The Apple Discussion Thread

Omega Male said:

Apple reminding us that industrial processes can be oddly beautiful.

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Omega Male said:

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otc said:

Picked up some gen2 airpods pros.

Not sure I'm in love with them. Thought it would be nice to have a significantly smaller noise cancelling option for travel than over the ear bose headphones in a ~8x6" case...and a noise cancelling option that allows you to better lean your head against the window or the headrest (if the headband on my current bose touches any part of the plane, the vibrations all carry though) for better sleeping.

But...meh? The noise cancelling is better for ALL noises like voices or non-constant sounds, but felt marginally worse for actually reducing the feel of the rumble of the plane.

I need to play with the rubber tips a little more but my left ear starts to hurt after a while. Little fit test app says I'm in the right size though.

Kinda concerned about longevity too...seems like most people only get a few years out of these before the battery life goes to ****. Combine that with the fact that even a fully charged battery won't make it through a long flight and it just seems questionable for my use case.

Also, some planes now have bluetooth entertainment, but a lot still need a cable which the airpods obviously can't do. On the flip side, almost every plane nowadays has 110v or USB charging, so my battery paranoia that kept me on old AAA-powered Bose is now mostly gone...if I forget to charge before a trip, I can just charge in my seat 95% of the time.

So now I'm considering a newer set of over the ears instead. Based on reviews, I might want to target the Bose QC45 or Sony XM4s. The new Bose Ultras have mixed reviews and the XM5s (and bose 700s) don't fold up so the travel case is HUGE.


edit: I will say, the non-travel experience with them is pretty good. The airpods syncing, settings, usage, etc. is really slick with an iphone and would probably be even more slick if I used a Mac. The different sound modes work out pretty well, although for non-isolating sound, I think I'm still just happy with a normal non-rubber earbud like the base airpod. If I were still a daily public transit commuter I'd probably keep these.

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