Thoughts on AirPods with a screen If you'd like to support the channel, consider a Dave2D membership by clicking the “Join” button above! / dave2d / dave2d / discord
With a matte finish on the screen since you're gonna be using it outside a lot so it'll help with the sun glare etc and it will look even better when turned off
I've been using the JBL ones since they came out and at first I thought the screen was unnecessary. BUT I came around to enjoying it. There are a few scenarios that the screen enables: 1. You only get so many controls on the headphones themselves - ANC/Passthrough mode on the left, media on the right for example. But what about volume controls, ANC level, voide passthrough level, mic mute, etc.? I use these for phone and work Teams calls, and when I'm not physically at my phone/pc I can use the screen to mute/unmute myself or control how much I hear my own voice through the headphones based on my surroundings. Some of that could be solved by offering more configuration options for different scenarios, but then I'd have to remember all that and tap morse code against my head all the time. 2. Seeing how much % battery life is left in each headphone and the case without my phone nearby is super useful. Also, I use these all day, so they'll eventually run out of battery. If I'm on a call, I just plug one in for a quick charge, and when I see it's at 20% I'll swap, charge the other and I'm good for another few hours. 3. I'm a person who's not on their phone all day. Some days I look at it once a day and it's just _somewhere_ in my apartment. Having quick controls like ANC levels, volume level etc on the case itself is super useful. 4. I almost lost one of the earbuds one winter day on my bike when taking of my beanie, having the case in my pocket to quickly let it "ring" helped me find it in the snow much faster than it'd have taken me to take out my phone, open the app and use that feature there. 5. It's a decent smart watch substitute if you're not on your stupid phone all day: Receive select notifications, set a quick timer, use the "flashlight" feature, ...
You realize that if you have the awareness to carry the case, you can definitely do it all over the app. And everything you said would be much more easier to find and do over your phone screen than to fiddle around an 1/2inch screen.
that case makes sense when you pair it with a Windows PC or Mac. Being able to tune the audio and settings from just the case makes a lot of sense. The others just seem like they are easier than the app, so you do it instead.
Having a screen on the new airpods also makes it obvious which airpods are new and which ones aren't and a lot of Apple consumers would want to be seen with the newest version for the status symbol of it, not necessarily for the functionality.
we're talking about apple cult members, if it will show everyone that they're special for owning the newest iteration of airpods they'll walk around with it showing. @@xpeterson
@@xpetersonMy buddy has a rubber plastic protector for his air pods and it clips to his keys. If we're he were the carabiner type of guys youd seen it constantly, but hes not. Also he's literally the only person where I've visibily seen the case more than the actual airpods
The killer app for an earbuds case with a screen is connection control -- selecting which device you want to hear. A screen on the case could make it trivial. The Bluetooth user experience has always been rocky and that especially goes for using the same headphones on multiple devices. There's also using separate devices on the same speakers simultaneously (e.g. choose on screen to hear notifications from a second device) and the idea of selecting/forcing (or disabling!) a specific Bluetooth audio codec.
Absolutely, I have a pair of WF-1000XM4's and the amount of times my earbuds connect to my laptop in sleep mode in my bag and just refuse to play sound off the phone I'm currently using is crazy. You can choose the device that plays in the Sony app, but the app doesn't work most of the time. It would absolutely be a killer feature if I could choose which device is playing on the earbud case.
I recently found a way to work around this problem! When the playback on your phone gets paused because of your sleeping computer, press the play/pause button on your headphones ONCE. You won’t hear a difference, but that “pauses” the sleeping computer. Then start playing whatever you wanted to listen to using the in screen phone controls. DO NOT press play on your headphones to start it. Once that’s done, your phone “owns” the playback to your headphones and you can freely use the headphone playback controls again. Hope this can help you!
SO interestingly, I use the Apple AirPod Pro 2's with most of my devices being apple (MacBook, iPad, iPhone) and this was actually one of the features that blew my socks off. It essentially stays connected to all of them simultaneously whilst prioritizing the connection you are listening to, so when you hit play on a video or music on one of these devices, it seamlessly switches audio with zero hitches.
If they made an iPod successor in the form of an airpods case, and gave this internal memory and allowed it to work standalone from an iPhone, this could be a really interesting product.
If it had storage and could basically be an Ipod, but with built in earbuds, that would be pretty interesting. Battery life on something that small would be tough though. Needing your phone to use this makes it a null product..
Actually that's a product I would buy but not from apple because of their pricing. I could take a walk and listen to whatever I want without having to carry my phone around
@@elu9780 you can control the audio quaility better. when android users use airpods there's no way to standardize what bluetooth version they have and the sound quality is diminished. if airpods was it's own player, they could make a custom wireless protocol specifically for just music playback and actually make use of the hi-fi and dolby audio on airpods at full uncompressed quality. they'd also save money not having to put that hypothetical new wireless chip into the iphones. and also make it backwards compatible with the old iphones.
to me, if they put in Storage of 64-128gb that you download (music, podcasts, audiobooks, etc) to it beforehand. this could be the next iteration of iPods. They have so much possibility to play around its crazy.
Thing is if you have an Apple Watch you can do that already at least for music audiobooks etc and then leave behind the case and run or go out with nothing in your pockets just the watch and buds. Then begs question ok but can watch video but do I wanna watch a video on a screen that small anyways 😅
LTE celular, esim, fitness tracking, with an actual speaker like a homepod but like PocketPod, people have celular apple watch already so why not one more thing (pun intended)
Ok so I can def see a use for the screen in multiple ways but the second last feature I'll mention would be my main selling point. 1. Pause, play, skip music tracks easily without pulling out phone or using gimmicky swipes/taps on the buds themselves 2. Turn on ANC or Transparency using the case without phone or buds touch controls 3. Maybe change audio codecs on the fly? That would be really cool to access different audio codecs at the cost of battery life to the buds to get the best audio possible. 4! No more needing an external app on your phone to update the firmware on the earbuds/case!!! I can't tell you how much it urks me to download a app for earbuds (for me I use the Creative app for my Aurvana Ace 2's). Having a screen on the case, you can use the case, connect it to WiFi and perform updates without a need for a stupid app!! I'd love that! 5. I'd like to change EQ using the case's touch screen as well, I can see myself using that. Please like my comment if you'd love these features on a case with screen!! Also they gotta make the screen OLED like the iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max with the always on display. OLED is so nice.
So an Apple Watch and AirPods but merged. The Apple Watch already exists for that but I guess that is an extra level of focus since the Apple Watch still has a lot of digital flexibility in terms of smartwatches.
Loved the AHA moment there! Absolutely makes sense and i agree 100%. The only use case i can see the need for a screen on a case is when using the headphones with other devices than a phone
Only functionality that I can think of is the easy access to EQ, deleting paired Bluetooth devices, switching modes from ANC and transparency, and the Live Listen and background sounds
IMO it might be a way to try to sell more airpods to non iphone users since hypothetically this would give you access to find my, noise cancellation, pass-through, and all the other features that previously were unusable without an iphone. it might be able to suck more people into the ecosystem that way
Nobody understanded how even the M1 was possible to make, evety competitor said it's impossible.. and just because they had no clue how that can be possible, they needed 4 years just to copy the existing technology (at least if the Snapdragon X Elite finally release and users can actually own a device with that soon..) So because you don't understand something, it doesn't mean it's unusable, or not a great idea, let them show how they want to use it, and judge them after you know that..
I have the JBL Tour Pro 2 and I can say: I wasn't expecting that I need that kind of case in my headphones. It's very useful when I need to rapidly change some settings in my headphones that before I would need to take my phone and search for JBL app. It's hard to explain, but this thing is actually very useful in many scenarios. Also, the case can be used when connected to any device, be it an iPhone, Android or Windows, so you don't need to install any third party app (the JBL app isn't available for Windows, so you can manage everything within the case).
On a more serious note, it would be useful for non iphone devices, so i can see accurate details for the battery charge on the case and each pod, and things like bluetooth pairing.
Yeah lol that's the only main purpose I could really see for this. Non apple users could now buy AirPods with more confidence because they don't have to find an iPhone nearby to customize the settings or view other details.
That's actually a legit use case. I bought my first pair of AirPods without having an iPhone and I couldn't change the settings on it. There is a real market for this use case, albeit a small one
The things that could enable having a screen to the airpods case is huge for non iPhone users, due to the lack of support for android compatibility, you have acces to lots of settings right on the case without having to buy an iPhone. And it could apply to other brands that make you install therir app just so you can get acces to more settings, by having it directly on the case itself you can save the need to install a app every time you want to change something that's not out of the box for you.
it would look cooler in black so the screen blends in with the finish of the case. I reckon it would be interesting if you could get more functionality out of it, perhaps connecting it to another device to use as a small remote
These are for the post-phone era. When they're selling AR glasses that look like regular glasses, your headphones case will be the only screen you need to carry.
What makes the JBL one is so great is that you don't need to downlad a seperate app or remember confusing tap and hold commands on the buds to change modes since it's all on the case. Maybe apple is trying to get the features easier to control for android users. Personally I use my airpods pro 2 with iphone and windows and it's a bit annoying to change the noise cancelation modes without 3rd party apps on windows like magicpods.
i just hold the stem on the buds and it cycles the NC mode regardless what device I connect to, i feel like press and hold till it makes a noise is pretty intuitive also yeah apple doesn't give a fk about people who don't have every single apple product possible
I think the biggest use case would be for multiple device use especially in the Apple Eco system. Keep all your media controls in one place with one interface regardless of the device it's connected to
I can get one good idea as to why it’s beneficial to have a screen on the case because I have the JBL‘s with the screen on the case… as a truck driver, it is more visually distracting to pull out a phone look at it and try to skip songs or play around with the settings when I’m listening to music, but with the case itself, I’ve sort of memorize through muscle memory on the process of skipping, putting the volume up and down although a phone, you can easily click a button and that’s easier or playing around with the equalizer. Some of those things have already become muscle memory for me with such a smaller device that I can just fiddle around with in my pocket versus having a larger screen to try to do the same thing and then miss clicking things which forces me to just take the phone out overall and look at it, which is a driving hazard so for me, this would actually make sense and it’s not an ideal situation for everyone
Makes sense if you want quickly accessing the controls of the AirPods like ANC, equaliser, finding the earbuds will be easy. Compared to using a Phone with an app/settings to make changes. Or when excessing/running if you do not have a apple watch, they can use the case to simply change tracks. Also, most importantly another screen to PUT ADS for the company.
I don't really like dealing with wireless earbuds/headphones, but if I did I probably *would* appreciate the screen. It gives you a way to ignore your phone for awhile and not get sucked back in by notifications or muscle memory to check apps etc... A lot of people want more ways to "disconnect" and if the AirPods screen did not support notifications and stuff, it would help provide that. It gives you a simple interface to listen to audio, control transparency mode etc... and nothing else. It also can be more intuitive so you don't have to know control gestures. Seems like it'd be a more friendly interface. I can see there being clips/straps for it too for working out so you can set your phone down and use the case as your main interface while exercising, etc...
seeing battery life on the outside of the case would be appealing. i wouldn't want a whole screen like this - i would be satisfied with a series of LED lights where 4 lights indicates ~80%, 5 lights indicates 100%, etc... - but i can understand them deciding that it'd be unclear for people whether the airpods have 80% charge or the case, and in that case rather than making 3 rows of LEDs maybe it'd be better to just take the plunge and put a whole screen on the device. i'm not terribly excited about it, but that's mostly because the usefulness of such a thing can only manifest based on what apple actually does with it, in the same way that the touchbar on the macbook pro was a lot of potential utterly squandered because apple didn't make anything of it. they just hoped that developers would show up, or something. if apple just turns the screen into a "now playing" display, i imagine a lot of people would like to keep their airpod pro case on their desk while they're working and either turn off their iPhone screens or turn the screens away from them while they're working. i certainly could see myself doing that. my relationship with my phone is characterized by it producing distractions that derail me. apple can implement all the focus modes and whatnot that they want, but a tiny little device that physically can't invite me in to lose an hour or two is always going to be better at managing my distractions and whatnot
I would love to see just simple 1 row e-Ink display showing only batery levels of buds and the case. No more funcionality. It would sip power as it would only need to refresh once every few minutes. One can dream.
airpods pro 2 always connected to all your paired apple devices and always show battery status at all times even when not in use. Like a battery widget on mac or iphone etc. So it is really pointless.
@@1994rastaboy but what if I don’t want to pull my phone out of my pocket/purse/backpack? Like just pull airpods out look at what’s playing, see battery levels, see what volume it’s set at before you click to play? I do that a lot where I just put the airpods in and click play and sometimes it’s my music sometimes it’s whatever other media that was playing and then I have to pull my phone out, unlock, choose the correct media…😅 so much work Edit: spellcheck :)
This is the first time I'm seeing Dave having earlier access than Marquez, but hey, who knows, MKBHD might be using that for about a couple of months now.
@@CatPerson3having early access to unofficial 3rd party products and mockups is meaningless lmao literally anyone can make these and send it to a P.o. box
@@hunterhawkins8754 yeah, but the ones that a creator chooses makes for an interesting discussion on the possibilities of where tech might move forward just like Dave did in this video. I'm not saying all mock-ups are good, a lot of them are bad, and I'm sure Dave and other creators would agree on that because for sure they wouldn't feature the bad ones, but the interesting ones get featured because it makes for a compelling discussion.
I agree with you and I would add that if the screen breaks you have to get it fixed at a cost. However I could protect my phone by not pulling it out to change a setting. It could be a remote screen for your notification. Going back to your point though it is away of making more money when you drop it, lose it or it just stops working. $299 for the case and $89 for the apple care.
It's great to have a screen. If you take your phone to change the music you can get distracted with so many things. It's easier and quicker to use the little screen that only does this fell things. It's a great idea.
Tbh I love to change my equaliser from song to song especially if it's custom, I do it with my sony headphones all the time and the app is extremely slow and it's annoying to open it again and again, go to the 'sound' tab, scroll down to eq, expand the eq so I can actually select the custom ones I've made. Also my phone is very large and I don't usually want to take it out for small settings I could do in a second.
I could see this being more useful as controlling noise cancellation and many other features requires diving deep into settings menus. It would be much easier to have direct access to Airpod controls on it's own device.
The original airpods were terrible on non iphone devices because they didn't have the necessary control software. These airpods with a screen can work with any device with no need to download a special app to get all the functions. That's pretty cool really.
You think this device will not be nicely put inside Apple ecosystem wall? Probably has firmware updates locked behind owning another Apple device (if that sounds familiar?)
@@Misterdavidc but theres no way apple was considering this when they made the screen right? making its devices usable on other companies' products is not an apple thing to do
Honestly this is genius. If it allows you to control your music app properly, change tracks, even search… then yes this is perfect. Really great idea. If it’s a half measure and you still have to pull your phone out then maybe not so great.
I'd love to see an earphone case with physical pause, skip and volume controls as long as they're well done. You'd get all the benefit of the control without all the downsides of a screen. It'd be nice just to have it in your pocket or on your desk and always have those controls available.
I can see one main feature with this screen, apple can include “find my” with this screen, if someone lost their airpods case, they can just lock it and put contact information, people who found the case can then try to get it back to the owners.
I mean, if my phone is in my backpack or I’m using it as a screen, having the case as a controller seems like a useful feature… it’s like an Ipod shuffle upgraded to an ipod touch
The screen makes sense to me. Imagine you pull out your headphones to put them on and select a playlist or podcast with the case that's alredy in your hand. Rather than pulling out the case putting in headphones putting away the case then pulling out phone unlocking it navigating to Spotify and then selecting a song. Doing it with the case makes a lot of sense assuming you are not alredy wearing the headphones.
I hear you. But you still Probs have to turn the case screen on, click the app, navigate on a tiny screen. Like you put ur earphones on once and they stay in. This would maybe save 1 second the first time you get them out right? Like where are you putting them in? Is it at home, the bus? Feel like phone is stillore convenient. Phones unlock so quick w fingerprint and face unlock.
I think it's for the same reason that AirPods Pro got USB-C before the iPhones because Apple knows there are android users who loves AirPods and they made it easier to use them outside of their ecosystem. Having a screen gives more control to non iPhone users which is great.
@@ffeliziani Probably to alleviate the DOJ vs Apple case where they were called monopolistic for locking their accessories on the iPhone only. Or I assume they would also try to persuade market which aren't Iphone heavy like China and Asia to buy the airpod.
I think it is most likely to be the opposite. To make it work there has to be code that speaks with android and making the screen apple only seems to be the perfect way to make a tall walled garden between apple and android users. "Imagine the functionality you're losing by sticking to android, maybe you should switch to IOS on your next upgrade to get the full experience"
@@bjay8295 They were getting sued for accused of being monopolistic right now, I think making a bigger wall will give the DOJ a field day against Apple.
The benefit of the screen is that you can configure the headphones without any 3rd party app or OS integration. You don't need a companion app that will become unsupported after a few years and you don't lose features if you are using the buds with non-apple device. That's honestly a huge game changer to me, like a paradigm shift. Maybe the headphones are not the best example of that, but I really like this approach for electronic accessories. Man, in appliances some brands are forfeiting this ability to configure on device, exchanging it for companion apps. I have a washing machine that has programs that are only available via an app, but that's for other reasons I assume. Forced gathering of the user data via the app and/or planned obsolesence. For apple it makes sense to make a statement that airpods are now fully vendor independent to make it seem like apple loves vendor interoperability. Perhaps to make some regulators happy...
all of the controls shown in the video already work with the airpods pro 2 on any platform: changing noise cancellation, play pause skip. This doesn't solve any of the real issues without an iPhone, such as not being able to upgrade the firmware, customize squeeze actions, make the ringer on the airpods silent, turn off find my...
@@skylegendgamingmaybe the hook would be that they want to market it to older, less hardcore users who have money but are turned off by having to remember all the touch controls.
I'm guessing it could possibly be an updated version of an iPod. Imagine they put some storage in there and you could access music, apps and stuff like the watch but it becomes completely independent from your phone. It's possible.
5:32 amazing reference. For anyone unaware, when Blizzard devs announced a mobile only Diablo game, they responded to criticism with: "do you not have phones?"
I can reasonably think of two situations. One would be for when you're sitting at a table and you're bored and you're just fiddling with your case. I do this a lot when I'm listening to music and I'm not in the mood for playing with my phone. The other reason is if you connect this to your laptop or desktop and want to control your music without having to find the window on your desktop.
I wonder if Apple is attempting to create space for a product that could (in the future) resemble what the Rabbit R1 is supposed to be. Something that relies on the internet connectivity of a phone to facilitate phone tasks through voice commands and AI and is able to display text information on a small screen.
Thanks Dave! I think the Airpods case would rest on my table instead of the phone, if it could control my music. A lot of us have consciously started cutting down screen time and this seems the perfect device to not open the phone to change a song and realise 2 hours down the doom scroll line that you were here for something else
There are multiple knockoff units like these in Asia with that exact same touchscreen user interface. And also JBL has the Tour Pro 2 - which has the exact same touchscreen and case and look with a different earbud design.
I mean, as a person who uses my buds (soundpeats) with a laptop, its kind of annoying to manage with no settings whatsoever. But I think you hit the nail on the head with the actual reason Apple would do this.
Most buds AND laptops have an inbuild control buttons for music functions. So what exactly does this screen give you? Especially that all options beside the most basic ones(that you already can use directly from buds/laptop keyboard) demand use of small very small screen with a lot of scrolling - using big screen on laptop would be so much faster, just as its the case with smartwatches beyond basic functions, where you could use the app on the watch, but actually end up opening it on your smartphone, because you see more info and can do things faster.
Apple was outpaced in "smart buds" area by a chinese iem manufacturer ikko with it's product called: ikko ActiveBuds. But if apple would make something similar with better user interface and experience, especially if you could even add your sim to those apple "smart airpods" or whatever they could call it. That would sell like crazy because you could just leave your phone at home while you go out for a run.
with apple vision pro i’m sure apple will have specific screens on the case that won’t have that scrambling like when you have the headset on while looking at your phone or any screen
on your phone, you first have to open up the control app. for example i created a special shortcut on my destop to control my earbuds easier, so i see a case where it's useful
One use i think is good is when your using your airpods at the desk most times at least for me i don't have my phone supper close but i always have my case near by so changing music might be a little more convenient but idk.
If this comes out with the ability to play synced playlists on spotify im getting it no matter the price. That would be exactly what ive been looking for when working out