News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

itsnoone

Re:Librepods: AirPods liberated from Apple's ecosystem on Sunday July 12, 2026 @11:12AM (#48881793)
Not Linux: librepods/#655
Re:Librepods: AirPods liberated from Apple's ecosystem on Monday June 29, 2026 @01:56PM (#48722697)
But AirPods are the only wireless headphones with which you can use the mic without having to suffer from horrible audio playback and microphone quality because of Headset/Handsfree.
Re:Librepods: AirPods liberated from Apple's ecosystem on Monday June 29, 2026 @11:22AM (#48720462)
They do, and that's what is coming to Linux with PR #655. surprisingly, last I checked, even macOS doesn't support this!
Re:Librepods: AirPods liberated from Apple's ecosystem on Monday June 29, 2026 @11:18AM (#48720421)
The dev here- there are exactly 2 features- Head Gestures and heart rate monitoring. Both have no use on Linux. On Android head gestures is to answer calls and heart rate will be provided to Health Platform.

edit: there's just one that's not planned for Linux and planned for Andorid- HRM. Head gestures is already implemented on Android.

Re:Librepods: AirPods liberated from Apple's ecosystem on Monday June 29, 2026 @12:46AM (#48714910)
Hi! The developer here. The app requires a purchase only when you install it from Play Store. The FOSS version available on GitHub takes you to my GH Sponsors page where you can wait for a few seconds and return back to the app. Or you can also just click the Restore Purchases button. There's no need for a fork :)
Re:AirPods Libreated from Apple's Ecosystem on Sunday November 16, 2025 @11:18PM (#45950816)
It was a typo in the GH repo description, fixed it.
Re:AirPods Libreated from Apple's Ecosystem on Sunday November 16, 2025 @02:31PM (#45947718)
apple doesn't allow much customization, only the 9 presets under accessibility>hearing>headphone accomodation. this eq then also applies to the audio played and transparency settings both. maybe one of those nine presets suits your needs?
Re:AirPods Libreated from Apple's Ecosystem on Sunday November 16, 2025 @02:28PM (#45947691)
setting up hearing aids is a one time thing. then, the main adjustment is the amplification, which can be controlled by swiping on the stem. there is no need for an iphone for using it as hearing aids.
Re:AirPods Libreated from Apple's Ecosystem on Sunday November 16, 2025 @09:21AM (#45945338)
The developer here- I didn't plan to release an app for android, or even linux. The android app just started out as a personal project. My plan was to make a service for linux that can talk to various headphones, and any UI can talk to the service. And this was supposed to be under AGPL. But, as I graudally reverse-engineered most of the protocol from the bluetooth stack on macOS, I decided to release the app for Android and make one for linux as well.

Going to change it to GPL, though. never paid attention to the license in use as I developed.

Re:AirPods Libreated from Apple's Ecosystem on Sunday November 16, 2025 @02:45AM (#45943449)
Apple devices uses their own codec, which isn't even supported on macOS, that supports high definition two-way streaming
Re:AirPods Libreated from Apple's Ecosystem on Sunday November 16, 2025 @02:43AM (#45943438)
the head gestures is something i couldn't quite figure out, so the gesture logic is completely AI generated. i don't know how to get the actual values from the sensors. but there sure is a use in gaming.
Re:AirPods Libreated from Apple's Ecosystem on Saturday November 15, 2025 @10:35PM (#45942545)
yup it did- fixed it now. thanks!
Re:AirPods Libreated from Apple's Ecosystem on Saturday November 15, 2025 @10:33PM (#45942540)
i don't think macos allows l2cap connections (the protocol that airpods use), at least pybluez doesn't support that on macos which would've made making a simple script a lot simpler.
Re:AirPods Libreated from Apple's Ecosystem on Saturday November 15, 2025 @10:30PM (#45942523)
see MagicPods. although, it's paid, and requires windows to be in test mode to install a driver for L2CAP support. microsoft has decided to not allow l2c for userspace applications.
Re:AirPods Libreated from Apple's Ecosystem on Saturday November 15, 2025 @10:29PM (#45942516)
hey, do you have the 'act as apple device' hook enabled perhaps? that sometimes causes connections to drop. other than that, i believe i refactored the background service to store metadata about the airpods and support various model types recently which can make the app a bit unstable, hence no new release yet- the build is available to download from Actions. if you're facing unstability on the latest (pre)release, v0.2.0-alpha open a issue, i will have a look whenever i get the time.

about the configs not being saved- do you mean the conversational awareness, adaptive volume etc.? those should be saved, and sent from airpods every time you connect. so if you change the config from any other device, and connect to your phone then the app should show the new config.

you can contirbute by supporting the development, of course! :)

Re:AirPods Libreated from Apple's Ecosystem on Saturday November 15, 2025 @10:21PM (#45942490)
It not that hard to imagine Apple going out of their way to do something that would break functionality on Android, honestly. Although, I believe Fluoride also is to be blamed here because a simple timeout can not possible cause any issues (it seems that a timeout is there, but never called- at least from my tinkering). I am not planning to spend a single second tracing back the actual problem and suggesting a fix, given that Google just asked me to reproduce twice (!!) and did nothing about it.

Show HN: AirPodsLikeNormal Bringing AirPods' Apple-Exclusive Features to Android

https://github.com/kavishdevar/aln

presenting AirPodsLikeNormal - bringing AirPods' apple-exclusive features on android! (and linux too) (i do realize this is not the best name, but i'm a programmer, not a creative thinker :p)this FOSS app is not just another BLE broadcast based app that relies on airpods to occasionaly broadcast inccomplete data to non-apple devices as well – no, this app does exactly what apple's operating...

( Read More... | 2 comments | on HN )