CT scans of AirPods evolution

https://scanofthemonth.com/airpods

by vitruvius • 5 years ago

1094 301 5 years ago

scanofthemonth.com

rx_tx• 5 years ago

Amazing scans, the packaging of components internally is amazing.

Interesting how they switched from prox-based in-ear detection to capacitive skin contact sensor in the latest airpods.

qeternity• 5 years ago

I find it super interesting how they have gone back and forth on different approaches. I wonder how much user data they collect from the wild (not even sure how one would go about it).

GhettoComputers27• 5 years ago

Telemetry logs can be sniffed, with a good firewall and as long as you're on your wifi with a wifi only device you can learn a lot. I jailbreak to use this: http://cydia.saurik.com/package/ca.btraas.appfirewall/

Amazing how much analytics I block from every app.

snazz• 5 years ago

Super cool scans and captions! I wonder if there were any substantial internal changes between the first and second generation AirPods (besides changing the chip). The article unfortunately does not include a scan of the 2nd generation.

t-writescode• 5 years ago

I wonder if this explains / clarifies some of the difficulty in getting repair tech for the earbuds. They seem to change in major ways each time.

walrus01• 5 years ago

even if you could get repair parts they're assembled with strong glue (search youtube for airpod teardown), making it pretty much impossible to disassemble without destroying it.

Tagbert2• 5 years ago

Much of the repair problems has to do with how small they are and the components are tiny and must be assembled so carefully that humans with fingers are just not at the right scale.

passivate2• 5 years ago

But we've made tools to overcome human limitations, so that is not really the issue. Apple just doesn't want their products repaired - or at the very least it is not a priority for them. Its just not a good look when they pretend to be "green" while not contributing towards the elephant in the garbage bin - e-waste.

ProfessorLayton• 5 years ago

Not an audio expert, but I really wonder why they need a microphone for their adaptive EQ. I understand home speakers/theatre systems need to compensate for a room's shape and contents, but do human ear canals vary that much to need a mic?

I think it's pretty neat how sophisticated this adaptive EQ system is, but tbh, I haven't noticed much difference between this mic system and the "dumb" adaptive EQ that companies like bose/ikea etc do (Basically turn up base at low volumes, down at high volume to not clip).

Very cool stuff!

aidenn0• 5 years ago

Low frequencies are heavily affected by both how well the canal is sealed, and the volume of air that is in the (partially) sealed area. The adaptive EQ does seem slightly over-engineered; given that people tend to be forgiving of a fairly large amount of bass emphasis, you can just tune for the worst-case. However people don't generally buy Apple products to get something under engineered...

snthd• 5 years ago

Might be more important for noise cancellation.

whiddershins• 5 years ago

Ears do vary quite a bit. If you try in ears molded to your ears they can be mind blowing.

In some cases a microphone will also help adapt to background noise.

shard• 5 years ago

do human ear canals vary that much to need a mic?

Not an expert in human ear canals, but over the years I've learned that if I am looking into a field that I am not familiar with, it's always more complicated than I expected/imagined.

"dumb" adaptive EQ that companies like bose/ikea etc do (Basically turn up base at low volumes, down at high volume to not clip)

Sounds like a compander for the lower frequencies. That's technically "adaptive" to the input audio, but not adaptive to the acoustics of the output environment. I expect that to for the second type of adaption, you'd need to measure it, which would necessitate some sort of input, such s a mic.

skavi3• 5 years ago

Bose definitely also uses a mic for their adaptive EQ. I wouldn't be surprised if Ikea did as well. IIRC they use Sonos tech.

lpasselin• 5 years ago

Maybe slight variations of position in the ear can be compensated?

reaperducer4• 5 years ago

do human ear canals vary that much to need a mic?

Based on the number of online complaints that AirPods slip out of people's ears, and the equal number of people saying they're rock solid, even while working out, I think the answer is "yes."

ericbarrett• 5 years ago

I've tried all three gens of AirPods and none will stay in my right ear. Same is true of the old wired earbuds. Everybody's a little bit different—sometimes on the same human!

dzhiurgis3• 5 years ago

Strange that when making 110 million units per year they don’t bother to cover tens of millions ears more with slightly different design.

Same with incredibly small mouse and bunch of other sku’s that could def be differentiated.

twobitshifter• 5 years ago

I worked on a product that used an in ear microphone to adjust the model used in noise cancellation on the fly. In a control theory sense, the system varies a lot so your poles can move around and need a different controller, even on the same head depending on fit. The product produced white noise to tune the model which greatly improved the noise cancellation accuracy.

It’s also not just the ear canals but the rest of your skull that effects how you hear. There are apps that use machine learning to fit a model/eq to the shape of your head from a photo. I would think that actually measuring in the ear would give a more accurate representation of this.

MrBuddyCasino2• 5 years ago

do human ear canals vary that much to need a mic?

Surprisingly, they do! It doesn't need a lot of change to have a different ear canal resonance, changing the frequency curve somewhere between 5000-7000Hz. Oluv is currently tuning Earfun IEMs to different earl canal lengths which you can then try out, and he has written some articles [0] on exactly this topic, but unfortunately its paywalled: https://www.patreon.com/oluvsgadgets/

[0] https://www.patreon.com/posts/trust-your-ear-58601998

MrBuddyCasino2• 5 years ago

Found something non-paywalled, its in German though, might need to Google translate it: http://blog.prof-x.de/2018/08/26/gehoerresonanzen/

nunez3• 5 years ago

Everyone's ear canals are shaped differently, so yes, lots of variation.

rootusrootus3• 5 years ago

I'm curious how the newest airpods compare to the pros when it comes to bass. I had first gen airpods, then I bought a set of pros, but the bass was so weak I thought they had to be broken. Turns out it's just an artifact of how they were designed. Some people are okay, but a lot of people feel the same way I do. I ended up returning them and now I'd like to know if the g3 airpods are comparable to the pros, or comparable to the g1/g2 airpods.

skavi3• 5 years ago

You need a seal to get significant bass from earbuds. the non pro airpods do not make a seal (by design).

Talanes• 5 years ago

If they experienced better bass on the G1/G2 Airbuds, it's not a seal issue.

reaperducer4• 5 years ago

Interestingly, some people had the opposite complaint about HomePods — that they had too much bass. Apple now has an option in the Home app to reduce bass on HomePods.

Not everyone had the complaint, and I think I know the reason for that: The configuration of the room. At my last place, my HomePods were way too bassy for my ears. At my new place, they're fine. Same gear. Different room geometry.

jzwinck• 5 years ago

Are the speakers farther from the corner of the room in your new place? Proximity to the corners is an old trick for increasing bass output.

trevyn• 5 years ago

If you like bass, the new Beats Fit Pros are fantastic. They’re basically AirPod Pros with a different physical design and bass-heavy EQ. I find they keep a seal much better than the AirPod Pros as well.

hvgk• 5 years ago

I’ve tried all of them so far. The standard gen 2 AirPods are the best by far. The new 3rd gen ones won’t stay in my ears. Pros are uncomfortable and lack bass. 2nd gen are perfect.

I listen to everything from classical to metal to hard dance.

gonehome2• 5 years ago

They’re pretty variable depending on your ear shape. For me the pros are the only option since the others fall out immediately (same for mkbhd).

alexfringes• 5 years ago

I've used all gens and recently tried G3 for the first time. I instantly noticed that the bass was significantly better than the Pros. It's been a while since I've listened to G1/G2 but from memory I would easily place G3 above all of them in terms of bass. It wasn't enough to persuade me to get some because I love the noise cancellation on the Pros and would rather wait for their update. But I was tempted, in part due to the bass.

e40• 5 years ago

I bought the gen3 and returned them for gen2. Two reasons, but the main one was comfort. I forget the gen2's are in my ears. The gen3's were painful.

Second reason: gen3's require Monterey for macOS integration. A painful week-long exchange with Apple support brought this out.

GhettoComputers27• 5 years ago

They can kneecap them with forced firmware updates. I’m happy with the galaxy buds on iOS. https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/17/21069953/apple-airpods-pr...

solarkraft• 5 years ago

Fellow Galaxy Buds (plus) user here, also with Apple devices. I generally like them. Battery life is stellar (compared to the others, it's just about satisfying for me). Pass-through mode is noisy and tinny (irritating). Connection reliability leaves a bunch to be desired (randomly disconnects every once in a while).

elliottinvent• 5 years ago

Wow, it’s the first time I’ve seen this site and format but what a great way to explain electronics and design.

smeyer• 5 years ago

it's the first time I've seen this site

I think this might only be its second month so don't be hard on yourself for first seeing it now. https://web.archive.org/web/*/scanofthemonth.com

Eric_WVGG• 5 years ago

I'm really surprised about the (thus-far) universal acclaim of the design. There's usually a lot of knee-jerk reaction against fancy browser effects like parallax and scroll-jacking in this crowd.

I think this implementation is mostly excellent, but as a web craftsmen, it would have been a fun/entertaining challenge to make a good non-javascript implementation underneath.

notatoad• 5 years ago

most of the reaction against scrolljacking is because when the content of the site is text, we have expectations about how it should behave and we know how we want to interact with it, so we get angry when we can't.

when the content is 3D renders, most people have no strong expectations about how the controls should work and aren't going to have a negative reaction as long as the implementation works well.

baybal23• 5 years ago

My former coworker worked on airpods. Most of RnD for them was made in Apple's Shenzhen RnD centre which existence Apple for long time tried to hide.

fnord772• 5 years ago

the first airpods were released in Dec 2016, roughly the same time apple opened the Shenzhen r&d center, so I don't see how r&d for this product was done there.

baybal23• 5 years ago

Apple had it running since much earlier than 2016.

The earliest I heard of Apple running something like a permanent engineering centre in the city was in 2013.

I was saying them trying to hide its existence because for long Apple demanded its employees in China to even refrain from publishing the fact of their employment with them like on LinkedIn

But the industry is too small, everybody knew about it for years. So 2016, was more like an official inauguration, when Apple admitted its existence, moved all their offices in the city to Kerry plaza, and put a nameplate on it.

908B64B197• 5 years ago

Most of RnD for them was made in Apple's Shenzhen RnD centre which existence Apple for long time tried to hide.

I keep hearing online about this famous R&D center, where apparently they work on absolutely cutting edge stuff. Except Apple employees I know never mentioned it.

Wonder why people would push that narrative that engineering is switching to China.

baybal23• 5 years ago

Nobody needs to push it, for a reason that's been the case for the last 20 years.

I simply cannot find a single place in US doing many engineering services I can get in China.

Amazon, Google, Square, Facebook, Microsoft, Roblox, Snapchat all other silicon valley cool kids have since setup themselves suspiciously close to Apple's offices in Kerry plaza. And most of them did so long after China-US relations went really sour After Trump. All equally so tried to keep their presence there very low key.

Except Apple employees I know never mentioned it.

Maybe they don't work on the hardware side? US side of the company simply barely sees much of the "fieldwork" part.

veb2• 5 years ago

This was SUPER interesting to see! I actually (for once) signed up for their next newsletter/scan. It asked me what they should scan next and I suggested cochlear implant processors. It'd be pretty cool to see!

The tech on those processors are pretty insane - and remember, Apple did partner up with Cochlear for the Nucleus 7 I believe for wireless streaming from the processor to an iPhone.

fnord772• 5 years ago

wow, this is amazing. I assume these are their first set of scans? I was trying to find scans of other products and the home page only has airpods

arecurrence• 5 years ago

Last month they did LEGO. Interestingly, they seem to remove the scan but you can still see parts of it at https://web.archive.org/web/*/scanofthemonth.com

1f60c• 5 years ago

From a Google search[0], it looks like they've put two LEGO sets under the scanner before, but I can't find them. It would have been cool to see an archive...

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ascanofthemonth.com

el_isma• 5 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/*/scanofthemonth.com

You can read the text, and see some images, but the capture wasn't perfect. Such a shame, it looks very interesting. They should have an archive.

adamrmcd• 5 years ago

I cannot fathom why they would they remove previous scans/links. Maybe to enable a paywall archive?

It's super slick how they showcase the object as you scroll down, but flattening it into a single URL and only making one scan available per month restricts your audience appeal.

I only first heard of this site when they did the lego minifigs last month. Did they publish any other scans prior to that?

Starmina• 5 years ago

So you have actually a reason put your email in their newsletter input box because you wouldn't want to 'miss' anything you can't go back to.

Lammy2• 5 years ago

Does anyone have a canonical URL to the previous month's scan of the LEGO mini-figure? I didn't see any navigation on the site unless there's a magic spot I missed or am inadvertently adblocking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29253441

This month's entry comes off way too much like advertising for my taste, with the flowery language like "magic features" instead of just "features", or the seemingly-unnecessary sales statistics in lieu of a technical description of the Airpods Pro: "In 2020, Apple sold 110,000,000 AirPod products. Talk about mass manufacturing."

Maybe it's just an unconscious tic when talking about Apple products. Even I have a hard time not saying "Boom" when showing off something cool :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx7v815bYUw

aembleton• 5 years ago

They don't seem to keep the old pages around. Here is the Lego one from the web archive https://web.archive.org/web/20211122210134/https://www.scano...

hoten• 5 years ago

This is oddly infuriating. Such cool content, using the web medium in a novel way, yet they purposefully make it transient?

Only way it makes sense is they plan to offer a paid service where you can view a catalog of work. But the site is low on meta information, so that's just a wild guess.

dave_aiello• 5 years ago

That was my first thought when I saw the CT scans of the AirPods: where is the canonical URL for this, and where is the archive of previous analyses?

KarlKemp• 5 years ago

I doubt that they are being paid by Apple. Would we mind expressions of enthusiasm for, say, works of art? If not, what's wrong with such statements for products as long as they are genuine?

The sales figures speak to a specific aspect the writer(s) want to highlight: that it's a difference to produce something like this a dozen times or a few million times.

93po• 5 years ago

I think this might be the first and only instance I've ever seen of a non-traditional scrolling experience actually being a benefit to a website

bmeski• 5 years ago

I agree. I was able to scroll back up easily to see specific parts without some acceleration taking over.

girvo3• 5 years ago

And the implementation of it was brilliant. Didn't mess with the scrolling feel very much at all.

austinjp• 5 years ago

Completely agree. First and only, in my experience. Genuinely impressive on mobile.

mandeepj• 5 years ago

Apple's own website has used same design pattern on many pages. Similarly, Xiaomi also

superkuh• 5 years ago

The bleeding edge $whatever functions required to create it meant that even a browser from a couple years ago only displays a white blankness. It is not a good design for a website.

Faaak• 5 years ago

I didn't know CT scans could be that accurate. Impressive really when you see the size of the (moving) machine !

habi• 5 years ago

There are also (desktoptop) microCT machines, which can work with much smaller samples and produce images with much higher resolution. I have the pleasure to work with three such machines, and we routinely scan samples with a size smaller than a centimeter and with a voxel size well below 10 µm.

Here's a small (500 kb) movie of a staircase snail which I recently scanned: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/73241/download/suppl/31/ This specimen is only 2.6 mm small.

vlunkr• 5 years ago

So do airpods actually sound better than the standard wired headphones? If they don't, this is a lot of fancy engineering for some pretty bad headphones. Maybe they just didn't fit my ears or something, but I've always hated them.

tw600040• 5 years ago

It does. But it's not about that. It's about being able to get rid of wires and associated mess.

jrockway• 5 years ago

Are wires a mess? Looking at the Zoom calls I've been on, I've never heard "oh sorry I'm all tangled up in my wires", but have seen "my batteries are dead" or "my headphones won't pair with my computer", etc. (I say "seen" because you don't hear much from people debugging their "magic" wireless headphones.) This has added up to many person-hours of delays, while the wires just keep working.

lawkwok• 5 years ago

There’s a huge value in not having to untangle wires every time you use headphones even if there is a hit to sound quality.

Also having the ability to use one earbud without having the weight of the cable tugging at your ear is underrated.

desiarnezjr3• 5 years ago

Yes! Never thought about that, but it is. Especially for calls!

desiarnezjr3• 5 years ago

They sound better to me than the standard issue Apple wired earphones, but not remarkably better. The Pros sound much better, but don't stay in my ears so I've repurchased the original design (v2).

The game changer for me is how convenient the UX is. Whichever Apple device that you're near can connect, or automatically connects to the right device most of the time and it's pretty seamless. Any other wireless headphones I've used (including the recent Beats Studio buds) are frustrating in comparison.

I definitely won't go into longer calls without them.

I'm no audiophile (but I do have standards) but the real appeal is they mostly "just work".

spenczar5• 5 years ago

I like them for cases where wired headphones wouldn't work, like when I'm doing the dishes, listening to a podcast, but don't want it to be on speakers because it'll wake up the baby.

In fact, on reflection, I almost only listen to podcasts on mine, so I don't really care about sound quality.

wyager• 5 years ago

I can only comment on the pros. There's not a ton you can do to compete with something with much larger drivers and a good crossover circuit. They certainly sound acceptable, but the real upside is that they don't have wires and they have shockingly good sound cancellation. You can even use them as lightweight hearing protection - I'd estimate they give a good 15-20dB of noise reduction against small explosions, so they're sufficient for things like nail guns or .22 fire.

nabla9• 5 years ago

The sound quality is really good, but now worth the high price. It's all about the convince of not having wires.

I have had Pro's for a year and I'm still not convinced that they are worth of the money. Cleaning ears & pods every day makes them usable but they still drop from the ears sometimes.

technobabbler2• 5 years ago

I think the Pros sound amazing. I used to have the Sony WH-XM1000 v3 and v4 noise-canceling headphones, but sold both after using the Airpod Pros for a few days and never went back.

The Airpod Pro sound quality is maybe 90% as good as the Sonys, but the form factor is INCREDIBLY convenient. No more sweating and constantly adjusting the earcups and headbands... just plop them in and they fit my ears perfectly and never fall out. The noise canceling works VERY well, as good as any other I've tried, whether at home, at work, or on a plane.

I also love that they work so seamlessly with some Apple devices, like being able to wirelessly watch the same movie from my iPad to two sets of Airpods. Apple has their own proprietary wireless chipset and protocol, so the interconnect between Apple stuff and Airpods works a LOT better than using them with Android or Windows hardware (sadly). Bluetooth works but is far less reliable.

That was the first Apple product I've ever purchased, and it has since become my favorite-ever piece of technology. I honestly adore them so much it makes me gush (and blush) when I talk about them... egads. The Sonys were always a love-hate relationship, with great sound quality but terrible comfort. The Airpods have both in equal measure.

dzhiurgis3• 5 years ago

Sony WH-XM1000 v3

They aren’t even comparable. Sony’s being over ear design cancels noise way better, but Pro’s are much more practical for sleep and calls.

stillblue2• 5 years ago

You experience matches mine almost 100%. I have a WH-XM1000 v3 and AirPods Pro and I reach for my AirPods Pro more often than the Sony's. The noise cancellation imo is negligible if you're using it under normal circumstances. The only scenario where the Sony's outdid the AirPods Pro was on a flight.

All said and done, I consider AirPods pro one of my best investments in life. Not only is the connectivity / switching between devices amazing, the sound quality is fantastic for earphones that size.

drc500free• 5 years ago

The sound is fine, the active noise cancellation is phenomenal. Transparency mode is also nice at times when you need to be aware of your surroundings.

iszomer• 5 years ago

So much packaged sophistication yet can't match high fidelity audio.

I picked up a KZ-ZSN with a pair of dynamic and balanced armature drivers and haven't looked back in terms of sound quality. Imagine my surprise when I purchased another pair with 4BA + 1DD..

Both were under $30.

To each their own I guess.

nvarsj2• 5 years ago

No, they sound pretty crap to be honest if you're used to high quality over the ear headphones. But that's not really their purpose. They are ideal as portable earpieces - walking around town, on the train, folding your laundry, or any other use case where you can't sit down and plug in your headphones. The lack of a wire is very convenient.

Although these days I just use wired earpods. Can't be arsed to replace my last airpods whose battery inevitably died.

AshamedCaptain2• 5 years ago

Apple was not the first company to develop wireless earbuds, but they’ve defined the category since introducing AirPods in 2016.

Sigh.

post-it• 5 years ago

It's true. If unconnected wireless earbuds existed before AirPods, I certainly never saw any.

desiarnezjr3• 5 years ago

There were many. They just weren't particularly good UX wise. Some of them were great / good / fine soundwise, but the UX typically sucked.

AshamedCaptain2• 5 years ago

Most definitely they existed (even the quote admits to that), but unlike other areas, I do not see other manufacturers following Apple in either functionality or aesthetics (compare what happened with slate smartphones); and I most definitely do not even see Apple leading in any metric, specially not in 2016.

jccalhoun• 5 years ago

According to this the first kickstarter for a pair of wireless earbuds with a charging case was in 2014 https://www.androidcentral.com/history-true-wireless-earbuds

stillblue2• 5 years ago

Sigh all you want. Truth doesn't change.

severak_cz• 5 years ago

I think Apple brought wireless earbuds to masses.

errantspark• 5 years ago

This is such cool content but the way it's presented is so fucking frustrating to me. I wish the narrative wasn't so intrinsically tied to the actual data. I hate that I can't blow up and rotate the models side by side, the whole thing feels so shallow. Now to be clear in an absolute sense this is a good article, this is cool content and the scrolling as something other than scrolling works better than in most instances.

My criticism is that the format does a disservice to the data, it's not the best way to present something this cool.

vultour• 5 years ago

I think what's missing is a 3D viewer at the bottom where you could play around with the models yourself.

jmpeax2• 5 years ago

Terrible scrolljacking interface.

jakeinspace• 5 years ago

This is easily the best use of "scrolljacking" I've ever seen. How, exactly, would you like to interact with the 3d CT scans? A video? An embedded 3d viewer to let you control the orientation?

jmpeax2• 5 years ago

An embedded 3d viewer to let you control the orientation

elzbardico5• 5 years ago

This is still the strongest apple advantage: design, engineering and build quality.

Recently I wanted to buy a second notebook so I could leave my MBPro at home in trips where I didn't want to work, but still had a machine that run linux and windows for some quick idea or even some light gaming.

Decided for a Samsung Galaxy Book Pro. Expensive machine, but slightly cheaper than a MacBook Air. good i7 11gen processor, excellent battery life, very light but with surprisingly good thermals, 1tb SSD, but unfortunately no option to have it with more than 16GB RAM.

Anyway, was very satisfied with it, and it was so light that I was even booting it with linux and doing some programming on it.

But, one day I just opened the lid by the sides, heard a crack, and the gorgeous OLED screen had cracked.

Of course I didnt abuse it, I just opened it, without excessive force or speed. But the screen is very fragile, the lid is paper thin, but not rigid enough, it seems, to avoid this problem.

And of course, Samsung says it was my fault, and I will have to pay the fix.

And yes, I know people have plenty of complaints about apple, but I never had encountered such an obvious problem with an Apple product. Have they not stress-tested this stuff?

sangnoir• 5 years ago

I guess you didn't purchase the iPhone 6, or perhaps you had very large pockets. A phone that bends semi-/permanently when placed in pockets was a ridiculous oversight.

dereg2• 5 years ago

Apple replaced the bent iPhones on the spot for free. That said, the iPhone 6 represented peak Jony Ive. I'm glad he's gone. Apple has walked back their obsession with thinness in favor of maximizing utility, all to the benefit of the user.

elzbardico5• 5 years ago

Yes, that's why I say that I understand that people have their complaints.

I had an iphone 6, never had a problem with it, but, I never seated with it with my back pockets, as this would be exceedingly uncomfortable for me; also never knew anyone with a bend iphone 6 too, but I understand that this was not the experience for a lot of people.

But as I told, I am talking about my experience with apple products. Maybe I am lucky with apple stuff.

mmgutz• 5 years ago

I buy Windows laptops for the purpose of running Linux. Little things do happen like bezels coming loose, coil whine and fan noise.

I have been happy with Apple for over a decade. My MBP 2018 was an exception. The rubber seal around the screen deteriorated. The touch bar has a dead area ($750 to fix, not fixing). Bulging batteries had to get replaced. That generation of MBP was GARBAGE based on my research trying to fix mine. Waiting to see if new M-based MBP have the quality pre previous generations of MBP had.

GhettoComputers27• 5 years ago

My friend uses an M1 as a power user for about a year. Great battery life, almost never uses the fan, super fast, no battery issues, no Linux support with graphics acceleration yet and he cracked his screen and Apple care fixed it. I don’t think the butterfly keyboard is around anymore.

It’s fabulous but so is my much worst Lenovo x250 with 16GB I got, and a new 1080p screen on recently, still very happy with it.

treve• 5 years ago

Yet I know lots of people with defects in Apple products. I replaced multiple laptops. Is there real evidence of fewer defects?

BoorishBears• 5 years ago

I have a Consumer Reports account and doing a quick search the only laptops with a 5/5 "Predicted Reliability" rating are from Apple, everything else is a 4/5 or less

It looks like LG would be the likely 2nd place as well, since they're the only brand besides Apple consistently getting a 5/5 on "Owner Satisfaction"

snapcore• 5 years ago

No, they are the same as everything else, people constantly say they are superb on here, but looking up reliability surveys says otherwise:

https://www.geckoandfly.com/6311/the-most-reliable-laptop-su...

elzbardico5• 5 years ago

Yes, it is unavoidable. But have you tried dealing with apple support versus samsung support?

pushrax2• 5 years ago

I’ve destroyed two MacBook Air screens, also because the lid isn’t particularly rigid. The MacBook Pro is definitely more durable, no issues after 12 years of owning them. I’m now much more careful with my MBA.

Lammy2• 5 years ago

The virgin Macbook screen vs the chad grain of brown rice https://twitter.com/kaxamdays/status/1438403620391763971

jimmaswell• 5 years ago

Aren't their recent laptops an overheating mess, not to mention needing dongles to plug anything in?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29197975

alex_young• 5 years ago

That seems to be a reference to the previous iteration right?

pushrax2• 5 years ago

Their recent laptops use Apple silicon and are anything but an overheating mess. There are plenty of things to complain about but heat has been solved.

marcan_42• 5 years ago

Their latest laptops barely if ever turn on their fans. Your link references the prior Intel generation.

GhettoComputers27• 5 years ago

Jony Ive’s reign of terror is over. Butterfly keyboard is gone too.

Charging DisplayPort Thunderbolt 3 (up to 40Gb/s) USB 4 (up to 40Gb/s) USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s) Headphone

CamperBob2• 5 years ago

Those are 3 advantages

kiwijamo• 5 years ago

Funnily enough the exact same thing happened to my work Macbook. Display just stopped working one day. Work sent it back to Apple to repair which took them a few weeks.

I once owned a iBook (back in the PowerPC days) that had to go back to Apple on no less than four different occasions to fix faults. All repaired under AppleCare as I fortunately had the foresight to pay for it at the time of purchase.

I've also owned other brands of laptops and I've not had any with the amount nor the severity of faults I've observed on Apple laptops.

I write this on my own ex-lease Lenovo X1 Carbon which has survived a 1m drop with a corner hitting a hard surface. Thankfully the only issue is the occasional black/darkening of an area of pixels on the lower-right corner of the LCD. I can 100% guarantee if it was a Macbook it would have been the end of it, no question whatsoever (given I've seen Macbook die from much less impact).

sundvor4• 5 years ago

The engineering of the X1 Carbon is amazing. Durability is a design goal, it even has channels for directing liquid ingress away from the most vulnerable parts. Whilst not a guarantee against failures, it certainly doesn't hurt!

My own OG X1 Carbon (i7/8/256) still works today, and, amazingly, receives firmware updates. It is 9 years old.

chrisweekly2• 5 years ago

I still make good use of my 15" 2012 macbook pro retina. Bummed that macos 10.15 is the end of the road for OS upgrades, bc the hardware has held up amazingly well for almost a decade. Including weeks at a time at sea, countless motorcycle trips and flights...

larkinrichards• 5 years ago

during a delivery once, i caught a curb, flipped upside down on a bicycle, landed laptop down, bent the frame of my 2014 macbook pro, and the screen survived undamaged. still using the same laptop today, no issue. anecdotal evidence… is anecdotal.

hultner• 5 years ago

Actually for further anecdata I’ve dropped several of my MacBook Pros (unibody) from a meter or more, one open from a ladder bumping pretty hard to a few of the bottom steps. And I’ve never gotten more then scratches and bumps in the casing. Additionally I’ve never had Apple Care and the times I’ve had problems Apple have always repaired it free of charge under warranty, including a full battery replacement on my Retina MacBook Pro when it was 3 years old and got the battery service warning.

I’ve had the hinge of my old ThinkPad crack after about a year of normal use and been told it’s my fault. I’ve also had multiple screens go bad on my old HP Entreprise laptop/mobile workstation. Both of these laptops were more expensive then all the MacBooks I owned prior to them.

Cthulhu_• 5 years ago

More anecdotes. My previous Macbook (2014 model? maybe 2016?) had a screen delamination issue; didn't get to the visible area of the screen, but I stopped using it because I got a new one from work at that point.

Current one had an issue with one speaker not working properly, that (and the whole top <_<) was replaced under extended warranty. More recently, the screen has borked, faulty ribbon connector I think, but that's another very expensive and fiddly fix, I probably won't bother since I work on an external screen all the time anyway.

zuj4• 5 years ago

While my entire friends circle are apple fanboys I stayed away from it because of the cost. Once I had the resources tried MacBook air and now all the devices in my home are replaced by apple one by one. Except for Alexa, never got used to Siri.

bodge50002• 5 years ago

Out of interest, what would you say is better about a Mac specifically (both the hardware and software) compared to a standard windows or linux pc/laptop, aside from build quality (my thinkpads have never let me down)? I've been tempted by a mac for a few years but never close enough to pull the trigger

oblio7• 5 years ago

This is still the strongest apple advantage: design, engineering and build quality.

The thing is, Appple's hype wave is huge. I NEVER see this kind of blog post about Samsung or Huawei or Sony devices. Yet many of their devices are marvels of engineering, too.

Look at the tone of this article:

The construction would make an origamist blush.

Make we can get an experienced electronics comment on this kind of congratulatory comment: are Apple devices that special? (I doubt it) Or do they just have an awesome grassroots marketing environment or are great at astroturfing?

I get the impression that part of this is also caused by Apple being American. The US is great at marketing and there is a degree of nationalism involved since there aren't that many American consumer electronics companies left. I remember going to some attractions in the US and thinking: this is hot garbage but for sure they're awesome at promoting it in movies and TV series and whatever.

72deluxe4• 5 years ago

Yes, it seems bizarre that the dismissal of various other devices as Chinese (Huawei laptops?) doesn't impact Macbooks, which are also all made in China.

The Huawei laptops look excellent Apple copies from what I can see.

elzbardico5• 5 years ago

No. In practice the samsung cutting edge stuff that looked like a marvel of engineering was just fluff with small irritating stuff that compounds over time. Samsung is obsessed with features, not with perfecting them.

schleck8• 5 years ago

Trust me, the Flexgate was just as bad and Apple tried to cheat their customers, including me.

My MB Pro had both design flaws with its screen connection (750 € for a faulty 5 € display cable, look it up) and key switches. And don't even get me started on my iPad Pro, that thing had to be replaced two times because the area around the home button isn't stabile enough. Now on the third one I am having pretty bad screen bleeding.

On the contrary my workstation PC has not failed me once in two years. Never again I will buy an Apple product.

quickthrower22• 5 years ago

I chose the iPhone because of the “just works” nature but now they’ve made it impossible to get photos off using Windows (disconnects in copy, iTunes or DCIM, tried workarounds, due to heavily walled garden no other app can be used to get 500 photos off). Lots of people online with same issue.

If I can take photos and copy them off I might as well go back to androids.

ChuckNorris89• 5 years ago

If I can take photos and copy them off I might as well go back to androids.

You're not supposed to connect your iPhone to a PC via cable like a caveman. You're supposed to buy a Mac and pay for an an iCloud subscription and then everything just works automagically via the cloud. /s

mceachen• 5 years ago

I feel your pain. Two different possible solutions:

1. Turn off automatic image conversion, and then retry copying over USB: it takes a while to convert HEIC to JPEG, and an eternity to convert HEIC to MP4. It's something like Settings > Photos > Transfer to Mac or PC > keep original format

2. Install a file transfer app on your phone and computer, like Resilio Sync or Photo Sync.

My family's phones use Resilio Sync that sync with a NAS on the bookshelf and PhotoStructure (I'm the author).

dbspin• 5 years ago

That sounds annoying, but honestly pretty much any cloud backup service will sort this for you iCloud's not great, but Google One, Dropbox etc all work fine on iPhone.

dncornholio• 5 years ago

I remember my Macbook screen getting damaged from the keyboard. Was a 2013 model.

Their charging block also give up after a few years. The harness of the cable have failed on most of my magsafes.

I also remember my phonecalls kept disconnecting because I held my iPhone the wrong way so it blocked the reception.

Saying Apple doesn't have design flaws is quite ignorant.

codesnik• 5 years ago

I mean, there were some mishaps in apple line too. First macbook airs had faulty hinges. Mine broke, and I was using my mbair as a "mobile desktop", rarely opening it between home and office, because I was afraid it will broke off completely. I had to wait for replacement lid (which was free) for half a year.

NalNezumi• 5 years ago

I don't remember which iPhone it was, but didn't one launch with the problem that the entire phone could be "bent" by having it in the back pocket and sitting down? (or similarly putting some force)

And their reactions to it was "its your own damn fault"?

saagarjha• 5 years ago

iPhone 6 (Plus).

hnlmorg4• 5 years ago

And yes, I know people have plenty of complaints about apple, but I never had encountered such an obvious problem with an Apple product. Have they not stress-tested this stuff?

I'm not going to argue that many of Apples products aren't well built but MBPs have had their share of problems too. Such as

- The butterfly keys being extremely easy to break? (I have a few keys on mine that don't work properly any more)

- Or USB-C right side of the MBP causing the thermals to increase so much that the CPU throttles? (this also affects me)

- Or the ribbon cable that connects the screen getting worn down with repeated opening/closing that it breaks? (happened to a friend)

In fact, I've had more issues with my current MBP than I have with any of my previous laptops and thus cannot wait to decommission in January.

I do also have an iPhone and Apple Watch. My iPhones have always been flawless but my Apple Watch is around 18 months old and the speaker is already failing.

The watch and iPhone experience has been fantastic (even with the failing speaker) but I really can't see me getting another MBP. Not just because of the hardware problems I've had but also because I just don't think macOS is particularly good these days either. The OS panics far too often (MBPs really don't like to be docked and on docked regularly), it handles ageing batteries the worst (to the extent that a failing battery will brick the device where as at least with Linux you can still run the machine off the mains), it takes forever to verify applications on launch (sure I can turn that off) and it's nowhere near as performant as it once was. Frankly it's left me craving a Linux workhorse again.

I feel Apples love for IT professionals has diminished over the last decade and all the emphasis in build quality has gone towards their range of gadgets.

kalleboo2• 5 years ago

I'm not going to argue that many of Apples products aren't well built but MBPs have had their share of problems too

Yep Apples stuff definitely has a lot of build problems as well. You can also watch one of Louis Rossman's rants for perpetual internal design issues that cause machines to be more fragile than they need to be.

Although the one thing speaking in favor of buying Apple despite this is that they sell so many of the same machines that when one of these major design issues pop up, it's likely to build up enough steam and bad publicity that they fix it/implement an extended warranty repair program, whereas there's never a critical mass of people buying and complaining about the "Samsung Galaxy Book Pro" for Samsung to respond.

mensetmanusman• 5 years ago

Try cleaning the speaker with distilled water and the speaker cleaning feature that pumps the water out of the watch.

jinto36• 5 years ago

Indeed there are plenty of examples of suboptimal Apple designs.

2015 Retina MBP, the trackpad cable runs over the battery, and the heat from the battery means I have to replace the trackpad cable every 6-12 months.

Earlier Intel aluminum iMacs would literally toast the LCD if you ran Windows on them, because the fans wouldn't ramp up enough, even if you had all the Bootcamp drivers properly installed. Sometimes this would happen in MacOS also. Needed to run 3rd party fan control programs, or you'd end up seeing brown areas on the screen around where the CPU and GPU heatsinks were.

As far as enclosures go, yes Apple stuff is physically pretty sturdy.

floatingatoll• 5 years ago

The last time I cracked an Apple display doing something like that was fifteen-ish years ago, when the plastic hinges were seizing and crimping the lower display panel. It’s not the sort of thing that they have problems with anymore.

They do, of course, have new problems, but it supports your point that they have been here and done that over a decade ago.

nvarsj2• 5 years ago

Samsung has never had great build quality in my experience - they seem to focus on looks above all else, with throwaway hardware that never gets software updates. I wonder why you went for a galaxy book pro? Why not buy a Thinkpad or Dell? They can have their own issues but the build quality should be much better.

elzbardico5• 5 years ago

I wanted a second machine, and the main criterias where 1) Run linux fine. 2) Intel Evo 3) As light and thin as possible.

Yeah, I was stupid :-(

wiliaonson• 5 years ago

I agree with what you have said, I have my fair share of Apple products, and they didn't disappoint me.

eptcyka2• 5 years ago

A lot of the M1 macbooks had similar issues where displays would crack seemingly without any abuse. All in the name of thinness. I wouldn't suppose that it's the users or horrible design at fault, but rather an issue where some tolerances were not met, so some of the parts in production are less durable than what is needed to execute the design.

sombremesa• 5 years ago

I recently pulled out my 2018 13" Macbook pro after quitting my job and not having touched this laptop in a while. The keyboard had a couple of issues with repeating keys...and I was out of the warranty period.

Thankfully, Apple has a keyboard service program, and they fixed it for free — in late 2021. No questions asked. With a one year warranty on their fix.

This was just before thanksgiving and it took them just about 3 days to fix from when I dropped it off to when I picked it up, even though it was shipped to a repair center.

That being said, I might not buy a new one for a while because I like having bootcamp to play games and the M1 makes that impossible.

sQL_inject3• 5 years ago

Some small but important details about the product architecture that's changed over time somewhat:

- The antenna is sticking out of the ear, while the densest components are deeper in the ear, making them more stable. Now the battery is in the ear and PCB is out of the ear.

- They've added large external mesh over the world-facing mic to reduce windnoise during phone calls. This creates a sort of turbulence that prevents acoustic howling. The air is channeled into a secondary chamber before reaching the mic.

- The airpods had two Infrared Detectors to prevent being spoofed when resting on the table.

- the cases moved from a resistive magnetic hinge to an over-center spring hinge, that's why the newer cases feel less satisfying and fidgety.

Tildey• 5 years ago

As much as I like the fun factor of my magnetic 2nd gen case, it is inherently flawed. The magnets attract magnetic particles, and as the lid is repeatedly closed they're slowly beaten into the plastic and I've never been able to get those marks out. I imagine with a manget-free hinge this would be severely minimised, as everywhere outside of the magnets there is basically no staining.

sQL_inject3• 5 years ago

well the magnet you're referring to are closure magnets, not the hinge magnet. You can see them on iFixit's teardown as black rectangles. Those magnets attract gnarly metallic bits which, yes, permanently make marks on the surfaces of the interior. Airpods OG vs. Pro for comparison. Both have closure magnets, I think the primary reason to move away from them was space, based on the internals.

https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/f3k1ysoFjvJ5xoF5.lar... https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/DSCA4bK5SAlTVGtn.lar...

patentatt• 5 years ago

The airpods had two Infrared Detectors to prevent being spoofed when resting on the table.

Can you elaborate on this?

sQL_inject3• 5 years ago

They use two so that if you rest the airpods on table in various positions, at least one IR sensor is pointing away from a surface. They turn on and off the device (pause, play) once both IR windows are covered by human skin (or detect a surface) which is the scenario in which they are fully in your ear. If they used only a single IR, the function wouldn't work if taken out of the ear and say laid face down on a book or table.

nunez3• 5 years ago

I think the AirPods Pro were a regression from the OG AirPods for four reasons:

- Idle life took a huge dive from the originals. My OGs haven't been charged in something like six months, and the case is still at something like 20%. Meanwhile, the case holding the APPs would die in less than a week and the buds inside of them a week after that.

My wife's APPs have been lost for a while because of this.

- Noise cancellation performs worse than the original firmware. They have actually been outclassed by other offerings, such as the Sony WF1000XM4.

- The buds themselves have a design flaw wherein earwax will accumulate in its inner grille severely enough to significantly compromise bass response. There's a thread in MacRumors that's something like 36 pages long acknowledging this. Apple quietly fixed this in version 2 of the APPs (with the MagSafe case).

- The mic isn't as good. The original APs performed extremely well in wind and loud surroundings. I think the downward beam-forming mics were a big part of this. The mic on the APPs perform worse in these scenarios IMO.

I'm glad that Apple went back to beam-forming mics.

Regardless, I'm thankful for Apple for lighting up the true wireless headphone industry. The APs were a dream come true when they came out; nothing before it compared (and I had $600 custom IEMs that were waterproof and had a control scheme controlled by head nods). The APPs accelerated the creation of noise cancelling true wireless. I'm excited for the next iteration of these products.

throwanem7• 5 years ago

The buds themselves have a design flaw wherein earwax will accumulate in its inner grille severely enough to significantly compromise bass response

Not to be glib, but maybe clean your ears more often? You can also take the tips off (invert, then pull) and blow them out from the back with canned air to clear the outer grilles which are integral with the eartip. As fine as those outer grilles are, you'd really have to have wax packed in there for it to extrude through to the inner grille.

I do this with mine, but only very occasionally, because my ear hygiene is such that wax very rarely even appears on the outer part of the tip, and almost never in the sound channel. I listen to a lot of podcasts and often run down one or the other bud by 60-80% in a single go, so it seems very reasonable to suggest that if serious wax problems were really that hard to avoid, I would run into them too.

(Of course, if you're using third-party tips without integral grilles - well, I suppose now we know why the original engineers saw fit to include them, you know?)

isatty• 5 years ago

I did some searching and also asked a doctor (though not an ENT) about it and the overall response was that you should not be be overzealous about cleaning out ear wax unless it’s a medical condition.

renewiltord• 5 years ago

AFAIK canonical ear advice today is to just not fuck with your ears. Just leaving them be will usually ensure not having to deal with impacted ear wax.

It’s not unhygienic to just let it be.

GhettoComputers27• 5 years ago

Try the galaxy buds plus they’re much better at everything for me. This firmware update probably kneecapped the pros too, either a patent issue or worries about people walking into traffic. https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/17/21069953/apple-airpods-pr...

smoldesu• 5 years ago

+1 here. The base Galaxy Buds destroy the Airpods in sound quality any day of the week, and they're mega-comfortable too. I don't use mine anymore, but I loved it when I did.

antihero• 5 years ago

How slick is the GB integratation with iOS devices in comparison to the AirPods. Been considering getting some AP3s because I keep forgetting my ATH-M50Xs as they are large.

ascottAtSlync• 5 years ago

Just a personal note on the galaxy buds plus, I have a pair and while the sounds quality is good when it works, I've had a lot of problems with desyncing between the two earbuds, audio breakup, and the touch sensors are sensitive to a fault where they're not really usable. The case is also pretty flimsy feeling. Overall, I'm not incredibly impressed by them but YMMV

nunez3• 5 years ago

I did. I got the Galaxy Buds Pro. They are excellent. They don't have an app for iOS, but I used an Android phone to configure them.

Something changed in their firmware earlier this year that made noise cancelling imbalanced (for me). After replacing them for a new set, I landed up getting Sony WF1000XM4s, which have also been excellent and even better at NC than the Pros were.

Otek• 5 years ago

Idle life took a huge dive from the originals. My OGs haven't been charged in something like six months, and the case is still at something like 20%. Meanwhile, the case holding the APPs would die in less than a week and the buds inside of them a week after that.

That shouldn't happen. Try to unpair, restart and pair again your headphones

p2t2p• 5 years ago

That's the missing piece for that Designed By Apple 300 dollar book.

emmanueloga_2• 5 years ago

I imagine it may be hard and they don't have incentives to "fix it", but I think the single most important disadvantage of airpods is the battery life... no matter how long it lasts, there's no way to replace it, so they became essentially discardable items. [1]?

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

hk__22• 5 years ago

This has nothing to do with some evil planned obsolescence, it’s just that you can’t make a device that small while retaining (easy) battery replacement capability.

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/your-wireless-earbud...

truculent• 5 years ago

Well they had a choice to make it less small and repairable. But ultimately, they chose small and disposable.

It may not be planned obsolescence, but it's still a choice made with a certain level of disregard for consumers.

MaKey• 5 years ago

Turns out you can: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Buds+Live+Tea...

Arn_Thor• 5 years ago

I'd argue there's a difference between planned obsolescence and products that are of such a nature that it's just about impossible to pull them apart. (Now, whether that means the latter category of products is defensible is a different question)

emmanueloga_2• 5 years ago

Everyone in here is showing admiration for apple engineering ability so as i said, probably a difficult problem, but not impossible.

I found this product [1] that's probably not as high quality as airpods but looks like a nice proof of concept actually :-)

1: https://pqearbuds.com/

kapildev• 5 years ago

Anybody knows how they create such a website? I have seen such websites built for showcases of several tech products.

malshe• 5 years ago

I don’t know if this website used it but scrollama.js can do it. https://pudding.cool/process/introducing-scrollama/

asiachick• 5 years ago

My self, my best friend, and an apple employee I know, all bought the new Airpods 3rd gen and all returned them. Of course that's just my small circle but 3 for 3. I guess any friend that bought them and was happy with them probably didn't say anything. The 3 of us that did have issues went back to 2nd gen.

For me, I hate pinch to control, I love tap to control. Tapping takes 1 free finger. Pinching takes 2. Another friend said they wouldn't stay in her ears, kept falling out. The 3rd friend just said they didn't fit as well. Didn't go into details. Just returned them.

megamix• 5 years ago

id like to see a ct scan of the brain using these devices

coatta• 5 years ago

Is there any information about the type of CT scanning equipment and methods they use?

maille• 5 years ago

Sounds like a weird PR stunt. I'm really curious who is behind those CT scans, is it a CT manufacturer, a metrology lab or a 3d viz software company?

micheljansen• 5 years ago

I wish they also did the second generation AirPods (also from 2019). Would love to see how they compare to the gen 1 and gen 3.

varjag• 5 years ago

but we wonder if voice pickup would have been better with the microphones pointed out of the bottom of the stems.

Wonder no more, it would not. This arrangement (aka beamforming array) is common for improved noise reduction.

The downward-facing microphone has made its return [...] could the downward-facing mic deliver better audio quality?

The 3rd gen AirPods have no active noise canceling, hence one mic arrangement. So, nope.

raffraffraff2• 5 years ago

I don't really care about AirPods, but that webpage fucking rocked. Rotating the scans as I scroll? Nice. I'd look at scans of anything on that website.

noisy_boy• 5 years ago

Agreed. I only wish that they had two images rotating side by side - one the transparent scan and one the opaque image so I had both the transparent and opaque views simultaneously for all rotation angles.

tcpekin• 5 years ago

Does anyone know who is behind this site? I couldn't find anything poking around, and for such a cool website to (in my mind) blow up so suddenly is very surprising, with very cool content as well. I'd be interested in following anyone who is doing this.

cloudengineer94• 5 years ago

Absolutely love the AirPods family of devices I have own every single one of them but sadly the AirPods Pro are not compatible with me because of the tips which hurt my ears.

Currently using the new Gen 3 and they are amazing! I do have a full life inside Apple ecosystem besides my Gaming Rig and Gaming Laptop.

CT scans of AirPods evolution

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