Literally all other earpieces work flawlessly with that phone including dirt cheap chinese stuff, apart from apple.
Now somebody could come and claim multi trillion company couldnt just nail that pesky bluetooth protocol well, but everybody else can do it better than them, including 15 bucks products. Its all by design. They clearly dont need hardware revenue to have products who can compete on open market, they need their closed ecosystem revenue, hence these dirty practices. There is hopefully a billion or ten lawsuit in the making by courts with balls, ie EU.
All the downvotes in the world won't change above.
I'm not a fanboy but I never use Airpods with any Apple product and I can use them properly without any hiccup with several others (windows, linux and android).
Maybe there's something up with your phone?
You can't do that, you certainly agreed to binding arbitration with apple at some point.
Unpopular opinion in these parts, but I think yes, they should be able to (continue) to sell products with lock in.
Where Apple should get in trouble is specifically locking others out, rather than locking their own stuff in. If Apple wants to make a smartwatch that only works with iPhones, fine. What they shouldn't be able to do is block (either intentionally or via undocumented/private APIs and TOS violations) third parties from making a smartwatch for iPhone that can compete on the same playing field as the Apple Watch, with access to all of the same features.
Same goes for all tech companies. If you want to lock-in your own first party products, fine, but you absolutely should not be allowed to lock-out others.
Let's say I'm Samsung and I want to make a phone that works with the Apple Watch. Isn't the Apple Watch locking me out? Apple is preventing third party devices from working with the Apple Watch.
Samsung not being able to make a phone to work with Apples first party accessory isn’t the problem.
The problem is Samsung can’t make a watch that functions on par with the Apple Watch on iPhones.
Having first party, integrated accessories is fine. Locking out third party accessories is the issue.
Whatever Apple makes first party for the iPhone , third parties should also be able to make for the iPhone with the same level of access and functionality.
Heck, I don't really think of my Apple Watch as an accessory. Mine has its own LTE connection; it does need to be connected to an iPhone during initial setup, but after that I don't think there's anything stopping me from giving my phone away and using the watch by itself. Many of the children I teach have an Apple Watch but don't own a phone yet.
Besides, I think this will create surprise and confusion for less technical users. In my experience, many will blame the incompatibility on whichever device is new, without understanding who is gating out whom. And even for technical users, consider CarPlay and Android Auto: From the phone’s perspective, the car is a peripheral, and that makes sense; but lots of people will still consider the car the “core device.”
- Multi-device Connectivity
- Accessibility Settings and Hearing Aid
While the following are exclusive to Apple devices for market reasons:
- Receive Battery Information
- Set/Receive ANC Modes
- Set Adaptive Audio Noise settings
- Receive In-Ear detection Status
- Personalized Volume (use at your own risk - might randomly boost volume to some high level)
- Conversational Awareness
- Ear Detection
- Siri (Voice assistant on long stem press)
- Hold and Press configuration
- Head Tracking (for Spatial Audio and Head Gestures)
- Rename AirPods
https://github.com/kavishdevar/librepods/issues/20
I imagine limiting such features to Apple devices is more about incentivizing the Apple Ecosystem than quality or software concerns
They have a basic app for some of their other devices like the Beats line. One other thing you simply can't do without pairing AirPods with an Apple device is enrol them in AppleCare One.
Ugh, trillion dollar market value doesn't mean they are incapable of making a basic android app. Check their move to ios app if you have any doubts.
The argument about whether they ought to is in some other thread I imagine, you might have lost your way. I don't own their airpods so in this particular instance, IDC about the outcome.
Caps for emphasis, not frustration.
Except for the biggest obstacle of it all in capitalism: capital.
If that's the only way anyone can try to change companies' behaviours we are in a lot of trouble :)
> Apple is a private company
Care to offer a justification for why this is the case without resorting to "the multi-trillion-dollar behemoth can't be bothered to build an app"?
It's not uncommon (at least for me) to have a low earbud battery level (because I've just binged Slow Horses) or a low container battery (because I've just charged the earbuds from the container for the third time and drained the container). There's a suggestion above that you should "just choose the lowest one because 99% of the time that's what you're interested in", except that's not true in the second case.
I'm fairly sure that if you could report both, then Apple would report both using this hypothetical standard method, but since you can't, and there's no easy way to just "choose one" without misleading the user about something, they choose to do it properly, even though that means it's an Apple-only thing.
As additional evidence, there are "AirPods-like" earbuds on the market such as the Sony WF-C700N, which have no problem reporting three battery levels over standard Bluetooth on e.g. Linux.
[0] https://www.bluetooth.com/wp-content/uploads/Files/Specifica...
The Bluetooth Battery Service spec allows for a single device with multiple batteries
No, implementing multiple instances of the Battery Service to report battery state for several batteries has been there since the 1.0 spec. [0]
This spec was released in 2011, five years before the first AirPods were released.
Doing what several commenters claimed was impossible has in fact been possible with native Bluetooth for a decade and a half.
[0] https://www.bluetooth.org/docman/handlers/downloaddoc.ashx?d...
If you'd bothered to dig into the spec, v1.0 basically says do what you want. v1.1 defines a proper namespace and well known descriptions for multiple batteries. Apple did well to avoid the interoperability minefield.
> If you don't like the Apple device, use something else. It's not like a messaging platform where you'd need compatibility with other peoples' phones.
I own and use lots of devices, for both work and personal tasks, including Apple and non-Apple devices. I own a pair of AirPods. I'd like them to work well across all the platforms that I use. There is nothing technically preventing Apple from achieving this, aside from Apple's arguably illegal tying behavior.
> If you'd bothered to dig into the spec, v1.0 basically says do what you want. v1.1 defines a proper namespace and well known descriptions for multiple batteries. Apple did well to avoid the interoperability minefield.
I have read the spec; please don't accuse me of not reading it. Have you written Bluetooth device firmware before? In case you haven't, at a high level:
* The BT device exposes a "profile," which defines one or more "services", which are essentially different types of data that can be read from or written to the device.
* Multiple instances of the same type of service (the Battery Service in this case) can be exposed in the profile. I don't know if this ability was always present in the spec or was added after the fact, but it was, at minimum, present in 2011 when the BAS 1.0 spec was released.
* So, if your device has more than one battery, its profile will have an instance of the Battery Service defined for each one.
I will grant that the 1.1 spec document is a lot clearer and provides lots of diagrammed examples, but the only net new functionality in 1.1 are a set of new battery-related fields (these are called out near the beginning).
1.0 absolutely does not say "do what you want."
When a device has more than one instance of the Battery service, each Battery
Level characteristic shall include a Characteristic Presentation Format
descriptor that has a namespace/description value that is unique for that
instance of the Battery service.
When a device has more than one instance of the Battery Service, each Battery
Level characteristic shall include a Characteristic Presentation Format descriptor
(Volume 3, Part G, Section 3.3.3.5 in [1]) that has the Name Space field set to
”Bluetooth SIG” and the Description field set to a valid value from the GATT
Namespace Descriptors [4] and that is unique among all instances of the Battery
Service exposed by the GATT Server.
On the subject of the multi-trillion-dollar behemoth, Apple is a private company. If you have the capital, you can acquire a controlling interest and then they’ll work on whatever you like. Until then, you’re out of luck.
Companies are not acts of God or nature. They are a private company operating on a society that allows it to exist because it is believed to be the for the public good. The public has very much the right to question it's practices, and if they are anti consumer, monopolistic, or a list of other things, to correct them. Shareholders be damned.
Like a lot of parts of the (especially earlier revisions of) Bluetooth spec the battery status took a slapdash approach to defining things. Look at anyone who's used Bluetooth on Windows to see what a nightmare interoperability still is. So Apple released ear buds that implement poorly defined parts of the spec but otherwise work with third party bluetooth devices, and that's bad?
Yikes.
Meanwhile, the Bluetooth SIG released an update at the end of 2022 that actually starts to require some sort of standardization. You know who's name was on that little update? Big bad awful anticompetitive Apple.
And spare me the “private company” lecture; anticompetitive behavior should always be subject to examination and possible litigation.
[0] https://www.bluetooth.com/wp-content/uploads/Files/Specifica...
As a neurodivergent person I lack the innate human skill to filter voices out of a cacaphony of noise so loud bars etc are hell. There also the "talking with earphones in is rude" but that's an issue that can just be explained.
Needing root to enable it is a major deal-breaker though :( and moving to an iPhone is impossible for me. Too much stuff that's not supported.
Apple, like every other vendor, does not have a choice but to implement this as a proprietary characteristic. Pre-BLE, other vendors copied Apple's de-facto `HFP AT+IPHONEACCEV` standard for reporting battery levels to the OS.
They could publish the details, and not block other manufacturer details, so that it is easier for other platforms to develop drivers for them. Or develop a new standard that works for their earbuds.
companies actually can build and ship stuff that isn't inter-operable with the world, this is Actually Good for user experience
Imagine if every human on the planet would operate like this.
We'd be back in the Stone Ages.
> companies actually can build and ship stuff that isn't inter-operable with the world, this is Actually Good for user experience
...
god forbid someone prioritize concrete user experience over abstract interoperability
I need to know individual levels to do that
Once paired, AirPods just work like any other bluetooth headphones.
I was asking about multi-device connectivity, which is a slightly more advanced feature that lots of other earbuds can do in a cross-platform way.
Android obviously is out of the game totally for AirPods - no spacial audio, no changes of ANC, no battery level, but at least ANC modes can be changed on AirPods directly, and button press works to answer calls, and pause/play audio, and also volume control works.
I'm three-generation Airpods Pro (around 5 years) user on Android and Macbook (no iPhone at all). In first and second generation there was a "bug" (or intentional feature) that even when connected to Android, and not being connected to my Mac, the latter was showing the charge level on both Airpods, but at some point it was removed.
In first and second generation I had an issue with one AirPod making strange noises, in both cases even Apple Support at the Genius Bar didn't know what to make out of it that I don't use AirPods with iPhone, but only with a Mac (and Android).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45882203
And DMA/DSA are also getting nerfed :(
All this is pretty much inspired by the fears of the big car companies. But we're also buying a lot less American cars, Tesla for example has been decimated in Europe. And besides them there's only really Ford.
Besides Trump constantly changes the rules. For example with his 'trade deficit' he's only looking at goods, not services. When you consider the huge amount of money going to Microsoft, AWS, Google, there's not really any deficit. Trump just makes it all up as he goes along. You can't really respond seriously to that because you don't know what will happen tomorrow, he could change his mind again.
It's basically the consequence Google v. Oracle and the cases leading to it.
Product tying is not a thing you can bypass.
This is idea is independent of whether Apple’s strategy is good or bad, legal or not. Product tying can’t be undermined, or it’s not actually a problem.
I've had almost all of the versions of AirPods and AirPod Pros and they have connected to non-Apple devices just fine.
You have Apple users just happily going about their day, paying a premium because the things just work well enough together to the point that even the slightest hiccup feels like a major event, but the devices just meld into the background of their life and work.
Meanwhile you have Android, Linux, Windows zealots just brooding in dark corners, audibly grinding their teeth over the happiness and ease in which Apple users go about their day, not having to tinker and adjust and fix things and hunt down drivers and check compatibility and relearn every new device they come in contact with and the 38 different paths to accomplish simple tasks, seething with anger that Apple users don’t want to struggle and suffer too.
It’s just a bit of humor. I repent, I repent. You baby is just as pretty as all the other babies.
User: Ran into a printing issue on my Mac
Fan: I never print, my Mac experience is flawless
User: Screen Mirror breaks all the time
Fan: I never use Screen Mirror. My Mac experience is it's flawless
User: For some reason my Airpods lose audio once in a while. The Mac shows they are connected. It shows the volume is up. It shows the video is playing. I end up having to reboot
Fan: You must be holding them wrong.
An old example, a friend with a Mac had trouble connecting to a samba share and blamed windows. It was documented that that was bug in Apple's implementation of the samba protocol. He still blamed the non-apple device. (this was like 2006)
I still see remnents of that today. Mac networking sucks (have 2 M1 Macs) as well as a windows pc. The PC networking is solid, connected to share, it never disconnects. The Macs disconnect constantly when switching VPNs etc. The Finder also often locks up. It's also noticablely slower to browse folders with lots of files.
Screenshare works perfectly fine in my experience and I’m not really sure what you’re talking about with printing, but everyone’s experience differs I suppose
...or maybe you shouldn't do that:
No one really cares that Windows has so many design inconsistencies, but Apple makes a change that isn't 100% consistent and people go crazy.
With that said, I'm like the person described to who you responded to. All my Apple things 'just work' better than any other computing devices I've used in the last 30 years, and I go on about my day not really thinking about it.
BTW, Macs made printing sane. There's a reason the old Windows MCSE tests felt they were 90% about printing problems.
Exactly how is Apple going to send information to none Apple devices using the BT protocol in a method that they can understand?
Each member of a coordinated set gets its own Bluetooth battery level slot, so there's no problem here. The spec supports this use case natively.
1 year 11 months :)
The old 30-pin connector before Lightning came from 2003.
Meanwhile it took until 2023 for iPhones to use USB-C.
30-pin 2003 - 2012 (2014)
Lighting 2012 - 2023 (2025)
USB-C AAPL utter mess -
iPhone 2023 -
USB-C RoW 2014 -Do console makers have to make sure that their accessories work with other consoles? Do TV manufacturers have to ensure their remotes work with other TVs?
And no you never had to buy Apple branded or licensed charging cables.
Btw it's not some magic feature set they spent years to research. Sub $60 Soundcores have most of them if not all.
And AirPods do connect to non Apple devices. They are just limited to doing what BT spec allows and no more
Please stop spreading FUD
https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/core-specific...
The Battery Service 1.0 spec was officially adopted in 2011:
https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/battery-servi...
Please consider that simping for a trillion dollar company might actually not be in your best personal interests...
https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/multi-profile...
They support HFP and A2DP and AVRCP, and properly, including all of those features working on android phones and proper switching between them as needed...
How you could argue that this is a good thing tells me you're either too drunk on the corporate kool-aid or that you have some financial incentive to ignore the obvious problems with these facts.
Either way this is my last message in this thread as googling things for you is a bore.
This entire thread started with you claiming Apple was somehow trying to prevent issues by hiding these features, and you've twice tried to move the goalposts to irrelevant points when given evidence to the contrary.
If you can't even defend your original position then I have no interest in continuing a discussion with Apple's most useful idiot.
Hyper-fixating on an issue with one part of the spec doesn't dismiss the larger problem being discussed. It's baffling (and kind of sad) how hard you guys feel the need to defend a trillion dollar company making obviously anti-consumer decisions.
If you know the average of those three, what does it tell you?
What other manufacturers have figured out how to report three devices that represent to a Bluetooth host as one device in a standards conforming way that will work across multiple hosts?
It’s not that I am defending a trillion dollar company - the idea of averaging three completely different devices is non sensical and provides absolutely no benefit to the end user. If you want ti complain about anyone - complain about the standards body.
This entire thread started with someone trying to claim that Apple was not in the wrong by restricting these features, of which battery reporting is A SINGLE ONE.
No, I don't have a perfect solution for this one specific part of the problem, but that's also not been the my focus the entire time. Getting dragged into the weeds only serves to distract from the actually important point here, which is that what Apple is doing is anti-consumer.
Let's first agree that Apple should play on even ground with everyone else, and then we can whinge over how to correctly report the battery of three components over a single connection. Yeesh.
You claimed other manufacturers have “figured this out” - how?
Every single thing that you say Apple should do is about how Apple can do that in a method that conforms to the spec - you kind of have to “fixate” upon the spec if you claim that Apple isn’t conforming to the spec.
The battery reporting is the one you brought up and had only horrible ideas.
The reality is the sort of compatibility being talked about is a new feature with design choices, not just unwired functionality.
I'd rather them work on features to report charging time or expected playback time on iOS, or write their own app for Android, than try to arbitrarily increase their bluetooth profile compatibility checklist.
If they would be smart, they would financially support this project, as it is going to bring more sales, from users who anyway wouldn't switch to iPhone.
Are we really at the point where people expect big brother to handle our headphone issues?
They should be slammed by Bluetooth body and forbidden to use bluetooth technology for hurting interoperability.
They’ve always been able to.
The ignorance of Apple haters never ceases to amaze.
They can and should do better though by android.
> Bluetooth DID (Device Identification) Hook > Turns out, if you change the manufacturerid to that of Apple, you get access to several special features!
I hope Apple gets slammed hard by some regulatory body. Apparently there's absolutely zero magic reasons why their airpods are unable to connect to non-Apple devices; pretend you're an iPhone and you're in.
EDIT: read "unable to connect" => "unable to expose advanced functionality", ofc they connect just fine