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Comment by fhood | Hacker News Reader

Happy owner of mx4s here. Great work headphones, but man the UX is bad. On top of everything you mention, it defaults to noise cancelling and turning off noise cancelling (I only want noise cancelling for travel, otherwise I like being able to hear) involves listening to a woman tell you what mode you are in while basically muting current audio. WTF SONY

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And the fact that everyone is getting its name wrong is further evidence that Sony is terrible at naming things. It's a miracle the two new models of PlayStation aren't the PS-1000XM5 and PS-1000XM5D.

Same experience as the other commenters with my XM3s, sound great, battery life is great, USB-C charging is great (AirPods Max use Lightning again, thanks Apple), but the touch controls are really bad, using with multiple devices is annoying (XM4 improves the experience with two devices, but will still suck with more, maybe even worse because god knows how you manage which slot gets unpaired when you pair to a third device).

> AirPods Max come with a soft, slim Smart Case that puts AirPods Max in an ultralow power state that helps to preserve battery charge when not in use.

Let me tell you about power buttons: you hold the button, and then you can keep your battery from dying without having to carry around a special case.

AirPods Max are probably really nice, but have enough stupid Apple things on them that I wouldn't be looking at them unless they were the same price as Sony's.

The Lightning charging situation is a really unfortunate signal. I'd seen the Beats Flex announcement a few months ago where they discontinued the Lightning version and made the new ones use USB-C, and figured that meant they were planning to phase out Lightning in favor of USB-C and MagSafe. With these using Lightning instead of USB-C, that's obviously not the case.

So now if you've just bought an iPhone 12 and picked up a $40 MagSafe charging cable to go with it, you can go get the Lightning cable back out of the drawer because you're going to need it again for at least the lifespan of these headphones.

With the Qi charging case for previous AirPods (the various earbuds versions) they can charge off the same MagSafe cable as the phone (though without a magnetic connection for now).

Maybe Apple wanted to put a MagSafe pad on one of the ears for these, but couldn't make the magnets work without interfering with audio quality?

At the very least they could have gone USB-C, and then if you had an iPhone 12, AirPods Max, and an Apple Watch, you can charge everything using MagSafe Duo and a USB-C cable, which plugs into either the MagSafe Duo charger (for phone and watch) or directly into the headphones. But no, it's a Lightning port.

Do you also have these sound level bugs with your XM3, where you adjust down the volume before connecting and then the headphones adjust the volume back up to some level when connected? This has severly blasted my ears multiple times and I can't express how angry I get when that happens (its a miracle I didn't destroy them yet). Its just a shame they combine so good battery life, ANC and sound quality with such a bad software, to a point where I rather get mediocrity in all points than what sony is offering me. Since I got my AirPods Pro I rarely use the XM3s anymore so I will probably not directly jump for the Maxs but they will definitly be an option for me in the future

I think that's a case of the OS you're connecting to having a separate volume setting for Bluetooth headphones and the built-in speakers, at least from my use with an iPad that's how it works.

If you adjust the volume down prior to connecting, you're changing the speaker volume. When you connect to the headphones, it connects them at the volume you previously had used with the headphones. And when you disconnect, your speakers go back to the level they were at before you connected the headphones.

I've never seen them jump higher than my previously used setting.

Might be an iOS issue, but for me its even happening when I connect them, turn the volume down and then start playing something. The instant it starts playing the volume is adjusted up to some previous level. This has never happened to me with other bluetooth headphones / speakers

Oh my god naming things. That's another thing that basically only Apple does right. I still can't get over how many companies have decided that their naming scheme for consumer products should just be a bunch of random letters and numbers, I guess because they think it sounds more advanced and techey? Thinkpads are another massive offender here.

Even Apple screws it up. There's been periods where the MacBook Air wasn't the lightest MacBook. And there's some nebulousness over the Pro lineup (more so on the Mac - the i* lines are more clear).

Broadly speaking, "Pro" in Apple's line is "the more expensive version." It's mainly in the Mac Pro and iMac Pro where it's a particularly significant difference for professional use.

Feels weird how the AirPods have Pro and Max as separate totally different products, but in in the iPhone where the "Max" has been used before, "Pro Max" is one product.

The rumored name I heard for these was "AirPods Studio", but probably the right call to not use the word "Studio" in headphones that don't have an audio jack on them.

But I'll take it over AirPods ASDF380C.

Also have the XM4s. If you go into the app, you can turn off "Notification and Voice Guide" under the system settings. It will then switch instantly when pressing the button without the woman speaking. Way better with it off.

I do agree though, the headphones are great, but the UX is clunky and nowhere near what apple could achieve with a fully integrated set of headphones.

Thanks I appreciate that. I would still prefer a positional switch but that will make a big difference..........once I download the app which I have never used because I just assumed it was bloatware. whoops.

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