One More One More Thing - Apple Unveils AirPods Max

[RejZoR]

8 hours ago, Commodus said:

Reminds me of how people used to cry that Apple was surely copying the LG Prada with the iPhone. Jobs explicitly said "it's a day I've been looking forward to for two and a half years," but some people were absolutely convinced he looked at the Prada and had a phone designed virtually from scratch in a few months.

 

It's the same reason why Apple is shipping new iPhones with Face ID several months after a pandemic hit. It's really hard to turn things around when your design and production ramp has to be locked in relatively early.

 

The closest I've seen happen to that is the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Samsung was chasing after the original iPad when it unveiled the design in January 2011 (I know, I held that version myself), but when the iPad 2 was announced it panicked and had a complete external redesign in several weeks.

Though in all honesty, I'm sure they could do something about how FaceID operates which is purely a software functionality. They could have shipped phones with FaceID and added software option that would work with the masks, even if that meant slight decrease in security. I frankly love FaceID. It works great and it's super fast, it's only masks that make it a bit of a extra work. It's manageable as it only has issues when not at home.

[Commodus]

Looks like there are early AirPods Max hands-on sessions:

 

 

The headphones seem very well-designed, and the audio quality is top-notch as you'd hope. The big issue, apart from the $549 price, seems to be the dependence on that weird smart case. You can't easily turn off the AirPods Max without that case, so you're beholden to using that (at least until there are third-party cases).

[NotTheFirstDaniel]

9 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

But there wasn’t a big convention or whatever where they introduced a bunch of other stuff and at the end literally said “Oh, one more thing..”.  A press release would be reasonable.  A set of cans isnt on the same level as the original iPhone or the M1 macs though.

Apple uses the term "One More Thing" as a surprise term for products that the public do not expect. There have been a few "One More Things" in Tim Cook's era, the Apple Watch, Apple Music, iPhone X, and the M1 event all got branded under "One More Thing". Steve Jobs used that term more times then I could count.

 

No one expected Apple to release headphones in December, in fact if I recall correctly, Tim Cook said "We will see you next year" in the November event. This was a surprise, so it's a "One More Thing", at least to me anyways.

[NotTheFirstDaniel]

7 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Though in all honesty, I'm sure they could do something about how FaceID operates which is purely a software functionality. They could have shipped phones with FaceID and added software option that would work with the masks, even if that meant slight decrease in security. I frankly love FaceID. It works great and it's super fast, it's only masks that make it a bit of a extra work. It's manageable as it only has issues when not at home.

From what I've heard, FaceID is about 3 points. Your two eyes and your nose, and if you wear a mask correctly, you block the 3rd point.

[RejZoR]

1 minute ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

From what I've heard, FaceID is about 3 points. Your two eyes and your nose, and if you wear a mask correctly, you block the 3rd point.

I'm sure they could work out something. Anything. But they only made it ask for PIN faster. While helpful, it's not really a solution.

[NotTheFirstDaniel]

8 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

I'm sure they could work out something. Anything. But they only made it ask for PIN faster. While helpful, it's not really a solution.

I don't think it would be worth it TBH. What do you do after the pandemic? Once you're done with the convenience factor, do you have to live with the fact that Face ID is now less secure?

 

We're nearing the end of this nightmare anyways now with vaccine trials ending and vaccinations happening. We still have many months to go, but this is just a blip in time that Apple didn't plan for on their roadmap.

[RejZoR]

29 minutes ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

I don't think it would be worth it TBH. What do you do after the pandemic? Once you're done with the convenience factor, do you have to live with the fact that Face ID is now less secure?

 

We're nearing the end of this nightmare anyways now with vaccine trials ending and vaccinations happening. We still have many months to go, but this is just a blip in time that Apple didn't plan for on their roadmap.

Given this s**t happened and to this scale, it will happen again, so why not be ready for that already by doing it now. We needed 1 year to get vaccines and it'll take another 6 months for enough people to be vaccinated in order to have herd immunity. Only then we'll be able to take off our masks. We're talking late spring 2021, early summer 2021, depending if ppl will get vaccinated in large enough numbers.

[Random_Person1234]

According to CNET first impressions, it "raises the noise-cancelling bar."

[NotTheFirstDaniel]

33 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Given this s**t happened and to this scale, it will happen again, so why not be ready for that already by doing it now. We needed 1 year to get vaccines and it'll take another 6 months for enough people to be vaccinated in order to have herd immunity. Only then we'll be able to take off our masks. We're talking late spring 2021, early summer 2021, depending if ppl will get vaccinated in large enough numbers.

Pandemics at this scale are a once in a lifetime occurrence. The last time something this big happened was in 1919, at least in the US, with the Spanish Flu outbreak.

 

Not to get too political, but I am hopeful that the new administration will get the vaccination programs underway and get people vaccinated ASAP. We already have ordered 100M doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which means 50M immunizations, not to mention its competitors like Moderna. Late Spring/Early Summer was always the best case scenario for this pandemic to be over. Let's just take what we can get.

[Lord Vile]

1 hour ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

From what I've heard, FaceID is about 3 points. Your two eyes and your nose, and if you wear a mask correctly, you block the 3rd point.

FaceID is literally thousands of dots not just 3 points

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

I don't think it would be worth it TBH. What do you do after the pandemic? Once you're done with the convenience factor, do you have to live with the fact that Face ID is now less secure?

 

We're nearing the end of this nightmare anyways now with vaccine trials ending and vaccinations happening. We still have many months to go, but this is just a blip in time that Apple didn't plan for on their roadmap.

To be fair in April we thought this whole thing could have be over by thanksgiving 

[Action_Johnson]

1 hour ago, Commodus said:

Looks like there are early AirPods Max hands-on sessions:

 

 

The headphones seem very well-designed, and the audio quality is top-notch as you'd hope. The big issue, apart from the $549 price, seems to be the dependence on that weird smart case. You can't easily turn off the AirPods Max without that case, so you're beholden to using that (at least until there are third-party cases).

Audio quality IMO doesn't make a difference when I can't plug it into *literally any of my equipment* and instead reliant on a shitty bluetooth connection to my cell phone. 

 

Non-Starter not including a friggin' jack.

[startrek03]

I mean, I don't know who should really want to buy this.

• A normal person who wants decent sounding wireless ANC headphones?
  Just buy Bose or Sony. They're cheaper and Apple probably won't be so much better, that the extra money is worth it.
• A professional who needs reliable good headphones, like people who work in the music or broadcasting industry?
  Too expensive. Not really reparable apart from the ear pads. Not really compatible with other ecosystems than Apple's own one. That's really a no go for for professional applications, I guess. And if they want wireless, they will just get a wireless transmitter, that does the job.
• An audiophile?
  Nah, they run on Bluetooth, so good luck there... Besides, they use an internal DAC and who knows how that turns out for audiophiles...
• An Apple fanboy?
  It's really expensive, probably not worth the extra money and not compatible with other ecosystems. PERFECT! What a  status symbol!

In this price range, they have to be compared with high end audiophile/professional headphones and DACs. It would be ridiculous not to!

Other than that? The case is damn stupid! It neither protects the headphones properly nor adds any real functionality. These headphones would probably look demolished, if I'd carry them daily...

If it wasn't Apple, this would be an instantanious flop, but considering, that this company sells monitor stand for a thousand bucks and casters for a couple hundred bucks, I don't know what to think about this. However, this won't be the convenience product the normal AirPods are, since they aren't alone in this market like with the normal AirPods. There already is a fully developed market for high end ANC over ear headphones.

[RejZoR]

58 minutes ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

Pandemics at this scale are a once in a lifetime occurrence. The last time something this big happened was in 1919, at least in the US, with the Spanish Flu outbreak.

 

Not to get too political, but I am hopeful that the new administration will get the vaccination programs underway and get people vaccinated ASAP. We already have ordered 100M doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which means 50M immunizations, not to mention its competitors like Moderna. Late Spring/Early Summer was always the best case scenario for this pandemic to be over. Let's just take what we can get.

Back then we weren't migrating so quickly across the globe using mega airports and aircrafts where you're in tight space with hundreds of people who then go all over the world in contact with hundreds of other people. Just remember when mysterious flu was reported in China in December 2019 and by March 2020 it was all over the world.

[Blade of Grass]

55 minutes ago, Action_Johnson said:

Audio quality IMO doesn't make a difference when I can't plug it into *literally any of my equipment* and instead reliant on a shitty bluetooth connection to my cell phone. 

 

Non-Starter not including a friggin' jack.

There's a cable you can use for them that connects through the lightning port--unsure if it does AD->DA internally though. 

 

Apple's implementation for AAC for bluetooth is pretty good, so it should be comparable to CDs as far as I can tell. 

[Roswell]

45 minutes ago, Blade of Grass said:

There's a cable you can use for them that connects through the lightning port--unsure if it does AD->DA internally though. 

 

Apple's implementation for AAC for bluetooth is pretty good, so it should be comparable to CDs as far as I can tell. 

It sounds good when it’s AAC to AAC, sounds a decent bit worse when it needs to be encoded a second time from a different format. 
 

A good example is Spotify since it uses OGG. It has to compress an already compressed audio stream a second time to get it to the headphones. The difference when I use Apple Music instead (which uses AAC) is really noticeable.

[Distinctly Average]

4 hours ago, RejZoR said:

I'm sure they could work out something. Anything. But they only made it ask for PIN faster. While helpful, it's not really a solution.

I added a second face, wearing a mask right at the bottom of my nose. Now about 90% of the time I can wear a mask properly and still unlock the phone.

[RejZoR]

11 minutes ago, Distinctly Average said:

I added a second face, wearing a mask right at the bottom of my nose. Now about 90% of the time I can wear a mask properly and still unlock the phone.

I'll try that...

[Lord Vile]

2 hours ago, startrek03 said:

I mean, I don't know who should really want to buy this.

• A normal person who wants decent sounding wireless ANC headphones?
  Just buy Bose or Sony. They're cheaper and Apple probably won't be so much better, that the extra money is worth it.
• A professional who needs reliable good headphones, like people who work in the music or broadcasting industry?
  Too expensive. Not really reparable apart from the ear pads. Not really compatible with other ecosystems than Apple's own one. That's really a no go for for professional applications, I guess. And if they want wireless, they will just get a wireless transmitter, that does the job.
• An audiophile?
  Nah, they run on Bluetooth, so good luck there... Besides, they use an internal DAC and who knows how that turns out for audiophiles...
• An Apple fanboy?
  It's really expensive, probably not worth the extra money and not compatible with other ecosystems. PERFECT! What a  status symbol!

In this price range, they have to be compared with high end audiophile/professional headphones and DACs. It would be ridiculous not to!

Other than that? The case is damn stupid! It neither protects the headphones properly nor adds any real functionality. These headphones would probably look demolished, if I'd carry them daily...

If it wasn't Apple, this would be an instantanious flop, but considering, that this company sells monitor stand for a thousand bucks and casters for a couple hundred bucks, I don't know what to think about this. However, this won't be the convenience product the normal AirPods are, since they aren't alone in this market like with the normal AirPods. There already is a fully developed market for high end ANC over ear headphones.

How do you know they won't be so much better? From first looks they seem to be a lot better but I'll wait until more detailed reviews come or I get to listen to them. Also you can run them wired with a lightning to 3.5mm jack so you could run them through an external DAC and AMP. 

[Bombastinator]

4 hours ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

Pandemics at this scale are a once in a lifetime occurrence. The last time something this big happened was in 1919, at least in the US, with the Spanish Flu outbreak.

 

Not to get too political, but I am hopeful that the new administration will get the vaccination programs underway and get people vaccinated ASAP. We already have ordered 100M doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which means 50M immunizations, not to mention its competitors like Moderna. Late Spring/Early Summer was always the best case scenario for this pandemic to be over. Let's just take what we can get.

This is like the third potential pandemic in recent memory though.  The difference is the other two didn’t get out.

[Action_Johnson]

[LAwLz]

33 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

This is like the third potential pandemic in recent memory though.  The difference is the other two didn’t get out.

Yep. Seems like people have already forgotten about the bird flu, swine flu, ebola, SARS, measles, dengue fever, the regular influenza, yellow fever, the zika virus, MERS...

[Commodus]

4 hours ago, Action_Johnson said:

Audio quality IMO doesn't make a difference when I can't plug it into *literally any of my equipment* and instead reliant on a shitty bluetooth connection to my cell phone. 

 

Non-Starter not including a friggin' jack.

On top of what people have mentioned about a wired option existing (albeit costing extra)... that ship has sailed. Bluetooth headphones can sound good, if not great; people also care about ditching wires and other conveniences, not just audio 'purity.'

[DrMacintosh]

On 12/8/2020 at 6:39 AM, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

Also, no headphone jack, but I don't think you can listen to music through the lightning cable

You actually can. Apple sells a bidirectional lighting to 3.5mm cable. So it does have a headphone jack, you just need the special cable. 
 

Also, nothing indicates Apple is going portless soon. 

[NotTheFirstDaniel]

9 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

FaceID is literally thousands of dots not just 3 points

Never said 3 dots I said 3 points. If it cant see your eyes and your nose, it won't activate.

 

Those thousands of IR dots the dot projector uses to map out your face are to find those three points and map them in 3D.