I've just tried out the spatial audio on my iPad with AirPods Pro, with one of the (many) free first episodes on Apple TV+...
...and it's stunning. Seriously. It's actually three separate features in one. First, all the audio is outside of you rather than stuck between your ears. Second, it's surround sound so that dialog actually comes from your iPad, while music comes from all around. And third, it tracks, so if you look left the dialog all comes from your right AirPod -- and it's positively disconcerting it's so real. I thought for a second all the sound was actually coming out of my iPad and, oh crap, I have to turn it down not to bother the neighbors! Before realizing... oh my god it's actually that realistic.
So not only does it blow me away technologically, but also that I got it as a free upgrade almost a year after buying the headphones! People love to criticize Apple, but man do they do some wonderful things for their customers.
Now I'm just so disappointed the feature is iOS-only, and not for Macs. I watch all my TV on a projector hooked up to my Mac, and man... if I had spatial audio while viewing that... I can't even imagine. It would beat any movie theater I've ever been to. (And sadly, iPad HDMI output is low-quality, as it heavily compresses the output.)
My understanding is they don't support Macs because they don't have accelerometers/gyroscopes so the AirPods wouldn't know what they were relative to spatially. But man, I'd be happy just for a button I could click that says "my head is looking directly at the screen now". Wouldn't that be enough? But there's no mention of it being in Big Sur, so oh well...
> People love to criticize Apple, but man do they do some wonderful things for their customers.
People rarely criticize Apple for the products themselves. Apple gets criticism because of the "weird" (for lack of a better word) restrictions on the products. I've stopped using a Mac for quite a while now - but I recall examples - when the first Macbooks came without a optical drive you could buy an external one. But it will only work with _that particular Macbook model_ (after googling around I found that you could send a magic SCSI string to make it work). There is no iPhone with a SD card slot - my dad _LOVED_ iOS and his iPhone 6S but he had to switch to an Android phone so that he can use a 500GB SD card to store all his photos (he wants _ALL_ his photos available locally on the phone, so cloud sync is not an option).
I could go on. Apple makes some amazing products, but then adds quirks that makes the amaze short lived.
I came here to say the same thing. Just watched a few Star Wars and Pixar scenes on Disney+ and I was shocked how well it worked. I thought it might be gimmicky, but it's a total game changer for watching movies at night with Airpods. Also very happy my iPhone can finally display PIP as well.
Do you know how it compares to Dolby Atmos for headphones, DTS Headphone:X, and Windows Sonic? Those solutions all work with conventional stereo headphones.
Edit: after more reading I believe the main difference is the sensors in the Airpods Pro track head movement. For instance the virtual center (dialog speaker) would always appear to be coming from the display device, even if you move or tilt your head.
There is an A Tribe Called Quest album with a skit that almost always made me turn around to see who is talking behind me when listened to on headphones. AFAIK they used stereo microphones on a mannequin to achieve this effect. I don't know what my point is but I guess it's a bit surprising that it took so long for this to enter the mainstream as we've certainly had the ability to do his with minimal extra processing for quite some time now.
> People love to criticize Apple, but man do they do some wonderful things for their customers.
I agree. Some solutions from Apple are uniquely wonderful.
Imagine if they opened up this feature for 3p companies like Netflix. And let’s suppose Netflix commissions original content that is tailor made to take advantage of this type of audio. Of course, Netflix would benefit from increased subscribers and one could argue Apple would benefit from the availability of the content too — more people likely to buy airpods.
However, I’m personally convinced that Apple’s 30% commission charge to Netflix is completely justified. After all, they’re taking advantage of an end to end solution built by Apple. But of course, Netflix could bypass the IAP policy and not past the benefits into Apple. But I’m just using Netflix as an example. Any 3p app such as game or music app or movie app would benefit from this feature.
I only bring up the 30% point because it’s been make headlines recently and the hn community also has been vocal on the topic.
(Disclaimer: I don’t know enough about the spatial audio feature to say if it works with apps like Netflix or not. I’m presuming it doesn’t for illustrating my argument.)
Wow. With my bad ears, I wasn't sure it was working as you described until my right AirPod battery died and the spatial audio went away. Stunning is right.
> My understanding is they don't support Macs because they don't have accelerometers/gyroscopes so the AirPods wouldn't know what they were relative to spatially.
What about when using the AppleTV? (This question isn't really for crazygringo who wouldn't be using the Mac to watch video if they owned an appleTV.)
> So not only does it blow me away technologically, but also that I got it as a free upgrade almost a year after buying the headphones!
Being pedantic here: it is not actually free for you. The costs of improvements delivered through software updates are built into the original price you paid for it through deferred revenues and "subscription accounting". [1] In other words, Apple is not subsidizing new feature delivery from other sources of revenue or from debts. This came from the collective AirPod Pro users' pockets.
Accounting (and the related legality) aside, it is great to see hardware products get enhancements and a longer useful life through such means (whenever it happens).
One of my favorite new features in iOS 14 is an accessibility setting that allows a double tap or triple tap on the back of the phone to trigger an action. You can set this up in Settings->Accessibility->Touch->Back Tap .
In general, I love how accessibility features on iOS are so useful even for the average person who wouldn’t be considered or classified as disabled.
> In general, I love how accessibility features on iOS are so useful even for the average person who wouldn’t be considered or classified as disabled.
This is super important. People who don't need accomodation sometimes complain about the ADA rules for buildings but at some point everybody takes advantage of things like crash bars to open a door (when your hands are full, or are just on the phone), ramps (perhaps you're pulling something, have a kid, or are on crutches for a few days), handrails (momentary distraction) etc.
And ditto for the phone. I consider the label on the "accessibility" settings just there to make them easy to find; they aren't there for a small number of people (even if most people change at most one default setting).
I've always arranged my homescreen to be a single screen with folders for each category of app. makes it much easier to find things. I'm always befuddled when I see ppl with 30 pages of apps.
> I really love the new app drawer. My hundred barely-used apps are now neatly stowed there while I keep a single (Yes, one) Home Screen.
I hop between Android and iOS every few years and was quite excited for iOS to check this basic functionality box right as I came back. Shame they had to ruin it by forcing the absolutely nonsensical categories on you with no option for a plain alphabetical list.
Just give me the UI that shows up when you tap the app drawer search button, but as soon as I swipe to the drawer and without showing the keyboard. It's right there, the functionality I want is available, but as usual Apple screws it up for power users.
In fact: do regular users like searching their app drawer for a possibly relevant category and hoping it has what they want? It doesn't help that the available categories and their ordering change every few days and/or whenever you install a new app. And worse yet is that the same application can show up in 3-4 different categories crowding out the one app you're looking for that only exists in one.
I've used the public beta version ever since Apple has started releasing it. Don't remember the exact version, but have used it with iPhone 5s, iPhone SE(the older one) and iPhone XR.
Mind you, all these were/are my sole phones.
Except for a few resprings and a camera app crash(resolved by a restart), I haven't had any issue.
I have been doing the same for my MacBook and things have worked quite well in general.
I am a heavy user and a software developer using it as my main machine. Seeing all other people complain about beta and even general releases, I count myself among the lucky who haven't had any issue (app compatibility aside) with the general release or the public beta.
> updated only once every 5 minutes, which makes them a lot less useful
That's weird, I would expect them to be able to get updates via push notifications. Even so that seems like a pretty minimal limitation. For almost anything other than messaging a 5 minute resolution is probably fine.
I had screentime widget on my home page. I doubt if it's even 5 minute. I had to tap and open the screentime to force update it every time. This was in Beta though, I hope this will work fine in normal update.
I’m curious if it fixed some of the unpleasant behaviour and bugs that were never fixed in iOS 13.
Things like Mail not displaying new emails properly unless your went out and back into the mailbox. The keyboard autocorrecting to random names aggressively and inserting capital letters if you dare move the cursor. All new behaviours introduced with iOS 13 that adversely affect the user experience.
Not quite, but they are finally making the Phone notification a standard notification, and not a giant screaming blocking full-screen YOU WILL PAY ATTENTION NOW modal view.
iOS doesn't even have anti-spam and caller lookup features :(
I need to copy'n'paste numbers (super clunky) to google them (spammy results). And then "Siri" sees I have a number in my clipboard, and assumes we're BFFs now and keeps giving me widget suggestions to call and message the spammer!
I'm not touching that update with a 10 foot pole. Not until it's been live for at least a week, and developers have had a chance to actually update their apps for it!
Honestly, that's just good policy on all Apple updates lately. It seems that more and more of them have been plagued with issues and are trailed by hotfixes. I've learned to just wait a while. Other people can be the test guinea pigs!
From a user perspective, this release is super solid. I'm not going to be updating to Big Sur any time soon, but I'm running iOS 14 everywhere now and haven't had any trouble
Unbelievable that they stuck with that design for this long. It was even worse before unknown caller filtering was introduced: I would literally be DDoS'd from my phone multiple times a day from random numbers, iirc with no option to decline if your phone was already unlocked (i.e. using it when it a call came through)!!!
Any Android users have insight into the uptake on Instant Apps [1] over the past three years? I’ll be curious how they and the new App Clips [2] in iOS 14 will evolve versus web apps.
The last time that I checked, Instant Apps have not been enabled by default on the vast majority of devices.
It's impossible to develop around a feature that must be specifically enabled by digging through settings menus by individual users. As a product owner, there's little way to justify it. As a user, I've run across them less than 10 times in the wild, but they've been delightful and consistently good experiences.
The “jiggle mode” for editing icons has always been a bit of a mess but it is definitely broken right now and I hope a fix is on deck for 14.0.1.
Try moving — well — anything between home-screen pages that have widgets: there is a good chance that many icons will be shuffled in an indecipherable order. And worse, it’s so easy to get too close to the edge of the screen and accidentally switch pages, which means when you try to move one little icon you might shatter the entire icon layout of two adjacent pages!!
(Also, I really loved being able to edit screens sanely in iTunes and I miss that. It was just easier to set up a few screens of phone icons using a mouse.)
Actually broke my own record tonight; for having the audacity to move a single widget, iOS 14 rewarded me by effectively randomly shuffling 5 different pages of icons, and putting my widget on the last page (with no Undo of course). What a piece of trash.
Also, I think I figured out why Apple is hoping everyone uses “App Library” and edits their phones down to one page: it is buggy as hell if you do it any other way.
I can't confirm that issue (although I will say that jiggle mode is super finicky—I'm glad to be down to one home page screen with iOS 14). That said, may I suggest you try the home screen editor in Apple Configurator?
I just tapped the "Download and Install" button. Now the settings app freezes when I try to tap on "Software updates" and iOS 14 even downloaded yet. getting nervous...
Been using since the first developer beta. Alas, still a few bugs and half-baked features, like the inability to re-add apps back to the Home Screen from the pull-down search.
If you have a ton of Home Screen pages like I do, you have to tap/drag a long way to the App Library to be able to restore the "hidden" apps.
Translation is still wonky for EN↔JP: "Test" gets translated into Japanese as "Testament", okay...
One thing similar to Catalina with iOS 14 is the “over” security. It does nice to have scoped location permission or scoped photos access. But sometimes those permissions just pops up at a time when you’d click on them by mistake.
For less techie people it would be impossible to go to settings and change it.
[+] [-] crazygringo|5 years ago|reply
...and it's stunning. Seriously. It's actually three separate features in one. First, all the audio is outside of you rather than stuck between your ears. Second, it's surround sound so that dialog actually comes from your iPad, while music comes from all around. And third, it tracks, so if you look left the dialog all comes from your right AirPod -- and it's positively disconcerting it's so real. I thought for a second all the sound was actually coming out of my iPad and, oh crap, I have to turn it down not to bother the neighbors! Before realizing... oh my god it's actually that realistic.
So not only does it blow me away technologically, but also that I got it as a free upgrade almost a year after buying the headphones! People love to criticize Apple, but man do they do some wonderful things for their customers.
Now I'm just so disappointed the feature is iOS-only, and not for Macs. I watch all my TV on a projector hooked up to my Mac, and man... if I had spatial audio while viewing that... I can't even imagine. It would beat any movie theater I've ever been to. (And sadly, iPad HDMI output is low-quality, as it heavily compresses the output.)
My understanding is they don't support Macs because they don't have accelerometers/gyroscopes so the AirPods wouldn't know what they were relative to spatially. But man, I'd be happy just for a button I could click that says "my head is looking directly at the screen now". Wouldn't that be enough? But there's no mention of it being in Big Sur, so oh well...
[+] [-] shaan7|5 years ago|reply
People rarely criticize Apple for the products themselves. Apple gets criticism because of the "weird" (for lack of a better word) restrictions on the products. I've stopped using a Mac for quite a while now - but I recall examples - when the first Macbooks came without a optical drive you could buy an external one. But it will only work with _that particular Macbook model_ (after googling around I found that you could send a magic SCSI string to make it work). There is no iPhone with a SD card slot - my dad _LOVED_ iOS and his iPhone 6S but he had to switch to an Android phone so that he can use a 500GB SD card to store all his photos (he wants _ALL_ his photos available locally on the phone, so cloud sync is not an option).
I could go on. Apple makes some amazing products, but then adds quirks that makes the amaze short lived.
[+] [-] christoph|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] debug-desperado|5 years ago|reply
Edit: after more reading I believe the main difference is the sensors in the Airpods Pro track head movement. For instance the virtual center (dialog speaker) would always appear to be coming from the display device, even if you move or tilt your head.
[+] [-] jdxcode|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghostpepper|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rorykoehler|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cafed00d|5 years ago|reply
I agree. Some solutions from Apple are uniquely wonderful.
Imagine if they opened up this feature for 3p companies like Netflix. And let’s suppose Netflix commissions original content that is tailor made to take advantage of this type of audio. Of course, Netflix would benefit from increased subscribers and one could argue Apple would benefit from the availability of the content too — more people likely to buy airpods.
However, I’m personally convinced that Apple’s 30% commission charge to Netflix is completely justified. After all, they’re taking advantage of an end to end solution built by Apple. But of course, Netflix could bypass the IAP policy and not past the benefits into Apple. But I’m just using Netflix as an example. Any 3p app such as game or music app or movie app would benefit from this feature.
I only bring up the 30% point because it’s been make headlines recently and the hn community also has been vocal on the topic.
(Disclaimer: I don’t know enough about the spatial audio feature to say if it works with apps like Netflix or not. I’m presuming it doesn’t for illustrating my argument.)
[+] [-] sswaner|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] voska|5 years ago|reply
Maybe it comes with Big Sur?
[+] [-] gumby|5 years ago|reply
What about when using the AppleTV? (This question isn't really for crazygringo who wouldn't be using the Mac to watch video if they owned an appleTV.)
[+] [-] AnonC|5 years ago|reply
Being pedantic here: it is not actually free for you. The costs of improvements delivered through software updates are built into the original price you paid for it through deferred revenues and "subscription accounting". [1] In other words, Apple is not subsidizing new feature delivery from other sources of revenue or from debts. This came from the collective AirPod Pro users' pockets.
Accounting (and the related legality) aside, it is great to see hardware products get enhancements and a longer useful life through such means (whenever it happens).
[1]: https://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/01/apple-now-sitting...
[+] [-] AnonHP|5 years ago|reply
In general, I love how accessibility features on iOS are so useful even for the average person who wouldn’t be considered or classified as disabled.
[+] [-] gumby|5 years ago|reply
This is super important. People who don't need accomodation sometimes complain about the ADA rules for buildings but at some point everybody takes advantage of things like crash bars to open a door (when your hands are full, or are just on the phone), ramps (perhaps you're pulling something, have a kid, or are on crutches for a few days), handrails (momentary distraction) etc.
And ditto for the phone. I consider the label on the "accessibility" settings just there to make them easy to find; they aren't there for a small number of people (even if most people change at most one default setting).
[+] [-] mumblerino|5 years ago|reply
I really love the new app drawer. My hundred barely-used apps are now neatly stowed there while I keep a single (Yes, one) Home Screen.
Widgets are nice but from what I understand they’re updated only once every 5 minutes, which makes them a lot less useful.
[+] [-] vxNsr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reificator|5 years ago|reply
I hop between Android and iOS every few years and was quite excited for iOS to check this basic functionality box right as I came back. Shame they had to ruin it by forcing the absolutely nonsensical categories on you with no option for a plain alphabetical list.
Just give me the UI that shows up when you tap the app drawer search button, but as soon as I swipe to the drawer and without showing the keyboard. It's right there, the functionality I want is available, but as usual Apple screws it up for power users.
In fact: do regular users like searching their app drawer for a possibly relevant category and hoping it has what they want? It doesn't help that the available categories and their ordering change every few days and/or whenever you install a new app. And worse yet is that the same application can show up in 3-4 different categories crowding out the one app you're looking for that only exists in one.
[+] [-] bzb5|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanketskasar|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cactus2093|5 years ago|reply
That's weird, I would expect them to be able to get updates via push notifications. Even so that seems like a pretty minimal limitation. For almost anything other than messaging a 5 minute resolution is probably fine.
[+] [-] envolt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knolan|5 years ago|reply
I’m curious if it fixed some of the unpleasant behaviour and bugs that were never fixed in iOS 13.
Things like Mail not displaying new emails properly unless your went out and back into the mailbox. The keyboard autocorrecting to random names aggressively and inserting capital letters if you dare move the cursor. All new behaviours introduced with iOS 13 that adversely affect the user experience.
[+] [-] avtar|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perardi|5 years ago|reply
https://9to5mac.com/2020/06/22/ios-14-incoming-call-ui/
I always hated that. I hate phone calls, period, and I certainly don’t want that phone call to take over my entire phone.
[+] [-] apexalpha|5 years ago|reply
edit: callscreen seems to be Pixel only. Can't find it for my S10.
[+] [-] pornel|5 years ago|reply
I need to copy'n'paste numbers (super clunky) to google them (spammy results). And then "Siri" sees I have a number in my clipboard, and assumes we're BFFs now and keeps giving me widget suggestions to call and message the spammer!
[+] [-] philshem|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] t0mbstone|5 years ago|reply
Honestly, that's just good policy on all Apple updates lately. It seems that more and more of them have been plagued with issues and are trailed by hotfixes. I've learned to just wait a while. Other people can be the test guinea pigs!
[+] [-] jackdeansmith|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] applecore|5 years ago|reply
I assumed a lot of people with AirPods would want to switch the audio seamlessly between their iPhone and an iPad or Mac.
Any idea why it took so long to ship this feature?
[+] [-] SamuelAdams|5 years ago|reply
Finally!
[+] [-] divbzero|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ProfessorLayton|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] divbzero|5 years ago|reply
[1]: https://developer.android.com/topic/google-play-instant
[2]: https://developer.apple.com/app-clips/
[+] [-] stu2010|5 years ago|reply
It's impossible to develop around a feature that must be specifically enabled by digging through settings menus by individual users. As a product owner, there's little way to justify it. As a user, I've run across them less than 10 times in the wild, but they've been delightful and consistently good experiences.
[+] [-] burntcookie90|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] makecheck|5 years ago|reply
Try moving — well — anything between home-screen pages that have widgets: there is a good chance that many icons will be shuffled in an indecipherable order. And worse, it’s so easy to get too close to the edge of the screen and accidentally switch pages, which means when you try to move one little icon you might shatter the entire icon layout of two adjacent pages!!
(Also, I really loved being able to edit screens sanely in iTunes and I miss that. It was just easier to set up a few screens of phone icons using a mouse.)
[+] [-] ppeetteerr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] makecheck|5 years ago|reply
Also, I think I figured out why Apple is hoping everyone uses “App Library” and edits their phones down to one page: it is buggy as hell if you do it any other way.
[+] [-] snazz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ddoice|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrtksn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitsoda|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] btbuildem|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephencoyner|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Razengan|5 years ago|reply
If you have a ton of Home Screen pages like I do, you have to tap/drag a long way to the App Library to be able to restore the "hidden" apps.
Translation is still wonky for EN↔JP: "Test" gets translated into Japanese as "Testament", okay...
[+] [-] rock_artist|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattacular|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonklitj|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josteink|5 years ago|reply