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AirPods Max, reviewers are HAPPY
Surprisingly Apple’s AirPods Max have already found their way into the hands of select influencers. The verge has said they’re “crisp and bright with a pleasingly wider soundstage than my Sony headphones” and “Sound more than good enough to compete with other high end headphones”.
Cnet says they “raise the noise cancelling bar” beating both Sony’s catchy named WH-1000XM4 and Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700.
CNBC has also praised the use of the Digital Crown, saying its more precise than the touch controls found on a number of competing brands, and that the build quality is pretty incredible, with the heavier than most headphones being, and I quote, “Super Comfortable”
They have had a little criticism for the smart case which is required to put them into low power standby mode, while being less useful as protection, covering the aluminium ear cups but leaving the presumably more delicate mesh headband exposed.
And to clear up a couple of things, when using these with iPhone, they do not connect via bluetooth, but AirPlay, which gives way more bandwidth than the compressed bluetooth sound, and they do have the option to use them wired too. While the Lightning to jack cable is a rather high $35 (I mean, not Audiophile high) if you have the old lightning to female jack connector included with iPhones for a few years, this will work too with your own male to male headphone cable.
New iPad 9th Gen in Spring?
Apple’s lowest cost iPad looks set to be updated in the spring (presumably March) just 6 months after its previous update alongside Apple Watch last September. This time its getting a decent upgrade too, moving up to the A13 from iPhone 11, as well as a display upgrade.
The 10.2” display is set to be increased to 10.5” as seen in the previous iPad Air 3, along with a storage upgrade to start at 64GB and one question mark is whether the replacement will move to a laminated display – my thoughts are that it likely will in order to make use of the existing production line from iPad Air 3. So no USB-C, no Power button touchID, but possibly a price cut by 10%, down to $299.
Cydia Sues Apple.
It seems many people don’t like Apple having control over the platform the built. Just like Epic Games, Cydia is claiming that Apple is abusing its control of the App Store and that this is stifling innovation to make things better for consumers.
While Jailbreaking was once cool and edgy, it feels like its really dropped from the headlines in the past few years. I’m interested though, if you have a jailbroken iPhone, even if its not your main phone, let me know in the comments as well as why its cool.
Cydia Founder Jay Freeman said “Morally speaking its your phone and you should be able to do whatever you want with it” – though there would be some argument that iOS is used under licence and jailbreaking could breach that. I wouldn’t be opposed though to a way to install alternate operating systems on an iPhone. It might be fun to slum it in Android when your phone’s past its life as your daily driver.