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AirPods libreated from Apple's ecosystem

(github.com)
1424 points moonleay | 2 comments | 16 Nov 25 00:01 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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isoprophlex ◴[16 Nov 25 06:17 UTC] No.45943174[source]▶
From a bit further down the page

> Bluetooth DID (Device Identification) Hook > Turns out, if you change the manufacturerid to that of Apple, you get access to several special features!

I hope Apple gets slammed hard by some regulatory body. Apparently there's absolutely zero magic reasons why their airpods are unable to connect to non-Apple devices; pretend you're an iPhone and you're in.

EDIT: read "unable to connect" => "unable to expose advanced functionality", ofc they connect just fine

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exitb ◴[16 Nov 25 06:36 UTC] No.45943230[source]▶
AirPods can connect to any device and perform on par with other Bluetooth headphones. This is about availability of special features which require a dedicated driver non-Apple devices are not expected to have.
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xps ◴[16 Nov 25 10:44 UTC] No.45944080[source]▶
They don't report battery status to non-Apple devices. This is a pretty basic feature and without this I wouldn't consider them to perform "on par" with other Bluetooth headphones.
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alickz ◴[16 Nov 25 11:20 UTC] No.45944228[source]▶
Also if the README is to be believed the following are also hidden behind an Apple DID (not driver):

- Multi-device Connectivity

- Accessibility Settings and Hearing Aid

While the following are exclusive to Apple devices for market reasons:

- Receive Battery Information

- Set/Receive ANC Modes

- Set Adaptive Audio Noise settings

- Receive In-Ear detection Status

- Personalized Volume (use at your own risk - might randomly boost volume to some high level)

- Conversational Awareness

- Ear Detection

- Siri (Voice assistant on long stem press)

- Hold and Press configuration

- Head Tracking (for Spatial Audio and Head Gestures)

- Rename AirPods

https://github.com/kavishdevar/librepods/issues/20

I imagine limiting such features to Apple devices is more about incentivizing the Apple Ecosystem than quality or software concerns

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trollbridge ◴[16 Nov 25 14:24 UTC] No.45945360[source]▶
Or Apple just doesn't want to bother with the nightmare of supplying and supporting an app to do all those things on other platforms, and in particular, there are regulatory approvals around the "hearing aid" feature that would pretty much require a specific device.

They have a basic app for some of their other devices like the Beats line. One other thing you simply can't do without pairing AirPods with an Apple device is enrol them in AppleCare One.

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angoragoats ◴[16 Nov 25 15:28 UTC] No.45945798[source]▶
You're responding in a sub-thread where others have specifically called out the fact that you can't get battery status from AirPods on non-Apple platforms. This is, to my knowledge, a feature that is supported natively by the Bluetooth stacks on every mainstream OS and requires no "apps" at all. For example, I can connect my Bluetooth mouse to my Linux machine and it happily reports the state of the battery.

Care to offer a justification for why this is the case without resorting to "the multi-trillion-dollar behemoth can't be bothered to build an app"?

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1. spacedcowboy ◴[16 Nov 25 19:18 UTC] No.45947620[source]▶
Yeah, there are two batteries, the one in the earbuds and the one in the container. There's no way in BLE to transmit both values - and choosing either one is lying to the user about something.

It's not uncommon (at least for me) to have a low earbud battery level (because I've just binged Slow Horses) or a low container battery (because I've just charged the earbuds from the container for the third time and drained the container). There's a suggestion above that you should "just choose the lowest one because 99% of the time that's what you're interested in", except that's not true in the second case.

I'm fairly sure that if you could report both, then Apple would report both using this hypothetical standard method, but since you can't, and there's no easy way to just "choose one" without misleading the user about something, they choose to do it properly, even though that means it's an Apple-only thing.

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2. angoragoats ◴[17 Nov 25 01:00 UTC] No.45949970[source]▶
See my other replies in this thread — it’s totally possible to do with standard Bluetooth, yet Apple doesn’t do it. So your “fairly sure” assumption that Apple would make use of this feature if it existed seems to be wrong.