have also used mine for over 18 months almost daily, and the battery has been fine.
Are AirPods a convenience? Yes. But there's always a market for convenience.
Does this work? Nice tip, thanks
Mine were a gift, but I'll likely drop $160 on a set in the future if these crap out in a year or two.
About once a week, I used to get my wire snagged and it would sometimes yank my phone out of my pocket. Luckily it was on carpet and I had a case on it so there wasn't any damage.
More importantly, the convenience has been well worth it. Even if I'm just saving 30s a day untangling, that is worth the price to me over a few years. Throw in being able to sleep with one pod in and my phone plugged in across the room and this has might be my favorite and most used gadget of the past few years.
Still disappointed they haven’t added more feaures, especially as competition getting hotter...
But, reality is: AirPods are by far the most convenient way to casually do anything with apple products and headphones. Stick 'em in a pocket, and if you want to listen to music or be on a conference call, pull them out and pop them in. And my old ones are having the battery wear-out problem. And I'm in the apple ecosystem.
So I'll happily pay a premium to have new AirPods with better battery (and cleaner!). And then I don't need to feel guilty about the old ones to the gym and ruining them further with sweat. (The one thing I'm mad about is that there's nothing about sweat proofing on these.)