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0 pointsxps4mo ago0 comments

They don't report battery status to non-Apple devices. This is a pretty basic feature and without this I wouldn't consider them to perform "on par" with other Bluetooth headphones.

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CharlesW4mo ago

You're proving the parent commenter's point that "this is about availability of special features which require a dedicated driver non-Apple devices are not expected to have", because there is no standard way in BLE to report more than one battery value. Wireless earbuds are a device pair, each with its own battery.

Apple, like every other vendor, does not have a choice but to implement this as a proprietary characteristic. Pre-BLE, other vendors copied Apple's de-facto `HFP AT+IPHONEACCEV` standard for reporting battery levels to the OS.

thayne4mo ago

> Apple, like every other vendor, does not have a choice but to implement this as a proprietary characteristic. Pre-BLE, other vendors copied Apple's de-facto `HFP

They could publish the details, and not block other manufacturer details, so that it is easier for other platforms to develop drivers for them. Or develop a new standard that works for their earbuds.

TylerE4mo ago

Or… just report whichever one is lower, which is the value 99% of people care about 99% of The time.

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kiitos4mo ago

why would apple do this? it's all cost and no benefit.

companies actually can build and ship stuff that isn't inter-operable with the world, this is Actually Good for user experience

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alickz4mo ago

Also if the README is to be believed the following are also hidden behind an Apple DID (not driver):

- Multi-device Connectivity

- Accessibility Settings and Hearing Aid

While the following are exclusive to Apple devices for market reasons:

- Receive Battery Information

- Set/Receive ANC Modes

- Set Adaptive Audio Noise settings

- Receive In-Ear detection Status

- Personalized Volume (use at your own risk - might randomly boost volume to some high level)

- Conversational Awareness

- Ear Detection

- Siri (Voice assistant on long stem press)

- Hold and Press configuration

- Head Tracking (for Spatial Audio and Head Gestures)

- Rename AirPods

https://github.com/kavishdevar/librepods/issues/20

I imagine limiting such features to Apple devices is more about incentivizing the Apple Ecosystem than quality or software concerns

wkat42424mo ago

I wonder how well that conversation detection works. Does it really help in a loud environment?

As a neurodivergent person I lack the innate human skill to filter voices out of a cacaphony of noise so loud bars etc are hell. There also the "talking with earphones in is rude" but that's an issue that can just be explained.

Needing root to enable it is a major deal-breaker though :( and moving to an iPhone is impossible for me. Too much stuff that's not supported.

trollbridge4mo ago

Or Apple just doesn't want to bother with the nightmare of supplying and supporting an app to do all those things on other platforms, and in particular, there are regulatory approvals around the "hearing aid" feature that would pretty much require a specific device.

They have a basic app for some of their other devices like the Beats line. One other thing you simply can't do without pairing AirPods with an Apple device is enrol them in AppleCare One.

bloppe4mo ago

You're commenting on a post where a random guy provides this "nightmare of supplying and supporting an app" in his spare time, except he actually has to work around Apple's malicious obfuscation and standards non-compliance, so it would actually be way easier for Apple to do it themselves.

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angoragoats4mo ago

You're responding in a sub-thread where others have specifically called out the fact that you can't get battery status from AirPods on non-Apple platforms. This is, to my knowledge, a feature that is supported natively by the Bluetooth stacks on every mainstream OS and requires no "apps" at all. For example, I can connect my Bluetooth mouse to my Linux machine and it happily reports the state of the battery.

Care to offer a justification for why this is the case without resorting to "the multi-trillion-dollar behemoth can't be bothered to build an app"?

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Oranguru4mo ago

What "other platforms" are you talking about? Just an Android app would suffice. It's not a huge deal for a company worth trillions, especially if the features are already there and they're just blocking non-Apple products. If they deliberately do that, it makes you think they don't really care about their customers and are more interested in locking people into their ecosystem.

lloda4mo ago

Not just non-Apple devices. I have a machine with older MacOS and the current Apple keyboard doesn't report battery status. I can't think of a reason why that would work differently from Apple's own older keyboards, but it does.

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