Apple - allegedly - caught nerfing ANC Performance on their Headphones

[_hANSI]

Summary

 

 It looks like Apple might have been caught yet again nerfing the performance of one of their products with a software update, this time around reducing the effectiveness of noise cancelling on the AirPods Max.

 

 

Quotes

Quote

 If you bought a pair of AirPods Max a few months ago and frequently depend on Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), you might've noticed that lately they haven't been blocking out noise as effectively as before. You're not imagining things. The company has indeed nerfed ANC on the AirPods Max through an automatic software update.

 

My thoughts

 While this may just be apple doing apple things, I find this instance especially egregious, if the alleged is true. If you go into a shop to try out different headphones and buy a pair based on the ANC you experience, and then the performance gets nerfed after a couple of weeks I would consider it misleading at best.

 

Making things worse, this update gets pushed without user interaction, so there's not even a way of opting out.

 

There's no statement out from Apple yet, so there may be a technical reason for this, but if there isn't and this is just their typical shenanigans, this looks really bad.

 

Sources

 https://www.xda-developers.com/apple-nerfed-anc-airpods-max/

 

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/apple/airpods-max-wireless#test_348

[Dominik W]

 

Who knows yet. Just like OP mentioned, there is no statement yet, so lets wait and see. ANC is nice, but my initial thought about why they did it is because it was working too well, and people weren't hearing things.

 

Obviously if there is no real reason to it, then bad Apple, bad. But lets wait and see before we start yelling "revolution" on a online forum.

[Takumidesh]

Just now, Dominik W said:

people weren't hearing things.

spawning the short lived "they can't hear us they have their airpods in" meme.

[AndreiArgeanu]

7 minutes ago, Dominik W said:

they did it is because it was working too well, and people weren't hearing things.

That's quite literally the entire purpose of ANC, Active Noise Cancellation. If you want to be able to hear some of the noise then the seal the headphone forms with your head is enough. At the very least if this was an issue they could have just added a setting to adjust the ANC level.

[Dominik W]

Just now, AndreiArgeanu said:

That's quite literally the entire purpose of ANC, Active Noise Cancellation. If you want to be able to hear some of the noise then the seal the headphone forms with your head is enough. At the very least if this was an issue they could have just added a setting to adjust the ANC level.

Maybe people didn't realize that? Idk, that was only my first thought. I'm not gonna insinuate that I'm right.

[tikker]

These things should happen with explanation, no matter the reason, but let's first wait for an explanation, if one will come, before we raise an army and bring out the pitchforks.

5 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

That's quite literally the entire purpose of ANC, Active Noise Cancellation. If you want to be able to hear some of the noise then the seal the headphone forms with your head is enough. At the very least if this was an issue they could have just added a setting to adjust the ANC level.

If it works too well it could be a safety concern if people wear these out in traffic, which I see people do often (not specifically these, but ANC-capable  headphones in general). Not saying that is the case here or that companies are responsible for people's choices, but I can imagine that playing a role.

[Dracarris]

2 hours ago, _hANSI said:

It looks like Apple might have been caught yet again nerfing the performance of one of their products with a software update

Care to adjust the thread title? You seem to (accidentally) have made a much stronger statement there than in the actual post. There are no credible sources/confirmation to this yet and it might be due to whatever reason, bug, people complaining about uncomfortable ear pressure or whatnot.

Also there is no successor for the AP Max in sight, so people might want to dial down their conspiracy theories a bit.

And "yet again"? Are we going through that sudden shutdown-avoidance of the 6S bullshit again? That was how many years ago exactly?

[WereCat]

So if you have Android phone with Apple headphones you're safe because you can't update them?

[wanderingfool2]

This to me is a wait and see sort of thing.

 

As much as I dislike the way Apple operates, nothing of this screams of intentional.  This seems like they tried adjusting something, and maybe in situations it got worse.

 

e.g. Perhaps they were noticing the ANC was causing distortions or something similar so this was their attempt to fix it. There could be plenty of reasons why it was "nerfed"...who knows maybe they are going to allow for custom ANC profiles (and the new code has caused this).  Until there is a statement, or a plausible scenario of why it happened there isn't any point in holding up pitch-forks because really there are too many other things it could be.

[Lightwreather]

This honestly just seems like an unintentional bug.

I can't think of any reason why Apple would intentionally nerf an essentially "Flagship" Product without having a replacement already announced and ready to go.

[Roswell]

11 hours ago, _hANSI said:

Apple might have been caught yet again nerfing the performance of one of their products

This suggests malice intent which your sources do not substantiate. 

 

Not only that, but they "buffed" high frequency noise cancellation at the same time. I see no mention of that in your outrage.

 

Bose and Sony both have had past run-ins with firmware updates changing the ANC performance for the worse and then fixing it afterwards once customer feedback rolls in. I'm sure you were equally as outraged with them when it happened, right?

 

 

[HenrySalayne]

2 hours ago, Dominik W said:

Who knows yet. Just like OP mentioned, there is no statement yet, so lets wait and see. ANC is nice, but my initial thought about why they did it is because it was working too well, and people weren't hearing things.

Great point. And while we are already at it, let's just limit all cars to 10 mph, so accident rates will drop to almost zero!

Maybe manufacturers could start giving us options instead of force-feeding everything they came up with. And maybe we can stop finding excuses. This is not an Apple problem, but something the whole industry does.

[starsmine]

6 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

Great point. And while we are already at it, let's just limit all cars to 10 mph, so accident rates will drop to almost zero!

Maybe manufacturers could start giving us options instead of force-feeding everything they came up with. And maybe we can stop finding excuses. This is not an Apple problem, but something the whole industry does.

great point?
y'all are getting mad over a hypothetical pulled straight out of an ass. Not only a hypothetical, a hypothetical where the initial assumptions are suspect. 

This is exactly how misinformation conspiracy theory's form and spread. Chill out.

[Middcore]

2 hours ago, Dominik W said:

my initial thought about why they did it is because it was working too well, and people weren't hearing things.

 

As always, the top minds of the LTT forum have already hashed out this issue: 

 

This seems like it's probably a bug, but I'm glad we got the "Actually everything Apple does is for users' own good if they would only be enlightened enough to appreciate it" POV covered along with the "Apple is the greatest manifestation of Satan's influence on earth" school of thought. 

 

[porina]

52 minutes ago, Roswell said:

they "buffed" high frequency noise cancellation at the same time.

It is hard to do a direct comparison between the two charts at rtings and I wish they had provided a before/after on same chart. I don't see a significant difference at the higher frequencies and minor changes could be due to reasons other than ANC. I used to work on ANC products for another company. Quite simply you don't use ANC at higher frequencies. It's computationally difficult to do and you instead rely on mechanical isolation which works better at higher frequencies. Note the lack of difference regardless of the setting.

 

More in general, tuning ANC and related parameters can be difficult. I'm only guessing here, but maybe they wanted it to work better for certain noise characteristics, which impacted others. Or it is an unwanted side effect of tuning changes for other reasons.

[Dracarris]

3 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

e.g. Perhaps they were noticing the ANC was causing distortions or something similar so this was their attempt to fix it. There could be plenty of reasons why it was "nerfed"...who knows maybe they are going to allow for custom ANC profiles (and the new code has caused this).  Until there is a statement, or a plausible scenario of why it happened there isn't any point in holding up pitch-forks because really there are too many other things it could be.

Also quite disappointed with how Quinn handels this thing, though he generally has lately been riding the Apple hate train on Twitter pretty hard.

 

https://twitter.com/SnazzyQ/status/1583711316497248256

[Blademaster91]

1 hour ago, Dracarris said:

Also quite disappointed with how Quinn handels this thing, though he generally has lately been riding the Apple hate train on Twitter pretty hard.

 

https://twitter.com/SnazzyQ/status/1583711316497248256

Except they're like one of the few Apple reviewers that doesn't fanboy for apple, and I think I'd trust RTings on this, their testing is objective and some of the best when it comes to audio.

[suicidalfranco]

2 hours ago, Dracarris said:

Also quite disappointed with how Quinn handels this thing, though he generally has lately been riding the Apple hate train on Twitter pretty hard.

 

https://twitter.com/SnazzyQ/status/1583711316497248256

look people! someone who rides everything apple saying something bad about what apple did!

clearly an hater who enjoys dancing in the circle jerk of the anti apple crowd

 

his tweet says more about you than quinn

[starsmine]

17 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

look people! someone who rides everything apple saying something bad about what apple did!

clearly an hater who enjoys dancing in the circle jerk of the anti apple crowd

 

his tweet says more about you than quinn

 

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

Except they're like one of the few Apple reviewers that doesn't fanboy for apple, and I think I'd trust RTings on this, their testing is objective and some of the best when it comes to audio.

RTings is fair and trustworthy, their tests and commentary are invaluable. 

Quinn's take on the other hand a bit much, it was hyperbolic, and conspiratorial.

Doubly so because the 6s choosing to throttle rather then shut down from over drawing what a DEGRADED battery can provide that is EASY to replace is and always was bullshit complaint. OH NO apple didnt break the laws of physics, the bastards. 

[Dracarris]

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

Except they're like one of the few Apple reviewers that doesn't fanboy for apple, and I think I'd trust RTings on this, their testing is objective and some of the best when it comes to audio.

While his YT videos are usually very objective his Twitter clearly isn't anymore since a few weeks back. And just bcs RTings made an objective measurement does not mean Apple purposely nerfed ANC - as many others have pointed out in this thread.

Subjective experiences of ANC often even differ from objective measurements. There have been other cases (including non-Apple ANC products) where people claimed after a firmware update, evil company XYZ nerfed ANC. Said company went "wtf" and made objective measurements, showing no differences between firmware versions whatsoever.

21 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

someone who rides everything apple saying something bad about what apple did!

Your sentence does not make any sense and/or isn't anywhere close to proper English (again).

3 minutes ago, starsmine said:

Doubly so because the 6s choosing to throttle rather then shut down from over drawing what a DEGRADED battery can provide that is EASY to replace is and always was bullshit complaint. OH NO apple didnt break the laws of physics, the bastards. 

Thank you.. I am so sick and tired of this utter nonsense from people that don't understand how power delivery in a phone and dynamic power consumption of a CPU work. Over and over and over again this BS rises from the dead.

[suicidalfranco]

1 minute ago, Dracarris said:

Your sentence does not make any sense and/or isn't anywhere close to proper English (again).

makes sense to me

[Dominik W]

8 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Great point. And while we are already at it, let's just limit all cars to 10 mph, so accident rates will drop to almost zero!

Maybe manufacturers could start giving us options instead of force-feeding everything they came up with. And maybe we can stop finding excuses. This is not an Apple problem, but something the whole industry does.

I guess I didn’t emphasize enough that it was just my initial sudden thought. Maybe it sounds stupid to you but for me it sounded at least in a remote sense plausible. I’m not going to waste my life defending corporations.

[HenrySalayne]

3 hours ago, Dracarris said:

And just bcs RTings made an objective measurement does not mean Apple purposely nerfed ANC - as many others have pointed out in this thread.

Oof. You know it is bad if your advocate is pleading for incompetence.

 

There are two possibilities here and neither of those are looking good for Apple. They either changed the ANC characteristics - for a reason we don't know - on purpose or they made other changes to the firmware impairing ANC characteristics in the process. If changes to the FW can impair audio and ANC performance, they should have tested it thoroughly, not doing so is just negligence.

And I'm not saying Apple is acting in bad intend. Even good intentions get a sour taste when they are not disclosed and happen in the background. Even worse, this is a case of altering a product a long time after it has hit the market and making one of the defining features worse for some costumers.

47 minutes ago, Dominik W said:

I guess I didn’t emphasize enough that it was just my initial sudden thought. Maybe it sounds stupid to you but for me it sounded at least in a remote sense plausible. I’m not going to waste my life defending corporations.

Don't get me wrong. This is not about the reason you adduced ("ANC is too good, this might be a safety concern") but the narrative you were setting ("they nerfed ANC for safety reasons") . Apple could easily set a "weaker" ANC as default and keep the old one with a safety warning. It's unnecessary to push this in an undisclosed FW update.

[TOMPPIX]

9 hours ago, porina said:

 I used to work on ANC products for another company. Quite simply you don't use ANC at higher frequencies. It's computationally difficult to do and you instead rely on mechanical isolation which works better at higher frequencies. Note the lack of difference regardless of the setting.

You wouldn't happen to know if anc on products are used to it's maximum potential, or could they implement a "sleep mode" that would not play any music but block everything?

[Blademaster91]

6 hours ago, starsmine said:

 

RTings is fair and trustworthy, their tests and commentary are invaluable. 

Quinn's take on the other hand a bit much, it was hyperbolic, and conspiratorial.

Doubly so because the 6s choosing to throttle rather then shut down from over drawing what a DEGRADED battery can provide that is EASY to replace is and always was bullshit complaint. OH NO apple didnt break the laws of physics, the bastards. 

I think Quinn is right on this, but Apple fans don't like it of course. And I think he's right because people bought a product, expected certain performance from it, then Apple went and changed it without any option to not apply the update, and didn't say why the product was changed.

Also the 6s throttling is a fine example IMO, as people paid for a product, then the product didn't work as advertised, it doesn't matter if the battery was easy to replace most people aren't going to replace a battery that isn't made to be replaced. I find it interesting people still defend Apple for anti-consumer bullshit even when they lost a lawsuit over it.

6 hours ago, Dracarris said:

While his YT videos are usually very objective his Twitter clearly isn't anymore since a few weeks back. And just bcs RTings made an objective measurement does not mean Apple purposely nerfed ANC - as many others have pointed out in this thread.

Subjective experiences of ANC often even differ from objective measurements. There have been other cases (including non-Apple ANC products) where people claimed after a firmware update, evil company XYZ nerfed ANC. Said company went "wtf" and made objective measurements, showing no differences between firmware versions whatsoever.

I think his twitter posts are fine, seems apple fans are just upset because he isn't constantly praising their favorite company.

Also saying Apple didn't purposely nerf ANC would be implying Apple is incompetent and sent out a update on accident, a multi trillion dollar company just doesn't do things like that on accident, and according to the Twitter thread Apple has nerfed something on purpose before they sell a new version of Airpods, so that isn't a good look to be nerfing a product without any reasons.

I would recommend looking at the RTings review, their testing shows quite a significant difference with the firmware update.

6 hours ago, Dracarris said:

Thank you.. I am so sick and tired of this utter nonsense from people that don't understand how power delivery in a phone and dynamic power consumption of a CPU work. Over and over and over again this BS rises from the dead.

And I am tired of people defending a company over something they lost and had to admit was defective, people still want to come up with reasons but it doesn't matter when the device gets nerfed without telling people why it got nerfed.