Having a 2nd gen AirPods Pro, I’m a bit salty about the “newer” version with lossless audio.
It’s odd they bumped the AirPods Pro to “2.5” and didn’t mention it at all. Would have been a natural follow on from the USB-C segment of the iPhone announcement.
I think lossless being exclusive to the Vision Pro along with the iPhone 15 being new and not supporting it puts them in an awkward position when announcing it. Just a theory. And I’m just assuming based on the note shown in the article that the Vision Pro will be the only lossless device for awhile.
I assume future Apple products post Vision pro will also get lossless. But why the iPhone 15 didn’t… who knows.
Qualcomm’s aptX is the only lossless Bluetooth codec out there. Apple will have to deal with their licensing to get lossless support across their devices and that means a boatload of cash has to transfer hands so Apple will likely be judicial in what devices support it.
You think Apple isn’t using their own codec? I always assumed AirPods used their own stuff when using an Apple device with them.
They can’t. Not now anyway as clearly stated in the article they have licensed aptX. Patents and whatnot likely won’t let them push their own for a couple of years. I’m surprised Apple doesn’t develop their own alternative to BT. They always complain it’s the biggest bottleneck in getting high quality anything over the air.
I’m missing where it says something about it in the article.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/apple-airpods-pro-gen-2-usb-c-wireless-lossless-audio/
DT cite that Apple has indeed licensed aptX from Qualcomm. Likely because they literally had no other choice.
It’s going to be a patent thing as most software is these days.
Unless the contract they signed says otherwise, there’s nothing stopping you from swapping out bits and pieces even when you have a license for a collection of patents like for bluetooth components. Sony does it!
It has nothing to do with hardware. It’s a codec. That Qualcomm owns.
I’m more annoyed that I can’t just upgrade the case to the new IO.
Don’t worry too much, they’re only lossless when playing content from the vision pro….
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Here’s a really good breakdown: https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/apple-airpods-pro-gen-2-usb-c-wireless-lossless-audio/
It looks like Qualcomm is the only game in town to support lossless over Bluetooth. I image Apple is stuck in a patent quagmire on this one.
You can use custom codecs if you control both sender and receiver, and they have their own lossless codec as well.
Look into how parents work brother. There is no technical barrier here.
Sure thing
Wow, yeah. I agree. And I’m actually interested in the vision pro. Damn!
I was wondering how latency with the HMD would be. Now I know.
I’m confused about why they aren’t calling them “3rd gen”
There’s a small mistake in the article, macOS Sonoma release day of 26th September is a Tuesday, not a Monday.
