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Comment by goosedragons | Hacker News Reader

Yeah. Bluetooth sound quality is perfect. Never ever drops out, has static, never sounds compressed either and you certainly don't have to consider what codecs and versions both devices support to get the best listening experience.

Is your MacBook battery easily replaceable or is glued in making it a danger to be removed by an amateur at home? And even if you never swap batteries how does having it removable effect you really?

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Bluetooth sounds fine, but it can introduce latency that you wouldn’t experience with a direct connection. Which is fine for listening to music and even video calls are ok, but a minor proportion of the population working on music production will experience that latency. On a smartphone that’s a pretty rare use case, so it’s fine.

Batteries: I extended the life of my 2010 MacBook by swapping the battery and it was very easy. Apple is going to come out with kits for amateurs to do part changes themselves for the iPhone, where that part change will be harder (broken screen swap) than swapping out a MB battery.

> Bluetooth sounds fine

Bluetooth is absolutely atrocious, every 2-way call over bluetooth is sampled down to absolute garbage because the meager bandwidth is halved and the codec in prehistoric

https://habr.com/en/post/456182/

Sounds amazing when I make calls with my airpods so I don't think that statement holds.

Latency is extremely noticeable with some headphones for videos/games. My Bose QC buds are just completely useless for them. Other pairs I have are better but the Bose are music/call only headphones. Thanks for reminding me of that extra problem.

2010 MBP were far more repairable than the modern stuff. After that Apple started gluing down the batteries which required prying to remove.

Can’t say I’ve ever had those problems. It just works here.

I’ve got a 14” MBP. It has pull tags and is easy to replace. I’d still take it in apple store to get it replaced.

And I've never had crackly ass headphone jacks. Just works here.

Pull tabs are only slightly better. If the tabs break you're just back to prying off adhesive and the tabs do break if you're not careful.

And what are you going to do in 7 years when you're trying to get it working as a laptop for your kid or something and Apple tells you they no longer service that model as it's "vintage"?

My kids have current, supported Apple computers.

I've also replaced several batteries in Apple products, even without pull tabs and it's not difficult.

Regarding replacements, my mother's 6s just got a second new battery last month and it's still supported after 7 years.

Apple's vintage clock starts when they stop selling something. They sold the 6s until 2018. They rarely sell MBPs for more than a year so usually in 7 years they're done.

I'm glad you're currently well to do and can afford all new shit for your kids. Some people can't and sometimes a repair is the only option. Is it worth making repair considerably harder for a few extra mm of thinness and less than a hundred grams of weight? I'd argue no. Compare the repair of a 2010 MBP with one from 2016 and then tell me the 2016 one is easy.

There was a bit of a black hole I agree. The 2021 models are much improved.

On the flip side, headphone jacks can wear out entirely. And one of the advances bluetooth has over normal jacks is that it's now possible for headphones to have mics on them capable of answering calls. Sort of similar to wireless charging, its possible to wear out ports from overuse.

one of the advances bluetooth has over normal jacks is that it's now possible for headphones to have mics on them capable of answering calls

Headsets with mics on them did exist before bluetooth, and so did headsets with control buttons (source: my early-2000s portable mp3 player). The only thing bluetooth added to the mix is cross-device compatibility.

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