[CharlesW]

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.

[thayne]

> 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.

[TylerE]

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

[tass]

I use mine in meetings and often end up in a situation where I need to remove and charge the one which is about to go flat for a few minutes.

I need to know individual levels to do that

[dpoloncsak]

Which is solved by the suggestion of 'only reporting the lower of the two', right? The one with more battery isn't about to go flat...

[tass]

Only if it tells you which one it is

[manmal]

I often use just one of them, and then I want to know that one‘s battery.

[freedomben]

If you're only using one, it seems fine to have only one battery level report. I don't see the problem

[smileybarry]

No, in that case they'd want both to be reported separately so they could use the AirPod with the higher charge.

[exe34]

whichever one you're using will be reporting its battery level. if you want to know the other one, swap them around.

[kiitos]

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

[oblio]

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

Imagine if every human on the planet would operate like this.

We'd be back in the Stone Ages.

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

...

[kiitos]

what? stone ages?

god forbid someone prioritize concrete user experience over abstract interoperability