Yup. I remember the original iPhone/iPad announcements where many features were fairly innovative. Now applauded feature announcements are for features already out on Android phones.
Show me an Android phone that will provide the hassle-free experience Apple promises with those AirPods. That's the most innovative part of this event for me.
So I just bought some backbeat fit headphones, which use bluetooth. To get them working with my Android phone I:
- pressed the on button on the headphones
- pressed the pair button on my phone
I mean, bar special hooks Apple can have because they don't give a fuck about standards, I really don't see how that is hard.
Same experience with my 6P and my el cheapo Bluetooth gym headphones. Turned headphones on, hit pair, good to go. Apple has done "hassle-free" very well historically, but that doesn't mean that other vendors are incapable of it.
Which is the same with pairing to an iPhone. I hit "pair" on the headset, click the headset name on the Bluetooth screen, the headset says "connected" and boom done.
The real hassle is in my car, which unfortunately this doesn't solve. Toyota's system isn't the best. I have to hit a button then say "pair audio". Wait no, it's "pair audio player". No... wait it's "pair bluetooth"... ah I'll get the manual. Okay, got the phrase right. Now I have to press the button again and say "confirm". Now it asks me what I want to call my audio player. That's fine. Hit button again and say "confirm". Now I have to decide if I'm pairing from the car or from the audio player? I have no idea what that means. From the car I guess? Hit button again and say confirm. Okay now it's searching... but my phone says pairing failed. Okay, now it's kicked me out and I get to start over again. Let's pair from the phone this time. Nope, that failed too. Let's pair from the car again? Hey it worked!
And in between every button press, there is an ear-splitting beep that can't be adjusted with the volume controls in the car. And even then, I can only store three phones in memory, and it remembered both of my failed attempts plus my wife's phone that I paired for her. So to try a third time, I have to remove one of them... so it asks "which audio player do you want to remove?" then it lists all of them... "Player 1: iPhone". "Player 2: iPhone". "Player 3: iPhone". Fantastic.
Most of the time I just use the USB cable, except when I updated to iOS 10 and it started saying Error: 5 randomly during a song.
Pairing a headset with a phone is the easiest thing in the world, and it happens to be the "problem" that Apple solved. But the real problem is pairing with dumb "smart" devices that unfortunately are everywhere.
Yup. I remember the original iPhone/iPad announcements where many features were fairly innovative. Now applauded feature announcements are for features already out on Android phones.