Category: Technology

Airpods Pro – A Few Months In

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I wrote a post in late November about the perfect travel earbuds that focused on my search for earbuds that would fit my needs. After that, I started seriously looking at the AirPods Pro. At first, I really balked at the idea of the AirPods; I thought the stems sticking out of the ears looked really ridiculous and that it was a frivolous purchase. However, a co-worker had recommended them and after some research, I picked up a pair. After having them for a few months, I have to say that I’m impressed. I mostly use the AirPods Pro for listening to music while commuting on the train, or to iPad video when on a plane, or occasionally for phone calls.

apple airpods pro

Audio Consumption

At the time that I bought the AirPods Pro I was traveling to New York City every week, a 5-6 hour flight, depending on winds. I spend my time on planes typically working while listening to music or with a television show on my iPad that I can kind of ignore (I like the noise). The AirPods Pro offer great noise cancellation that reduces the engine noise to a dull hum. It performs less efficiently when it comes to human noise, talking, crying, etc. when on the plane. I don’t know if this is because the headphones are working so hard to reduce the engine noise or if they just struggle with noncontinuous noise.

The audio quality for video is perfect for me, the noise cancellation makes it so I don’t have to have my iPad turned all the way up and the clarity is good enough that I didn’t notice any issues. For music, I am no audiophile but I was happy. The bass is enough for me without being so heavy I can’t enjoy a song. All in all, I am happy to listen to music on the AirPods Pro. When walking around town I typically use transparency mode just to be aware of my surroundings. In NYC this is a huge help to hear sirens or people honking when at crosswalks, etc. As soon as I would get to the subway, I turn on the full noise cancellation and don’t have to hear the screeching of a train coming into the station or other loud noises.

The two big things that I appreciate with the AirPods Pro is that they are comfortable to wear and the single charge life of the earbuds is as advertised, 4.5 hours. I could almost make it from takeoff to landing on a single charge with the AirPods Pro. I typically charged them around halfway through the flight just to make sure I could make a call if needed after landing. My skepticism on the comfort of the earbuds was very strong from the get go, but they proved me wrong. I have no issue leaving AirPods Pro in my ear for significant stretches of time. It took a little bit of trial and error to choose the correctly sized plastic ear insert but once I tested them all, I was able to pick the ones that were best for my comfort.

Calls – Observations

The AirPods Pro have been an up and down experience when it comes to phone calls. Typically I can hear calls just fine but my audio back to the call is frequently broken. I have not been able to pinpoint out why this is but it seems like the Bluetooth connection is a little more flimsy. Having the noise cancellation feature is great for calls because you can be walking down a busy street and hear a call perfectly.

Other Tidbits

I know that a lot of travelers love over the ear noise cancelling headphones but for me, they take up too much space in my bag for only being useful on the plane or in a place where I’m not moving around too much. The only upside of those over the ear headphones or even wired earbuds is being able to plug-in to inflight entertainment on the plane. With the AirPods Pro there is no way to connect to inflight entertainment. Because of this, I carry a wired pair of headphones as well which definitely not what I would like to do.

The other area where I am a little disappointed with the AirPods Pro is keeping them clean. The rubber earpieces seem to be ear wax magnets and they have a piece of mesh that makes them difficult to clean. It takes a bit of finesse to get any kind of cleaning element deep enough into the earpiece to get them clear which is annoying. There also seems to be a tendency of dirt and dust to get into the bottom of the charger which can potentially keep the AirPods Pro from charging when they are in their case. I wish it was easier to keep these elements clean but it’s a small complaint.

Summary

The AirPods Pro fit my needs of a walking around, on the plane, noise cancelling earbud perfectly. The battery life of 4.5 hours without a charge is great and the comfort level of the earbuds themselves allows me to leave them in for extended periods of time. The noise cancellation and transparency mode are really fantastic features that make going from noisy environments to areas where you need more awareness easy and responsive. My only real complaints are that the AirPods Pro are a little difficult to clean and grit/grime can keep them from charging. The phone calls can be hit or miss when it comes to audio but it’s usable for casual conversations. If you are traveling a lot or need some earbuds to walk around town, these are a great option and one that you should seriously consider even if you’ve had doubts about AirPods before.

* This post contains affiliate links to products on Amazon. These links pay me if readers click them.

Best Earbuds for Travel and Everyday Commuting?

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I accidentally left my primary pair of headphones, the BeatsX, at home this week. I resorted to a second pair of earbuds that I keep in my bag but rarely use, the Soundcore Liberty Neos. Neither of these headphones are ideal and with the recent AirPod Pro release I got to thinking, what would be the perfect pair of headphones for me, a heavy traveling, daily subway commuting, talking on the phone user?

The BeatsX are very user friendly, there are controls that allow pause/play and volume, all on the cable that connects the two earbuds. The downsides I have with the BeatsX are the following:

  • The cable connecting the two headphones is a single point of failure. Any kind of fray inside the cable renders the headphones useless.
  • For long term use, they aren’t the most comfortable headphones. After a few hours, I have to remove them or I get a headache.
  • No active noise cancellation. The headphones use the seal between them and your ear to minimize how much outside sound you hear, but it isn’t the greatest and it makes you feel very isolated when walking.

The Soundcore Liberty Neos don’t have a cable between the headphones and the only actions you can perform without using your paired device are moving forward and backward a track. There are no volume controls on the earbuds themselves. However, they are very comfortable and I left them in my ears on an entire transcontinental flight recently without any kind of pain or discomfort during the flight.

This got me thinking though, are the new Airpod Pros worth an investment? What about the Powerbeats Pros? I have been intrigued by the Powerbeats Pro product simply because it’s a more secure in-ear earbud. At the same time, the Airpod Pros have noise cancelling functionality built-in and that is really attractive given all the time I spend on planes or in the subway. Neither of these headphones is cheap so it makes the choice a little more difficult. Ideally I would carry a single pair of headphones. Any suggestions on which ones those should be?

 

* This post contains affiliate links to products on Amazon. These links pay me if readers click them.

Turkish Airlines’ new 787-9 damaged during a photo shoot

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In case you missed it, Seth reported that Turkish Airlines’ brand new 787-9 was damaged during a photo shoot.

Reports suggest that the aircraft window melted out of its mount in the fuselage. How did it get so hot? Seems that the company was filming inside the plane and had it fitted inside and out with studio lighting to make that work. The heat from those lights caused the window to melt.

It seems like the back light was way too close to the fuselage and melted one of the electrochromatic windows. The photos are kind of crazy.

It is still not clear whether the actual carbon fiber fuselage was damaged in any way or if it was just the window.

What United Should Prioritize Over Free DirecTV

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United announced today that they will be offering free DirecTV service on all 211 Boeing 737s that have the television service.

Just in time for the Big Game, United Airlines today announced that effective immediately more than 100 channels of live television will now be free on 211 Boeing 737 United aircraft equipped with seat back TV, making viewing easy gate-to-gate. In addition to offering free live DIRECTV at more than 30,000 seats, United customers also have access to hundreds of movies and TV shows available on personal devices through the airline’s collection on the United app – offering customers thousands of hours of programming in total.

While it’s a great news release (American Airlines is doing something similar for the “big game”) it glosses over the fact that United is actively removing the DirecTV equipment from the 737s that are going in for new seats or heavy maintenance. I have not heard details but I do believe the plan is to go to an all personal device streaming setup eventually. This is really an interim step on the way to that goal.


What United really should be focused on is getting Wi-Fi working consistently on their domestic fleet. I have been on a number of flights the last few months where the Wi-Fi has either not worked or been so slow that it was not worth using. I rarely watch any of the live television programming while flying, opting instead to turn it to the inflight map channel. I use my time on planes to read or catch up on work and for the latter, I need working internet. The internet service domestically on United has been abysmal. The international planes, in my experience, have fewer Wi-Fi problems, though I have had a few long flights where the internet was not working from the beginning.

It is one reason I have steered clear of United’s year long Wi-Fi subscription. I am not going to invest cash in something that does not reliably work and that cannot be easily refunded on a per flight basis. A subscription service is great in theory for people who are frequent travelers and United’s pricing for it isn’t awful. But my guess is that the people who have purchased it have not been happy. While Delta and Alaska Wi-Fi on GoGo may not be the fastest, for the most part it works all of the time. That’s the reliability I and others want with United’s inflight internet.

United needs to focus their attention on some of the basic things that makes their product worth flying rather than trying to match Delta in hopes to lure a few more customers with shiny things. I want on-time performance, good schedules, working Wi-Fi, and friendly customer service. Everything else is icing on the cake.

“It’s Complicated” with Facebook

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Like a lot of people, I have considered ending my relationship with Facebook. There are plenty of reasons why…

The Reading Room by Susan Jane Golding
The Reading Room by Susan Jane Golding

Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access to Your Shadow Contact Information

“I think that many users don’t fully understand how ad targeting works today: that advertisers can literally specify exactly which users should see their ads by uploading the users’ email addresses, phone numbers, names+dates of birth, etc,” said Mislove. “In describing this work to colleagues, many computer scientists were surprised by this, and we’re even more surprised to learn that not only Facebook, but also Google, Pinterest, and Twitter all offer related services. Thus, we think there is a significant need to educate users about how exactly targeted advertising on such platforms works today.”

#deletefacebook

“Facebook is using us. It is actively giving away our information. It is creating an echo chamber in the name of connection. It surfaces the divisive and destroys the real reason we began using social media in the first place – human connection. — It is a cancer.”

The Facebook hack affecting 50 million people also let the attackers access users’ Tinder, Spotify, and Instagram accounts

“So what happened? In short, the attackers found a way to trick Facebook into issuing them “access tokens” — basically, digital keys — that let them access other users’ accounts as if they were that user. After spotting some unusual activity earlier this month, Facebook realized what was going on on Tuesday evening and subsequently revoked these access tokens before disclosing the hack publicly on Friday — though not before 50 million people were affected.”

The problem is that giving up Facebook is more complicated than simply deleting it and moving on. I know a lot of people say “your real friends have your number, they’ll call or text you” but I have a number of friends who are spread across the globe. Sure a call or a text would be great but with time zones and internet connections, the easiest way to stay in touch is with Facebook or WhatsApp or Instagram. Facebook and Instagram give this passive way of communicating and keeping up while WhatsApp is an easy way to have a chat without having to worry about what time it is where my friends are.

Deep down I don’t really care about browsing Facebook for general updates, but for friends that I do like to stay in touch with, it has becoming an easy place to post photos or life updates. Because of that I keep using it. The problem is that Facebook is “easy”. I know, I know, there are alternatives like Telegram, which I do use, or Yammer for groups. But these require another website/login. Facebook is easy for family and friends to upload things, write posts, etc. without having to worry about another service or login and since tons of people already use it, they are instantly connected.

Again, I know what you’re going to say, “the only way to get people to start using other tools is to leave yourself”. You are probably right and I have come very close to just leaving Facebook and relying on this site and Flickr to stay in touch with people. Each time I get close to leaving I see a post from a friend about something awesome in their life or some sad news and I get dragged back in. Maybe it is one of those things where I just cut the Facebook cord and move on. The repercussions get felt later on and maybe they just aren’t that bad.

What would you do? Have you left Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp yet? If so, how has it gone?

San Diego’s Smart Streetlights

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From IEEE Spectrum:

San Diego’s network of smart streetlights, which has been rolling out since early 2018, continues to grow. To date, some 2,000 of the sensor-laden devices have begun gathering pictures, sounds, and other data.

So far, the city has focused on the image data, using it to count pedestrians and cars as they move around the city. This data is only just starting to feed into the way the city designs and manages traffic flows, and any consumer applications remain far in the future, says Erik Caldwell, the city of San Diego’s interim deputy chief operating officer for smart and sustainable communities. Officials are still talking through all other possible applications, such as using the streetlights to locate gunshots, track airport noise, or monitor air quality.

The amount of data generated over time will be enormous and San Diego seems to be doing a bit of experimentation to see what kind of applications they can build around that data. And they aren’t alone, Atlanta, Georgia is also embarking on a pilot program to install smart streetlights.

One downside is the maintenance that will be involved with such sensors. Streetlights are important safety devices for cities but if the “smart” piece of them is not reliable over time or through storms, the upkeep might be their downfall.

Text Messaging is Broken

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When my wife made the jump from an iPhone to the Google Pixel 2 we thought everything would be easy. For the most part, everything was. All of her photos, contacts, and other random phone data ported over without issue. But even after following the steps to disable iMessage and move to regular SMS on Google Fi we still have a number of issues. And this is months after the initial move. With Google now pushing forward with Chat, I think this problem is about to get worse before it ever gets better.

The texting landscape before smartphones was pretty straightforward, 140 characters, sent via the SMS protocol to another phone number. Then MMS came along and we could send grainy photos to one another. Then iMessage showed up and things started to fall apart. If you have an iPhone and send a text to another iPhone user (both with iMessage turned on, which it is, by default), that text is sent as an iMessage via Apple’s servers. If one of the users doesn’t have iMessage, then theoretically, there is a check done and the message will be sent as a regular text message (via SMS or MMS, depending on if any media is in the message). If a person used to have iMessage enabled then the waters become even more murky as the iMessage system may swallow the message and never deliver it to the recipient. It sometimes takes sending 2-3 messages to that person before their regular texting kicks in, even if you follow all of the steps to disable iMessage.

Then you enter the Android device texting fiasco and things get even more confusing. Now with Google coming out with Chat and saying that it will fix all of the issues I think the landscape becomes even more rocky. Google’s product will not be end-to-end encrypted, which is surprising and a huge disappointment. One of the things that iMessage has going for it is the fact that Apple never sees the text of your messages, it is always encrypted. Most people don’t care about the government necessarily having access to their texts, but what about people who don’t want their phone used as a weapon against them (an abused child/wife/etc texting for help). The encryption of this data is important and Google dropping the ball is a shortsighted mistake.

This brings up the question of the chat apps that are out there (Signal/WhatsApp/Telegram/etc). I have all three installed on my primary phone but really only have experience with WhatsApp and Telegram. Signal is limited to a single device at a time and that’s a flaw to me. I like to be able to send message from my iPad, computer, or phone and not having that capability immediately makes me less likely to use the app.

I prefer Telegram’s interface over WhatsApp but Telegram uses a homegrown encryption method that I don’t think is completely proven and that makes me a little uncomfortable. WhatsApp’s Facebook ties aren’t my favorite, but they do use an encryption standard that is widely recognized.

The key with all of these independent apps is uptake and having friends who use the same application to communicate. If a few of your friends go with Telegram while others use Facebook Messenger and others are on Signal, then everyone just reverts to SMS/MMS and messages get missed and we are back to square one. Ideally, the SMS/MMS protocols would be updated with some “smart” functionality (if a device is an old school flip phone, revert to 140 character maximums). Or, Google would implement end-to-end encryption and large numbers of people would move over to that. I have strong doubts either of those things will happen though and the landscape will just stay fragmented and hard to navigate.

Don’t Give Away Historic Details About Yourself

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With all of the recent security issues with Facebook, I think this advice from Krebs on Security is probably some of the most relevant information on the internet today.

From “Don’t Give Away Historic Details About Yourself“:

I’m willing to bet that a good percentage of regular readers here would never respond — honestly or otherwise — to such questionnaires (except perhaps to chide others for responding). But I thought it was worth mentioning because certain social networks — particularly Facebook — seem positively overrun with these data-harvesting schemes. What’s more, I’m constantly asking friends and family members to stop participating in these quizzes and to stop urging their contacts to do the same.

On the surface, these simple questions may be little more than an attempt at online engagement by otherwise well-meaning companies and individuals. Nevertheless, your answers to these questions may live in perpetuity online, giving identity thieves and scammers ample ammunition to start gaining backdoor access to your various online accounts.

These quizzes seem innocuous, but the data that can be harvested from them is enough identifiers to get into your phone account, your banking, your credit cards, and more. It seems harmless to fill in a answer but you are putting yourself at risk by exposing that history to data mining.

US Navy remotely lands F/A-18 Super Hornet on aircraft carrier

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From FlightGlobal –

Using the ATARI system, or aircraft terminal approach remote inceptor, landing signal officers demonstrated remote piloting of the F/A-18E Super Hornet while conducting carrier qualifications and flight testing aboard the Abraham Lincoln in March. The officers also demonstrated touch-and-go manoeuvres with the system.

It is kind of fitting that the system’s acronym is “ATARI”. What’s even more interesting, and somewhat terrifying, is that there was a pilot in the cockpit during the tests. Landing on a carrier deck is a mental test for a pilot when they are in control, it has to be even more of a mental test when someone else is control of the plane remotely.

The Cable Conundrum

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My wife recently switched from an iPhone to a Google Pixel 2, which in and of itself is worthy of a post, but the most noticeable immediate difference when making the switch is the cable headache we now face. We used to have a single USB-A to Lightning cable in the living room for when we needed an immediate charge, two of the same type of cables in the bedroom for charging overnight, a single short cable in the car for road trips, and a couple of cables in different bags for travel. Basically, we have a cable for each of the places we frequently charge our phones. This prevents us from constantly packing or looking for a charging cable. When I travel, I have one of the small Tumi amenity kits from Delta with an Anker two port 24W USB-A travel wall charger, two USB-S to Lightning cables, my in ear headphones, and my Apple watch USB-A to magnetic charger. I can pretty much get by for a week with that setup.

On Twitter I posted about Anker cables and my love of them. They are sturdy and affordable, so I have decided to get a number of USB-A to USB-C cables for my wife’s Pixel 2. What I am running into now is a growing conundrum where the cables are just getting out of hand. I know soon, USB-C to USB-C will be the standard, but until then, I need USB-A to USB-C/Lightning. All of the power bricks we use are USB-A out, except for my wife’s Pixel 2 brick.

I know these changes in technology take time but it feels like USB-C has been out in the wild for a while but everyone is having a hard time moving to it as a standard. On top of this, you have micro USB still being heavily used (Kindle, cameras, other accessories). It is more stuff to carry if you want to keep your different electronics charged as you travel.

So how do you travel with all of the cables? How do you manage them all at home?

* This post contains affiliate links to Amazon that benefit me financially if clicked on.