What’s the pairing process like? Mine is just - sign into iCloud and my AirPods show up.
Find a real argument if you want to waste our time. Right now you are embarrassing the constituent of reasonable and sensible Apple users who might otherwise advocate for middle-ground.
1. Your Bluetooth radio determines how many simultaneous connections you get. It is at least 2 on Bluetooth 4.0+.
2. You are conflating cloud pairing (Apple's feature) with multipoint pairing (everyone's feature). They coexist.
3. 8 devices is generally the hard limit on all consumer Bluetooth radios, from the iPhone to Nintendo Switch.
Furthermore, Apple's integrated solution quite literally depends on the Open standard of Bluetooth to operate. Whether or not you consider it a bad thing, quite obviously the integration and open solution both work fine alongside one another.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37733315
Yes and the phone also depends on standards when it comes to electricity. The fact is that Apple’s work on top of the standard provide a more robust more user friendly implementation.
This shows the power of an integrated solution. Apple released a better way to pair Bluetooth headphones with their devices and at the same time got the better method implemented across their computers, phones, tablets, watches and set top boxes.
That’s something you couldn’t do with an open standard as quickly.
I pair my headphones to one device that I’m signed into and they automatically get recognized by all my devices.
We have been saying this for days, across 30 fucking comments in this godforsaken chain, but you do not listen. Let me spell it out. If you ignore me this time, I won't bother responding.
You could do this with an Open Standard, just as quickly. This technology relies on Bluetooth MAC addresses and iCloud file sync, not fairy dust.*
With some people, I have no idea where they fall on the spectrum of self-serious argumentation. I usually don't even care; pretty much all feedback is valuable on a forum like this. When people preclude good-faith discussion around Apple hardware with weaksauce rhetoric though, it's pretty obvious that they're putting their emotions first. I'll field any discussion around Apple and their altruism, but I won't accept petty greed or speculation as a defense. They're an opaque company that deserves the scrutiny they recieve, regardless of the unofficial rationale people roll out.
This problem isn't specific to Apple hardware, or really the tech industry as a whole. Every field has it's pundits; you can usually identify them when they use weak rhetoric and avoid directly addressing your argument. It's still especially bad with Apple technology though, since so little of it is documented well enough to definitively refute any claim. You can't corroborate behavior on your iPhone with source code, or visit the iCloud datacenters to ensure everything is being handled with white gloves. People who know the platform well usually know that there is no definitive answer, and inflammatory riff-raff discussions float to the top.
Luckily I don’t have to because I use an integrated solution where the hardware, software and OS are made by the same company.
We aren’t talking about “simultaneous” connections we are talking about switching between them.
I’m not “confusing” anything. I’m saying that Apple’s integrated solution provides a better user experience. No one cares about how it’s done .
Thanks for making my point for me.
> No one cares about how it’s done .
Some markets do: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
Next though, you'll tell me that those democratically elected officials aren't "people", and are more profit-motivated than a business. Whatever helps you sleep at night, I suppose.
> Next though, you'll tell me that those democratically elected officials aren't "people", and are more profit-motivated than a business. Whatever helps you sleep at night, I suppose
It’s cute that you think politicians represent “the people” considering how PACs work or that you think they are “democratically” elected considering how gerrymandered most districts are.
Then you got to consider how each state has an equal number of senators regardless of population.
Again, why do you? Apple's products have worked just fine implimenting open standards (eg. HTML, TLS, AES, RSA, etc.). You could easily argue that the iPhone wouldn't be popular without open standards like Bluetooth and the Internet.
> It’s cute that you think politicians represent “the people”
Does the unregulated market represent it any better? I'd rather let gerrymandered electors regulate the market than allow the market to regulate itself.
Well, if I have a choice between a corporation - which I can choose not to support and a government with guns and the ability to take away my rights by force having power, I’ll choose private corporations every time.
To have a choice in the first place, you can't participate in a regulated market. Right now, you're complaining that your favorite player can't "win" a game of Blackjack by overruling the dealer. I don't know what to tell you; those are the rules of the game. Apple can go play their Calvinball economy in some other developing market, and so can you.
See? Freedom of choice.
I, as a user (and a vim-user, may I add), would like it very much if all the software and hardware in the world would be fully open, customizable, community-maintained. I, as a manufacturer, am less keen on that idea. So, to make it happen, every manufacturer has to be forced to make that happen. So, literally, we are stepping farther from the open market and killing some personal freedom under a promise of a bright happy future.
And the realness of that promise is as questionable, as the means necessary to achieve the goal. As I've said, personally, I'm very excited about that promise. But it really is just a promise, and if it can be fulfilled is a very, very big question.
Ultimately, nobody really sells hardware or software. Everybody sells user-experience. It is very obvious in Apple's case, but it is always true. It's easy to forget that when you are choosing the cheapest light bulbs on the market, because the user-experience of having electric light in your house has been sold to you so long ago, there are so many basically identical products that the only apparent difference to you is the price. Now you perceive GPUs (or bluetooth, or whatever) as light bulbs. But at some point selling a GPU or a light bulb was quite similar to selling a novel iSomething. The seller had to explain to you, not so much what iSomething is, but how iSomething makes your life better. And if the technology that makes this promise of the user-experience a reality is hardware, software or just exceptional marketing — really is just details.
So, as much as I hate that my fitness-watch is basically a spying device and I don't even own the data it produces (and I mean, I really hate that), I don't feel like forcing Garmin to open-source the firmware is the right thing to do. Maybe I would support some more forceful moves to make the generated data my property, but even here the line is blurry. But forcing them (and better think: you, as a manufacturer) to make something other than you wanted to make — …why the fuck should I? Who decides what is that common standard I don't want in my product, but I have to, to be legally allowed to sell that? I think, I just like the idea of personal freedom a bit too much to support that. I'd much prefer Garmin just losing to competition that chooses open firmware, than legally forcing them to produce anything they didn't want to produce.
No, we are democratically balancing consumer rights with the rights of entrepreneurs to make money. Consumers need the right to repair and not be limited with closed, proprietary standards. That entrepreneurs may take take a slight hit on their profit due to this is acceptable as protecting the consumer enhances the well being of the overall society that both entrepreneurs and the consumers are part of. (And note that right to repair and open standards can also foster more competition in the "free market" and reduce monopolistic abuses - so it is really a win-win for both sides).
See Article 16 - Freedom to conduct a business - http://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/16-freedom-conduc... and the article The 16th of all EU-r rights: the right to conduct a business and how the Charter contributes - https://www.eurac.edu/en/blogs/eureka/the-16th-of-all-eu-r-r... - for the European perspective of it.
Right. By stepping farther from the open market and killing some personal freedom. (Also, word "democratically" is absolutely meaningless in this context, but that's the usual mode it is used in in western politics.)
No, it isn't. When a law / regulation / policy is made all stakeholders are consulted and their views sought on it. Consumers are one of the stakeholders in context of what we are talking about. Politicians than work out a compromise that balances everyone's concerns. That's basically democracy at work.
"Open Standards" - There is no reason that your Mac or iPhone should only work with other Apple products through closed and proprietary standards. With adoption of open standards, all devices (irrespective of their manufacturer) can offer a decent integrated experience.