Apple has simplified their product parts bin so that everything is using laptop parts designed for their thinness at all costs product goals. This means even their desktop units are constrained by the same thermal throttling that kicks when put under load.
"Once we had noticed some occasional GPU throttling, it is hardly surprising that the losses in the stress test are even more dramatic. After our one-hour stress test with Prime95 and FurMark (Windows), the CPU runs at only1.2 GHz, while the graphics card is also limited to just 400 MHz. Even though devices from Asus, Acer & Co. also throttle, none of the direct rivals loses that much performance. "
Vs. the 2016 MBP, the same publication said:
"The analysis of our initial benchmarks shows that the new MacBook Pro is on par with the replaced MBP with a Haswell i7-4870HQ CPU in the Cinebench R15 Single test, while it is 12% faster in the Multi-Core Rendering test. All in all, the results are within the expected range of all tested 6700HQ processors. Cinebench R15 Multi clearly shows the advantage over the current Apple MacBook 13: +115%.
The MacBook Pro 15 is a little bit slower than the previous model in the PCMark benchmark test (Bootcamp Windows). It is on par with other powerful multimedia notebooks like the Dell XPS 15 9550, Asus N552VX or the ZenBook UX510, for example.
[...]
We could not determine throttling of the GPU performance in the Unigine Valley benchmark. The GPU reaches a decent temperature of 70 C and even managed a slightly higher score once the system was warmed up.
[...]
The sensors show much higher values for the internal temperatures. The GPU reaches uncritical 70 C in Unigine Valley, but the CPU will level off at 91 C in Cinebench R15. The scores do not collapse in macOS though, so there should not be any problems with throttling."
So, it seems like the combination of the lower-power Skylake, and Apple's improved Thermal Management has created a laptop that is significantly faster OVERALL (and especially at long-term CPU and/or GPU-intensive tasks, like video editing) than its predecessor.
I tried to procure Mac Minis for a small office in angel-finance reboot mode—it was a blank slate for changing the mix—and Apple had neutered the quad-core mini with the expansion RAM slot so badly, we bought refurbed Windows 7 boxes instead.
Worse machine, twice as much memory, half the price.
One key executive who has cold feet about making the jump, and you're not going to risk a castrated revamp. So it goes.
It was soon revealed that Apple was using soldered RAM in the new Mac minis, an unfortunate development that meant that customers would no longer be able to upgrade their memory after purchase. Want the maximum 16GB of RAM for your new Mac? That'll be $300 extra at checkout...
Compounding the memory upgrade situation is the company's choice of CPUs. Yes, they're Haswell, but they're not as fast as their 2-plus-year-old Ivy Bridge predecessors. The old 2012 Mac mini lineup included options for both dual- and quad-core CPUs, but the new 2014 models are dual-core only, and the efficiency improvements in Haswell can't compensate for the loss of those two cores.
I had 100% buy-in for the Apple solution, had we still been able to get the 2012 spec. Mac mini.
My office mate had brought his own 2012-era Mini into the office and everyone loved it, which is how the option to jump ship from Microsoft entered the conversation in the first place.
Then *bam* the anvil behind the velvet curtain when we specked out the crippled revamp.
I can only imagine that Apple kind of wants to kill off the PC category altogether. Insufficient lock-in. Choice remains.
I honestly think that Apple was running into significant cooling issues with the Quad-Core mini. Now that there are quad-core Skylake's out that are MUCH lower-power, perhaps this year's (2017) minis will be quad again...
Like some other MacBook Pro users, I'm really examining other options for the first time -- My next laptop will probably be a Dell XPS with Ubuntu, and this after decades (30+) of Mac use. If I was Canonical and Dell, I'd be marketing the shit out of Apple's... change of direction? I heard this morning that Apple wants to start making movies. It really does appear that Apple would prefer the more lucrative services markets then the poor return on hardware. I can't say I really blame them, but it really does feel to me like OS X has moved past its peak developers moment.
Something that is sub par within the walled garden forces people to venture outside the walled garden. Then they see it from the outside. On the inside the walls may be pretty. But from the outside, they see the barbed wire, machine gun emplacements, etc. They may also realize a whole world of other brands of products not made by Apple. Smart watches. TVs set top boxes. Home automation.
If Intel wasn't intentionally hobbling their hardware, they could be producing low power chips with QPI that would allow scaling out to 64 cores or more in the power profile of their current workstation boards, before including options like Xeon Phi compute modules on-board as well.
They would just need to use the lowest functional binned chips for a new SKU that they could price competitively for the high consumer/prosumer line and/or offer them exclusively through apple's hardware channels.
But instead they just keep rehashing the same chips for going on 8 years now, rather than offering customers either something NEW, or something featuring tech normally above their budget.
Instead we get crap like Skylake etc where the only new features are bad for the customer, and the performance difference isn't high enough to warrant it for any but those who have to own the latest and greatest regardless of cost or sensitbility.
The iPhone 7 contains no technology at all that didn't already exist in Samsung, Asus, and LG phones.
The 2016 Macbook pro is no different than any other Intel based laptop of the same class and half the price.
Face it, it's just sparkle you're paying for with the apple tax these days. Fabulous looks and specs, nothing innovative underneath.
Depends on the definition of the nebulous term "technology", now doesn't it? If you mean "It didn't have a built-in Transporter", then no. But having the world's fastest CPU and GPU and the best Security is certainly "Technology that doesn't exist" in other brands. As I said, it all hinges on the definition of "Technology". Too bad you had to resort to a bullshit catch-all term to try and prove your sad little point.
As for the MacBook Pros: Name me one other laptop of ANY brand and at ANY price that has 80 Gbps of available orthagonal, multifunction I/O bandwidth. Name me one other laptop of ANY brand and at ANY price that can potentially break-out its four Ports of I/O into up to FIFTY-TWO "legacy" I/O Ports (yes, I realize that is ridiculous; but it is theoretically possible). Name me one other laptop of ANY brand and at ANY price that can drive TWO external 5k Displays (in addition to its internal 5k), or FOUR external 4k Displays (in addition to its internal 5k). Name me one other laptop of ANY brand and at ANY price that has the Touch Bar (regardless of whether you think it is worthwhile or not).
He had a good point, but it's not true in this case.
I see the gay culture as being FABULOUS on the outside, BROKEN on the inside.
Thus I was trying to draw an analogy to a computer company that is great at making cases people want to use that contain outdated technology.
ORLY?
What's "Outdated" in the iPhone 7? It has the fastest CPU and GPU in the industry, industry-leading water-resistance, iron-clad Security, etc.
What's "Outdated" in the 2016 MacBook Pro? It has the latest-generation QUAD-CORE Mobile Intel CPUs; perhaps the ONLY 5k Display in a laptop; industry-leading SSD Speeds; DOUBLE the I/O bandwidth of the next TWO closest laptops COMBINED, and a unique-in-the-industry, multifunction, multitouch input device, not to mention the world's best trackpad.
Those are HARDLY "outdated".
As for their Desktop lineup, now that Intel has gotten off their behinds, you will see those updated here in just a couple of months (likely March or April). In fact, even the Mac Pro is likely to get an update, as will the iMac and hopefully the Mac mini.
The problem here is that Apple is trying to solve a fashion problem with two separate earbuds, when a less fashionable but technically superior solution exists: tether one to the other, and hide more battery capacity there.
No, the problem is that you are advancing a strawman argument. NO ONE (but you, apparently) has complained about the AUDIO QUALITY (and particularly, DISTORTION) with the AirPods. So what's the deal?
Whether Apple solved the issue with a supercapacitor, a new battery technology, or voodoo spells is irrelevant. They seem to have solved it, or avoided it. Sorry that you've had shitty luck with other BT headsets, really I am; but don't project your life-experiences onto a product you've obviously never tried, and likely have no intention of ever trying.
EIGHTEEN pages of Apple Discussion Forum posts regarding the "Disconnection during phone call" issue, the vast majority of people also commented words to the effect of "I hope this gets fixed, because other than this, I love my AirPods."
NOT ONE PERSON complained of the FAUX deficiency you are trying to DRUM UP.
Yep, Apple doesn't sufficiently test an EXTREMELY limited number of combinations prior to releasing the product. Typically that is considered "beta testing by user". Which is what appears to be here. And you still haven't said anything back to bmimatt about your erroneous statements made on false data.
Ya know, I have finally come to the conclusion that it simply doesn't matter WHAT I say, you will continue to move the goalposts and minimize and distort my explanation to suit your Hater mindset.
If they are paired you can have them emit sound.
While connected you can use GPS and a small table to record the phones location every minute. Round robin it for maybe an hour. Stop writing table when unpaired.
Then when you need to find them you can backtrack from where you were last paired, up to an hour before that. You can even map it.
Most likely they are within 30 feet the last paired location, or someone at that location picked them up. This is NOT rocket surgery. Come on Apple have some courage.
The AirPods themselves don't have GPS or WiFi, IIRC.
If they did, don't you think Apple would be using it? In fact, Apple would likely have the AirPod start calling for help when it detected an increasing distance between itself and whatever it was last paired with. But they simply can't add GPS to AirPods without sucking some serious battery life.
In fact, I wonder if Apple could monitor the BT strength from the AirPods in a background process running on the Paired Device(s). Once a second shouldn't affect battery life too much. and popup a notice when the signal drops below a threshold, suggesting the user turn around and look for their "lost" AirPod (or dismiss the notice). THEN, chirping the AirPod would likely be more effective, since you would likely be within 100 ft of the lost AirPod. In the "find" mode, Apple could also show signal strength of the Lost AirPod while in "find" mode, so someone could use that, along with the sound, to help head them in the right direction, too.
It might be easier or lower-power to have the AirPods monitor the BT "beacon", and the. Have the AirPod call for help when the Paired Device's signal started to Fade. Apple would have to prototype both schemes, and see which one impacts AirPod battery the least, while still providing enough Notice that the user can't wander so far away that the chance of finding a dropped AirPod starts becoming a problem.
It will use the last place seen rather than have them emit a sound. Yup.
No, according to the summary (you didn't even need to read the article!) it will do both...at least until some idiot does this while wearing the airpods and goes deaf at which point I expect the feature will be pulled.
Doubtful, since AirPods know when they are in your ears.
Stop injecting your prejudices into the discussion. The commenter just referred to him as 'that gay guy.' No implication was made that his gayness had anything to do with the rest of the comment. Stop acting like calling somebody gay is a pejorative. It's no different than saying ' that redheaded guy.'
You don't actually believe what you are saying, do you?
So, once again we see you taking extreme defense of Apple as your default position - and doing so without an ounce of knowledge of the facts. You can apologize to bmimatt for going off on him. His statement is pretty much 100% accurate; how do you roll out a product that is not compatible with a currently shipping product (being that you can still buy, brand new at the Apple store, iPhone 6s units)? It's called using your users for beta testers. You have four phones (iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, 7, 7 Plus) and one pair of BT buds (airpods). It's not like it's millions of combinations...
And isn't the percentage of failure quite small? So, is it small enough so that it simply didn't happen during Apple's initial testing? Especially since by FAR the greatest number of complaints are definitely coming from those who have the COMBINATION of iP6 or 6s AND an Apple Watch. In fact, there are a number of complainants that claim that their call-drop issues STOP if they completely un-pair their Apple Watch with their iPhone. Suggesting that there may be a race-condition between the phone and the watch, trying to determine which one "owns" the audio stream with the AirPods, or other issue with that COMBINATION of products.
Who knows why using only one AirPod seems to also stop the issue, but that seems to work, too. It is also interesting to note that even people using AirPods with non-Apple phones are NOT having the problem; further pointing to the fact that it is a COMBINATION of factors that are needed for the failure rate to rise above the statistical noise level.
So, with THREE products (and long calls) having to be present to make this failure appear with any certainty, NOW how many combinations does Apple have to test?
Also, Your claim that I rush to Apple's defense is rendered moot by the fact that you rush to ascribe incompetence or worse every single time the subject is Apple.
.(And since Apple went their own way with a custom bluetooth chip, it's anyone's guess whether they will support BT5 anytime soon.)
It is my guess that the W1 chip actually is designed to support BT5, and that Apple's "custom" BT protocol is based on the preliminary BT5 standard, and since Apple can upload new firmware into the W1 even after it is in-circuit, that now that the BT5 protocol is finally ratified, they will be updating the W1 chips to cover BT5 as well.
But he's not wrong with his point. AirPods necessarily have tiny batteries, much smaller than the phone does. While their average current may be fine, they are going to "brown out" on peaks without something like a capacitor to back them up. This causes distortion very similar to that induced by a megaphone, which is highly undesirable for music unless your name is Tom Waits.
ALL BT headsets have "tiny batteries". So, what's your point?
How do you know that the AirPods don't have such a "smoothing" capacitor to handle "current-slugs"? At the voltages we're talking about, even a fairly high-value SMT capacitor is fairly small.
I am very familiar with current-starvation effects in audio circuits, which usually show up first as Intermodulation Distortion figures going through the roof. IM distortion is VERY apparent to humans; MUCH more so than Harmonic Distortion, which can get into the TENS of percent before people start objecting. So, if there were problems with power-starvation, it certainly would have shown up in user or professional reviews.
My question to you (and Mr. word-salad) is this: What users or reviewers have complained about such audio artifacts in listening to the AirPods?
Looking at a teardown of an iPhone 7, we see the WiFi/Bluetooth chip is a Murata device, not a W1. The W1 is in the airpods, not the iPhone.
Hmmm. That's interesting. I thought the iP7's had the W1, too.
And what's a damn TRANSFORMER company doing making BT Chips?!?;-)
Well, then, that's actually even better news. That means that the issue with the call-drop is much more likely to NOT be related to a W1 to non-W1 incompatibility, as I first worried it was.
Many, many BT headsets, e.g. Samsung's, are much more expensive.
thats not really it though is it? samsung has bt audio sets starting from 50 bucks and going to the 250 range, at which point you get pretty decent over the ear design already...
apple on the other hand sells what is essentially a worse version of samsungs cheapest offering at triple the price.
of course you would want them connected at least to each other..
On what FACTS (as opossed to OPINION) do you base your "worse version..." Statement?
So far, other than this call-drop glitch with certain phones, the vast majority of owners of the AirPods seem to enjoy them quite well, and they have gotten good to great reviews.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple has simplified their product parts bin so that everything is using laptop parts designed for their thinness at all costs product goals. This means even their desktop units are constrained by the same thermal throttling that kicks when put under load.
That was REALLY true with the 2015 MacBook Pros; but isn't at ALL a problem with the 2016 MacBook Pros. That is one of the biggest reasons why the 2016 MBPs are actually MUCH faster than the 2015's, even though the CPU is slightly slower at max. speed.
Of the 2015 MBP:
"Once we had noticed some occasional GPU throttling, it is hardly surprising that the losses in the stress test are even more dramatic. After our one-hour stress test with Prime95 and FurMark (Windows), the CPU runs at only1.2 GHz, while the graphics card is also limited to just 400 MHz. Even though devices from Asus, Acer & Co. also throttle, none of the direct rivals loses that much performance. "
Vs. the 2016 MBP, the same publication said:
"The analysis of our initial benchmarks shows that the new MacBook Pro is on par with the replaced MBP with a Haswell i7-4870HQ CPU in the Cinebench R15 Single test, while it is 12% faster in the Multi-Core Rendering test. All in all, the results are within the expected range of all tested 6700HQ processors. Cinebench R15 Multi clearly shows the advantage over the current Apple MacBook 13: +115%.
The MacBook Pro 15 is a little bit slower than the previous model in the PCMark benchmark test (Bootcamp Windows). It is on par with other powerful multimedia notebooks like the Dell XPS 15 9550, Asus N552VX or the ZenBook UX510, for example.
[...]
We could not determine throttling of the GPU performance in the Unigine Valley benchmark. The GPU reaches a decent temperature of 70 C and even managed a slightly higher score once the system was warmed up.
[...]
The sensors show much higher values for the internal temperatures. The GPU reaches uncritical 70 C in Unigine Valley, but the CPU will level off at 91 C in Cinebench R15. The scores do not collapse in macOS though, so there should not be any problems with throttling."
So, it seems like the combination of the lower-power Skylake, and Apple's improved Thermal Management has created a laptop that is significantly faster OVERALL (and especially at long-term CPU and/or GPU-intensive tasks, like video editing) than its predecessor.
I tried to procure Mac Minis for a small office in angel-finance reboot mode—it was a blank slate for changing the mix—and Apple had neutered the quad-core mini with the expansion RAM slot so badly, we bought refurbed Windows 7 boxes instead.
Worse machine, twice as much memory, half the price.
One key executive who has cold feet about making the jump, and you're not going to risk a castrated revamp. So it goes.
The New Mac mini is Quickly Turning into a Disaster
I had 100% buy-in for the Apple solution, had we still been able to get the 2012 spec. Mac mini.
My office mate had brought his own 2012-era Mini into the office and everyone loved it, which is how the option to jump ship from Microsoft entered the conversation in the first place.
Then *bam* the anvil behind the velvet curtain when we specked out the crippled revamp.
I can only imagine that Apple kind of wants to kill off the PC category altogether. Insufficient lock-in. Choice remains.
I honestly think that Apple was running into significant cooling issues with the Quad-Core mini. Now that there are quad-core Skylake's out that are MUCH lower-power, perhaps this year's (2017) minis will be quad again...
after decades (30+) of Mac use.
I call BS. 30 decades is three centuries, and Macs have only been around since 1984.
You haven't seen my kerosene-powered Apple 1, have you?
I heard this morning that Apple wants to start making movies
I hope they're not going to try to edit those on a new Macbook "Pro"
Why? I have heard it handles 4k (actually 5k!) video editing smooth as glass.
Like some other MacBook Pro users, I'm really examining other options for the first time -- My next laptop will probably be a Dell XPS with Ubuntu, and this after decades (30+) of Mac use. If I was Canonical and Dell, I'd be marketing the shit out of Apple's... change of direction? I heard this morning that Apple wants to start making movies. It really does appear that Apple would prefer the more lucrative services markets then the poor return on hardware. I can't say I really blame them, but it really does feel to me like OS X has moved past its peak developers moment.
Enjoy your Hell and sad, buggy little OS.
LMGTFY:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20534417/what-is-the-difference-between-baud-rate-and-bit-rate
Literally the second hit when searching for "the difference between baud and bps".
Thank you for saving me from having to post that.
Perfectly stated. Bravo!
Something that is sub par within the walled garden forces people to venture outside the walled garden. Then they see it from the outside. On the inside the walls may be pretty. But from the outside, they see the barbed wire, machine gun emplacements, etc. They may also realize a whole world of other brands of products not made by Apple. Smart watches. TVs set top boxes. Home automation.
Nice hyperbole.
If Intel wasn't intentionally hobbling their hardware, they could be producing low power chips with QPI that would allow scaling out to 64 cores or more in the power profile of their current workstation boards, before including options like Xeon Phi compute modules on-board as well.
They would just need to use the lowest functional binned chips for a new SKU that they could price competitively for the high consumer/prosumer line and/or offer them exclusively through apple's hardware channels.
But instead they just keep rehashing the same chips for going on 8 years now, rather than offering customers either something NEW, or something featuring tech normally above their budget.
Instead we get crap like Skylake etc where the only new features are bad for the customer, and the performance difference isn't high enough to warrant it for any but those who have to own the latest and greatest regardless of cost or sensitbility.
That is it, exactly.
Apple needs to get into the CPU business.
Apple has lost their way specially in laptops.
Not even close to being true.
The iPhone 7 contains no technology at all that didn't already exist in Samsung, Asus, and LG phones.
The 2016 Macbook pro is no different than any other Intel based laptop of the same class and half the price.
Face it, it's just sparkle you're paying for with the apple tax these days. Fabulous looks and specs, nothing innovative underneath.
Depends on the definition of the nebulous term "technology", now doesn't it? If you mean "It didn't have a built-in Transporter", then no. But having the world's fastest CPU and GPU and the best Security is certainly "Technology that doesn't exist" in other brands. As I said, it all hinges on the definition of "Technology". Too bad you had to resort to a bullshit catch-all term to try and prove your sad little point.
As for the MacBook Pros: Name me one other laptop of ANY brand and at ANY price that has 80 Gbps of available orthagonal, multifunction I/O bandwidth. Name me one other laptop of ANY brand and at ANY price that can potentially break-out its four Ports of I/O into up to FIFTY-TWO "legacy" I/O Ports (yes, I realize that is ridiculous; but it is theoretically possible). Name me one other laptop of ANY brand and at ANY price that can drive TWO external 5k Displays (in addition to its internal 5k), or FOUR external 4k Displays (in addition to its internal 5k). Name me one other laptop of ANY brand and at ANY price that has the Touch Bar (regardless of whether you think it is worthwhile or not).
I'm waiting...
They don't R&D real hardware, they buy off the shelf components from Samsung, LG, et al, and then their engineers put them together.
Really? Where in the Samsung, LG et al Catalogs can I find an A11x SoC, for example?
Where is the TouchBar Display and Controller? Show me the Catalog page!
And the SSD Controller in the 2016 MacBook Pros, where can I buy that?
I could go on and on, and if I want to look back, there is Apple-Designed custom silicon clear back to the Apple ][ days...
You talk a lot of shit there, buddy.
...They want their Safari Power-Saver Feature from THREE YEARS AGO back.
And although I can't seem to find any web pages on it, Safari also pauses Tabs that are "in the background", too.
He had a good point, but it's not true in this case.
I see the gay culture as being FABULOUS on the outside, BROKEN on the inside.
Thus I was trying to draw an analogy to a computer company that is great at making cases people want to use that contain outdated technology.
ORLY?
What's "Outdated" in the iPhone 7? It has the fastest CPU and GPU in the industry, industry-leading water-resistance, iron-clad Security, etc.
What's "Outdated" in the 2016 MacBook Pro? It has the latest-generation QUAD-CORE Mobile Intel CPUs; perhaps the ONLY 5k Display in a laptop; industry-leading SSD Speeds; DOUBLE the I/O bandwidth of the next TWO closest laptops COMBINED, and a unique-in-the-industry, multifunction, multitouch input device, not to mention the world's best trackpad.
Those are HARDLY "outdated".
As for their Desktop lineup, now that Intel has gotten off their behinds, you will see those updated here in just a couple of months (likely March or April). In fact, even the Mac Pro is likely to get an update, as will the iMac and hopefully the Mac mini.
The problem here is that Apple is trying to solve a fashion problem with two separate earbuds, when a less fashionable but technically superior solution exists: tether one to the other, and hide more battery capacity there.
No, the problem is that you are advancing a strawman argument. NO ONE (but you, apparently) has complained about the AUDIO QUALITY (and particularly, DISTORTION) with the AirPods. So what's the deal?
Whether Apple solved the issue with a supercapacitor, a new battery technology, or voodoo spells is irrelevant. They seem to have solved it, or avoided it. Sorry that you've had shitty luck with other BT headsets, really I am; but don't project your life-experiences onto a product you've obviously never tried, and likely have no intention of ever trying.
EIGHTEEN pages of Apple Discussion Forum posts regarding the "Disconnection during phone call" issue, the vast majority of people also commented words to the effect of "I hope this gets fixed, because other than this, I love my AirPods."
NOT ONE PERSON complained of the FAUX deficiency you are trying to DRUM UP.
NOT ONE.
So, KNOCK IT OFF!!!
Yep, Apple doesn't sufficiently test an EXTREMELY limited number of combinations prior to releasing the product. Typically that is considered "beta testing by user". Which is what appears to be here. And you still haven't said anything back to bmimatt about your erroneous statements made on false data.
Ya know, I have finally come to the conclusion that it simply doesn't matter WHAT I say, you will continue to move the goalposts and minimize and distort my explanation to suit your Hater mindset.
Attempt at Communication Terminated.
Based on last location of case? Junk.
If they are paired you can have them emit sound. While connected you can use GPS and a small table to record the phones location every minute. Round robin it for maybe an hour. Stop writing table when unpaired. Then when you need to find them you can backtrack from where you were last paired, up to an hour before that. You can even map it.
Most likely they are within 30 feet the last paired location, or someone at that location picked them up. This is NOT rocket surgery. Come on Apple have some courage.
The AirPods themselves don't have GPS or WiFi, IIRC.
If they did, don't you think Apple would be using it? In fact, Apple would likely have the AirPod start calling for help when it detected an increasing distance between itself and whatever it was last paired with. But they simply can't add GPS to AirPods without sucking some serious battery life.
In fact, I wonder if Apple could monitor the BT strength from the AirPods in a background process running on the Paired Device(s). Once a second shouldn't affect battery life too much. and popup a notice when the signal drops below a threshold, suggesting the user turn around and look for their "lost" AirPod (or dismiss the notice). THEN, chirping the AirPod would likely be more effective, since you would likely be within 100 ft of the lost AirPod. In the "find" mode, Apple could also show signal strength of the Lost AirPod while in "find" mode, so someone could use that, along with the sound, to help head them in the right direction, too.
It might be easier or lower-power to have the AirPods monitor the BT "beacon", and the. Have the AirPod call for help when the Paired Device's signal started to Fade. Apple would have to prototype both schemes, and see which one impacts AirPod battery the least, while still providing enough Notice that the user can't wander so far away that the chance of finding a dropped AirPod starts becoming a problem.
It will use the last place seen rather than have them emit a sound. Yup.
No, according to the summary (you didn't even need to read the article!) it will do both...at least until some idiot does this while wearing the airpods and goes deaf at which point I expect the feature will be pulled.
Doubtful, since AirPods know when they are in your ears.
Stop injecting your prejudices into the discussion. The commenter just referred to him as 'that gay guy.' No implication was made that his gayness had anything to do with the rest of the comment. Stop acting like calling somebody gay is a pejorative. It's no different than saying ' that redheaded guy.'
You don't actually believe what you are saying, do you?
So, once again we see you taking extreme defense of Apple as your default position - and doing so without an ounce of knowledge of the facts. You can apologize to bmimatt for going off on him. His statement is pretty much 100% accurate; how do you roll out a product that is not compatible with a currently shipping product (being that you can still buy, brand new at the Apple store, iPhone 6s units)? It's called using your users for beta testers. You have four phones (iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, 7, 7 Plus) and one pair of BT buds (airpods). It's not like it's millions of combinations...
And isn't the percentage of failure quite small? So, is it small enough so that it simply didn't happen during Apple's initial testing? Especially since by FAR the greatest number of complaints are definitely coming from those who have the COMBINATION of iP6 or 6s AND an Apple Watch. In fact, there are a number of complainants that claim that their call-drop issues STOP if they completely un-pair their Apple Watch with their iPhone. Suggesting that there may be a race-condition between the phone and the watch, trying to determine which one "owns" the audio stream with the AirPods, or other issue with that COMBINATION of products.
Who knows why using only one AirPod seems to also stop the issue, but that seems to work, too. It is also interesting to note that even people using AirPods with non-Apple phones are NOT having the problem; further pointing to the fact that it is a COMBINATION of factors that are needed for the failure rate to rise above the statistical noise level.
So, with THREE products (and long calls) having to be present to make this failure appear with any certainty, NOW how many combinations does Apple have to test?
Also, Your claim that I rush to Apple's defense is rendered moot by the fact that you rush to ascribe incompetence or worse every single time the subject is Apple.
On what FACTS (as opossed to OPINION) do you base your "worse version..." Statement?
He did extensive listening tests in his echo chamber.
Exactly.
.(And since Apple went their own way with a custom bluetooth chip, it's anyone's guess whether they will support BT5 anytime soon.)
It is my guess that the W1 chip actually is designed to support BT5, and that Apple's "custom" BT protocol is based on the preliminary BT5 standard, and since Apple can upload new firmware into the W1 even after it is in-circuit, that now that the BT5 protocol is finally ratified, they will be updating the W1 chips to cover BT5 as well.
But he's not wrong with his point. AirPods necessarily have tiny batteries, much smaller than the phone does. While their average current may be fine, they are going to "brown out" on peaks without something like a capacitor to back them up. This causes distortion very similar to that induced by a megaphone, which is highly undesirable for music unless your name is Tom Waits.
ALL BT headsets have "tiny batteries". So, what's your point?
How do you know that the AirPods don't have such a "smoothing" capacitor to handle "current-slugs"? At the voltages we're talking about, even a fairly high-value SMT capacitor is fairly small.
I am very familiar with current-starvation effects in audio circuits, which usually show up first as Intermodulation Distortion figures going through the roof. IM distortion is VERY apparent to humans; MUCH more so than Harmonic Distortion, which can get into the TENS of percent before people start objecting. So, if there were problems with power-starvation, it certainly would have shown up in user or professional reviews.
My question to you (and Mr. word-salad) is this: What users or reviewers have complained about such audio artifacts in listening to the AirPods?
Looking at a teardown of an iPhone 7, we see the WiFi/Bluetooth chip is a Murata device, not a W1. The W1 is in the airpods, not the iPhone.
Hmmm. That's interesting. I thought the iP7's had the W1, too.
;-)
And what's a damn TRANSFORMER company doing making BT Chips?!?
Well, then, that's actually even better news. That means that the issue with the call-drop is much more likely to NOT be related to a W1 to non-W1 incompatibility, as I first worried it was.
Many, many BT headsets, e.g. Samsung's, are much more expensive.
thats not really it though is it? samsung has bt audio sets starting from 50 bucks and going to the 250 range, at which point you get pretty decent over the ear design already...
apple on the other hand sells what is essentially a worse version of samsungs cheapest offering at triple the price.
of course you would want them connected at least to each other..
On what FACTS (as opossed to OPINION) do you base your "worse version..." Statement?
So far, other than this call-drop glitch with certain phones, the vast majority of owners of the AirPods seem to enjoy them quite well, and they have gotten good to great reviews.