It’s no secret that the Apple Watch is a convenient accessory for the iPhone, but even so, it tends to use the Bluetooth radio for most file transfers. This can sometimes be unbearably slow, especially when the transfer involves large or several files at one time.
A lot of magic happens when you bring a new pair of AirPods or Apple/Beats-branded equivalent headphones or earbuds with the proprietary H1 chip close to your iPhone for the first time. The pairing process is simply beautiful, complete with a stunning 3D render-equipped pairing interface and the works.
A similar interface appears when you bring any of the aforementioned audio devices close to your iPhone from then on so that you can view its current battery charge or just gawk at the gorgeous animations some more. But it’s noticeably missing something — a button for easily connecting to said device.
I often catch myself accidentally tapping play for music or videos via my iPhone even when I don’t have my AirPods in my ears and ready to go.
This is typically accidental, as I usually prefer to keep my media consumption to myself with personal headphones of some kind, but there are rare occasions when I’m by myself that I’ll use my iPhone’s built-in speakers to listen to a YouTube video here and there.
Apple's iPhone usually feature an excellent camera, and can take some really good photos and videos. Several users also place the iPhone on a tripod, or lean it against a rock, to take group shots or shoot jitter free videos. Of course, you can set a timer and be done with it. However, there are ways to capture photos and videos totally hands-free.
I use Bluetooth audio devices just as often as the next guy — whether it’s a pair if AirPods or Bluetooth headphones for personal music consumption or taking a phone call, or a simple Bluetooth speaker to keep the party raging.
As much as I love the convenience wireless audio transmission for these purposes, one thing that really annoys me is the pecking and popping of my keyboard on these Bluetooth devices when I’m typing a text message reply or searching the web.
A leaker claims that Apple is working on a future software update that will enable you to stream high-fidelity audio in the lossless formats on your AirPods after all.
Bluetooth audio on Mac has always been finicky, as macOS always uses a standard audio codec for all kinds of headphones. This can make the audio sound bad on Bluetooth headphones. Most headphones come with support for advanced audio codecs such as AAC and aptX. However, they will end up using the SBC codec when connected to a Mac.
Apple’s AirPods Pro sent a shockwave through the earbud industry when they became some of the first wireless earbuds to support active noise cancellation. Fast-forward to today, and even Apple’s newer AirPods Max over-ear headphones support this feature along with transparency.
But Apple isn’t the only brand pumping out earbuds and headphones with active noise cancellation and features similar to that of the AirPods Pro and AirPods Max. Sadly, the company limits iOS’ native controls to the first party audio consumption devices — requiring the use of third party apps to control third party accessories (eww).
If you’re using any recent release of iOS or iPadOS, be it 13 or 14, then your handset automatically attempts to protect your hearing by reducing loud sounds when using headphones for extended periods of time.
The option to reduce loud sounds is adjustable in the Settings app, but as many users have pointed out on Apple’s support forums, the adjustment has its limits and may still negatively impact the media consumption experience in certain scenarios even when the user takes steps to mitigate interruptions.
Just last year, we showed you a jailbreak tweak called SmartNetwork by iOS developer Elias Sfeir, which allowed pwned iPhone and iPad owners to enjoy more granular control over their wireless networks — far more than what you’d expect from Apple out of the box on a stock handset.
Now that iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3 can be jailbroken on all devices by way of the unc0ver jailbreak, it’s not too surprising to see that many of these tweaks are being re-released with iOS & iPadOS 14 support. SmartNetwork is no different, although the branding has been changed to SmartNetwork 2 and a plethora of new features have been added since we last went hands on with it.
Sometimes, your iPhone or iPad may incorrectly identify the type of connected Bluetooth audio accessory, which can in turn prevent hearing health audio notifications from showing up. We show you how to manually classify your Bluetooth accessory as a specific type of device.
Mac customers have been painfully aware that the Bluetooth protocol is a bag of hurt. Various unreliability issues that have been plaguing owners of the new M1 Mac computers only exacerbate the underlying problem. But Apple may be fixing unreliable Bluetooth connections on Apple silicon Macs with the upcoming release of the macOS Big Sur 11.2 software update.