Wasn't that the entire selling point with Apple's W1 chip? That it's bypassing standard bluetooth handshake protocol and handling the pairing themselves?

Airpods seem to be more reliable for that than most bluetooth experiences I've had, but it's still not as good as I'd hoped given it's supposed to "just work"

How have consumers let companies get away with "premium" phones being the ones with fewer features?

Because it is, statistically, an easier and more pleasant experience. I really get tired of taking twenty minutes to configure a bunch of settings for each marginally novel piece of tech I acquire.

I've never had to configure my wired headphones before in my life. What kind of headphones do you have?!

Maybe they don't mind putting the adapter on their headphone cable? If you aren't switching devices a lot, it's a one-time operation that's pretty easy to manage.

Because I don't miss anything about old phones. Yes sometimes the airpods can work a little funny, but on a whole, they are so far ahead of the wired headphones I used to use that I can completely forgive the issues they have. Yeah it was cool to put an SD card in my phone, but it never worked that seamless and my phone now has more storage than I'll ever use.

Old? Phones still come with headphone jacks. They just cost less (and have slower hardware )

I think of it like USB A ports. You miss it for a few years. And then you don't. And the products generally continue to improve along other lines

I’ve never had the bit snap off a USB A cable when it was plugged in yet it’s happened to me twice with USB C. I’ve also had to replace ports due to the wear on the cable futon not being able to stay in place. Furthermore, I’m less certain if a cable I have lying around is going to be fully compatible. I also have to keep USB A around so there’s this big growth in the number of cables and adapters that are necessary.

In almost every way that is meaningful to me USB C has been a downgrade. I can’t think of anything that improved my experience beyond saving a minute when I plug the laptop into only the monitor and not the power cable too.

Haha what?? Look all over this thread, Bluetooth has just Stockholm-syndromed everybody, and the phone manufacturers are only too happy to drop the jack.

My anecdata is that as an exclusively wired headphone user, my shit ALWAYS works. Meanwhile my bluetooth zoom/discord counterparties are consistently making remote work a drag because:

- I can't hear the beginning or end of their sentence (some kind of bluetooth gating/noise cancellation that doesn't work)

- Connection drops

- 10-25 seconds of start-of-call fumbling (like in TFA)

- No backup if their P.O.S. bluetooth airpod whatever is really dying or even just having a fight with their device that the user gives up in disgust. I have a backup wired $5 headset ready to go anytime (and use it like once every two years).

Managing device connections with software is always going to result in a subpar user experience, period. When you use wired headphones, you don't have to rely on a UI to tell whether they're connected or not, and to manage that connection. To move from your laptop to your phone, you unplug them from the laptop and plug them into the phone. That simple. Impossible to mess up and works every time.

Yeah, but wires are also a subpar user experience, period. Rolling them up to store them, untangling them to use them, getting caught on things, routing them to the device, etc. There's a reason bluetooth headphones are still popular despite the downsides.

For me personally the wires are such a non-issue compared to all these software-related problems and having to run the whole thing through a noisy, unreliable, shared medium.

Subjective, so nope. It's more a tradeoff. Wires are reliable and "just work" (see title of TFA), so the small convenience issues you describe do not make them "sub-par". Indeed I think the terrible experience I see others having on meets/calls is "subpar" and in a remote world, IMO, unacceptable.

I've found the best compromise to be a Bluetooth receiver with 3.5mm input. I feel comfortably untethered to the desk, I can still use them while charging, and I can quickly switch between other 3.5mm devices.

> I think most of these annoyances can be taken broadly from the fact that everything about any Bluetooth experience is just absolute trash.

That's not my problem. That's Apple's problem. There are solutions around this, and they made a choice to use the technology they did. End result is their product. These annoyances aren't because they have wireless headphones. It's because of the choices they made.