[PaulsWallet]

> Why spend a ton of resources supporting every operating system and hardware combination...

Making it so Android users can update their bluetooth headphones is not supporting every hardware combination. Adding a OSD to your monitor so people don't need OS X specific software to change their monitor settings is not supporting every operating system or hardware combination.

[hunterb123]

They aren't just bluetooth headphones, they are airpods, you bought airpods because you are in the iecosystem.

Who buys airpods and expects them to work well with anything other than an apple device? You buy them because it'll work well in their ecosystem, really well.

I have some cheap earbuds that work decent everywhere, as well as a generic bluetooth speaker, but I generally use my apple earbuds because they work the best with what I have.

When you support only your ecosystem you can improve the connectivity that bluetooth alone doesn't allow.

[Morgawr]

> Who buys airpods and expects them to work well with anything other than an apple device? You buy them because it'll work well in their ecosystem, really well.

This feels like a hindsight kind of statement. We are conditioned to think that since it's Apple it won't work well with other ecosystems, so "you don't buy apple if you don't have everything apple" which... I mean, it makes sense but it's the reverse logic. I bought my pixelbuds and I can use them on a wide range of bluetooth devices that aren't Google-specific, and they work as you'd expect them to. It's fine if Apple wants to have Apple-specific features if you use them with Apple devices, just like Google pixelbuds have specific integration with google home app and similar google-specific devices, but at least the core bluetooth functionality (+ settings) should be provided to be able to work on any device.

Disclaimer: I've never used airpods so I have no idea how they work, just commenting on the logic of the original statement alone.

[imoverclocked]

> I have no idea how they work

There is definitely some proprietary “glue” in there. One nice thing about them is that you pair them to one device and then all of your other iCloud devices can see them. I would not expect that kind of feature to work elsewhere for obvious reasons. I could be wrong?

They also support spatial audio which is now supported with Android.

There are definitely features of the AirPods which are new or were new when they were released. It’s up to Apple to support those features on their own hardware/OS. It’s up to others to add support to their own operating systems if they deem it worthwhile. Similar goes for other hardware. Yes, the hardware works differently than so many generic components out in the world but that’s kind of the point.

[chesc]

I have airpods and an android phone. They work well now (I really am not interested in spatial audio). They did however work pretty badly until I connected them to an iphone to allow the firmware to update. I dislike the ecosystem argument. They are just Bluetooth earphones... Quite expensive ones at that.

[antihero]

The current iteration of the Samsung Buds Pro didn't have an iOS app, which was annoying.

Ended up just getting a UTWS5 and Moondrop Katos and being a lot happier.