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Apple Explains Why Only USB-C AirPods Pro Support Lossless Audio With Vision Pro

kc9hzn said:
While there’s a kernel of truth to the idea of “planned obsolescence”, it most certainly is a conspiracy theory the way it’s typically presented. Consider the brouhaha about battery health a few years back. Apple throttled the phones so they wouldn’t demand voltage spikes that would cause the phone to reset. Having had a phone that would reset due to battery issues and one that would just slow down, the latter was much more preferable and allowed me to extend the usable life of the phone. That’s the exact opposite of what planned obsolescence would suggest that they do. Does Apple want you to buy new generations of their products? Of course. Does Apple deliberately cripple existing hardware in order to drive new sales? Doesn’t seem to be the case, if anything, Apple bends over backwards to support older hardware.
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Look at the iPhone 6/7/8 models and how long they supported them. Certain generations of Macs were continuing to get upgrades for about a decade after their original release. Yet, I don't hear people complaining when Microsoft forces users off of Windows 7 for 10?
 
OnePieceIsReal said:
imagine looking at your iphone 13 pro max against your galaxy s8 and seeing how much nicer looking the s8 was with usb c
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Keep telling yourself this. I prefer lightning on a phone because I don’t need high speed data transfer. For me lightning is the superior cable. Never destroyed a lightning connector by stepping on the cable end. Can’t say that for usb-c
 
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sack_peak said:
I wouldn't be that bothered by it. Sony only has the capacity to produce 900,000 OLED displays for the Vision Pro.

So it only impacts those who will buy this $3499 device.

Personally I'd rather have a wired audio option via USB-C I can get that for $3.49
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Are you saying get USB-C to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter $9.00 and then buy 3.5 mm lossless headphones is the way to go?
 
progx said:
Seeing how the Vision Pro is almost a market onto itself, I don't really think a niche has been established for AR Workstations yet. Also, I don't think this item is going to be outselling anything except their sales forecasts and expectations, which probably isn't too high as a risk item.
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They’re not the first nor the last VR headset to enter the market space.

Apple has priced their intro product significantly higher than the competition.
 
What a joke company Apple is turning into, trying to squeeze money from customers in predictable ways, is the sad decline of a great company, I’m waiting for the 2000s kid who will disrupt the old dino, Steve will be mad and sad.
 
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Luba said:
Are you saying get USB-C to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter $9.00 and then buy 3.5 mm lossless headphones is the way to go?
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I assume the Vision Pro has a USB-C port that can also do data/audio.

So why not plug any $3.49 earphone with a USB-C jack into that Vision Pro's USB-C port?

I am currently using a sub-$3.49 Xiaomi Piston earphone with a 3.5mm jack into my iMac.

It sounds better than my $199 AirPods.

If I lose the AirPods I'm out $199... 💔

If I lose the earphones I'm out $3.49 🤷‍♂️
 
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Is there a trade in on these new ones? I feel like I JUST got the previous model. Honestly they were buggy as hell for months too.
 
They should have called these the 3s, then this wouldnt be a confusing issue
 
bluespark said:
Assuming this really is a hardware difference -- which I still don't think is entirely clear at this point -- I feel like it should have been a "silent" feature that people discovered after the fact if they fell into the very limited group that may do so.
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Well, it would have been silent up until the first teardowns today :)
 
LogicalApex said:
That’s a pretty poor explanation honestly. Makes Apple look worse and not better.

So, AirPod Pro 2nd Generation headphones actually use WiFi for audio and not Bluetooth. Bluetooth is only used for the pairing connection. Similar to CarPlay.

That’s cool as that’s been an extended part of the Bluetooth specification for a long time now.

But why isn’t 2.4ghz capable of lossless? It has more than enough bandwidth.

Why isn’t the iPhone 15 Pro with WiFi 6E support even incapable of lossless with the USB-C AirPod Pros? Surely, its 5Ghz support is robust enough.
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No, it’s a good explanation for the general person with no pitchfork in hand. For those with pitchforks, they could have laid out the schematics and pored over diagrams for a 2 hour response and they’d STILL not be satisfied.

There’s something to be said for knowing which part of your audience is worth actually speaking to.
 
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cygy2k said:
So you mean when everybody had pickforks out and I said it was possible the H2 chip was a revision with tweaks to make it possible, I was right despite being called a bunch of names. Hmm, odd that nobody on here every goes back and says they jumped the gun with their happiness to think Apple makes every decision to screw them over.
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Well, for right now, it may still be the same H2, just with a different antenna. We’ll see.
 
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karranz said:
What a joke company Apple is turning into, trying to squeeze money from customers in predictable ways, is the sad decline of a great company, I’m waiting for the 2000s kid who will disrupt the old dino, Steve will be mad and sad.
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There are literally no companies trying to squeeze money from customers in unpredictable ways. Why? Because they’re unpredictable and they wouldn’t know if they would ACTUALLY get the money or not. Entirely unsurprising for any business that’s planning to still be in business in the coming year.
 
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Unregistered 4U said:
There are literally no companies trying to squeeze money from customers in unpredictable ways. Why? Because they’re unpredictable and they wouldn’t know if they would ACTUALLY get the money or not. Entirely unsurprising for any business that’s planning to still be in business in the coming year.
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Well, I reckon that there might be some sort of startup that may favor revenue in unpredictable ways, but, to be fair, they’re typically targeting VCs and not customers.
 
seek3r said:
They should have called these the 3s, then this wouldnt be a confusing issue
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But then they would have people complaining “they just released the AirPods Pro 3 and now they’re putting out the 3S”. It’s a no-win situation really, and you can’t please everyone, especially on a pseudonymous online forum.

Or do you mean, ”they should have called the chip the H3”? If that’s the case, there are probably both legal and technical reason why not. Assuming there is a change, then it’s possible that calling it the H3 might necessitate legal negotiations with parts suppliers and manufacturers. (Don’t laugh, it wouldn’t be the first time [or even the first time involving Apple] that an arbitrary name change had knock-on legal effects. Mac OS 8 was originally Mac OS 7.7. The clone licenses were for Mac OS 7.x and would need to be renegotiated for Mac OS 8. So by calling the new release Mac OS 8 (and then refusing to issue new licenses*), Apple killed the clone market unilaterally.

* Well, technically they did extend UMAX’s license, seemingly due to market penetration in Japan (and the fact that UMAX didn’t compete with Apple’s high end offerings, like Power Computing, Daystar, and all the others did, but rather had sub-$1000 offerings that were devoid from Apple’s portfolio until the Mac mini).
 
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iPad Pro 9.7 and Air Pods Pro 2 are the only Apple devices that I feel really bad about buying because they were obsolete within a year.
 
I wonder why they decided to stick to the AirPods Pro 2 branding if there are this many improvements, this is only going to cause so much confusion.

I don't think Apple's marketing was short on ideas to brand this AirPods 3 Pro, come up with amazing new features to make this a new version product entirely, and call it a day.
 
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