[3pt14159]

I am a traditionally an Apple guy. Sure some VMs for linux development, but the gear is all Apple stuff.

I had Beats Pro headphones that got damaged after a good amount of use so I replaced them with non-Pro Airpods and have hated it. I have to constantly worry about them falling out while I'm exercising and the case gets all gunky. The handoff between the MacBook Pro and iPhone isn't reliable enough for me to trust it, so I always have to reconnect it if I'm at a quiet place like a co-working space. Also, within the first year one of them just randomly died and I had to send the whole thing back to Apple. Apple care covered it, but still.

I miss being able to do more with what's on my head. With Beats I could easily change the volume, pause, skip, rewind and they almost never came off. The only thing that kinda sucked was in the summer the skin around them would sweat.

Shrug. At least my MacBook Pro has been great.

[mackatsol]

I started with the AirPods and upgraded to the Pro’s. having used both I find the pro models fit and stay in my ears much better. You can also set each one to behave differently when clicked, which might help with all the play, pause, rewind etc. But I’ve gotten used to using Siri for anything more complex than play/pause. The Shortcuts app also makes it relatively easy to add custom commands. “Hey Siri, silence” will pause, invoke noise cancelling, then play again. “Conversation mode” will pause and turn off noise cancelling.

[3pt14159]

Thanks for the reply. I do have each AirPod set to different things, but I find it just doesn't work as well as the interface that I had with the Beats headphones. The tap-tap on my ear is much more distracting than the click-click on the Beats, and so often I have to pause and think whether I can do something. For example, I used to be able to fast forward 30 seconds at a time through podcast ads then rewind 15 seconds once I went into the content. Now I can only do the fast forward part, since the other ear is set to pause. And of course I can't quickly turn up or down the volume.

I know the answer to this is "use Siri" but I dislike using Siri. Even if it worked perfectly, which it doesn't, it would still be annoying to be that guy in a coworker space or cafe that's talking to his phone.

Thanks for the feedback on the Pro's though. Maybe they will help, but I'd like to test them before I commit, which is admittedly a little difficult because of the yuck factor.

[mackatsol]

I rarely jump back and forth when listening to audio.. so I went digging. In Apple's docs: • To skip forward, double-press the force sensor on the stem of an AirPod. • To skip back, triple-press the force sensor. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207010

So the only issue left is volume. Hey Siri.. how do we change the volume without talking to you?

[raunak]

You may want to check if you are cleaning your ears properly. Getting AirPods was a wake up call for me to actually dig around my ears for the first time in my life. Went from falling out at first touch to staying in no matter what.