Bluetooth

Don’t like the color of your AirPods? Have them repainted black to match your iPhone 7

Ever since AirPods made their long-expected albeit delayed debut, some Apple users—this author included—have been scratching their head over the inexplicable lack of a Jet Black edition. That's why we're thankful and excited for the BlackPods project.

Taking advantage of a proprietary three-phase coating system, BlackPods promises to give Apple's first truly wireless earphones a luxurious scratch-resistant black finish that should match any Black, Jet Black or even Space Gray iPhone perfectly.

How and where to share faster with AirDrop

In the absence of reliable figures from Apple, it is not much more than conjecture to say that AirDrop is likely a feature often neglected by the average iOS user. The gut feeling persists though, simply based on day to day observations, and it is a tenable position to take until proven wrong by Cupertino or another reputable source. The file transfer protocol is indeed handy for the transfer of heavier media files (e.g. videos, photo albums), but often only becomes relevant to us when we for example have upgraded to a new device.

Next to sheer transmission speed however, there are other notable areas where AirDrop has the clear edge when it comes to sharing all kinds of material from your iPhone. The AirDrop icon has now fully permeated the sharing tab in iOS 10’s user interface and that is for a good reason: it is without fail going to be more nimble than iMessage, Mail or other contenders, often actually skipping steps that would throttle the process elsewhere. Such being the case, here are some unique scenarios where AirDrop excels on your iPhone and why you should try to embrace the feature more regularly.

How to find out your AirPods firmware version

Seeing AirPods firmware version

Most Bluetooth headphones have firmware that can be periodically updated, and AirPods are no different. These firmware updates tend to be extremely small in size and usually offer bug fixes and stability improvements in order to fix issues users may encounter, like quick battery drain. In this post, we will show you how you can find out what your AirPods firmware version is.

Apple shares new AirPods ads showcasing Siri, seamless Bluetooth pairing & more

Male headshot showing a profile of a young person wearing an AirPod in their left ear

Apple on Saturday shared four brief television commercials for AirPods on its official YouTube channel, running fifteen seconds long each. The videos showcase some of the key user features of the wireless earphones, like accessing Siri with a double-tap and seamless Bluetooth pairing on Apple gear made possible by the firm's in-house designed wireless chip, dubbed the W1. Watch the new ads and let us know how you like them in comments.

In addition to the company's first-ever AirPods ads, they also released a new fitness-focused Apple Watch advertisement which challenges you to close those Activity rings.

Chrome 56 adds support for FLAC codec, “Not Secure” HTTP warning, web Bluetooth & more

Chrome 56 for Mac and other platforms has entered Google's beta channel. When released to the general public, the browser will bring native support for the FLAC audio codec within the browser and other perks. This should come in handy because macOS does not support the FLAC file format out of the box so users often must use a third-party converter or video player to play these files. With Chrome 56, Mac users will be able to play FLAC-encoded audio files embedded in web pages or local files drag and dropped onto the browser window.

AirPods earned 1 out of each 4 dollars from wireless headphones sold online in December

Market research firm Slice Intelligence estimated that AirPods, Apple's $159 wireless earphones, took one out of each four dollars spent online on wireless headphones in December 2016. Launched on December 13, AirPods grabbed an estimated 26 percent share of online revenue in the wireless headphone market, beating out Apple's premium audio brand Beats which captured an estimated 15.4 percent of the market, down from 24.1 percent between the start of 2015 and December 13.

In other words, Apple has managed to capture one-fourth of the wireless headphones market since the launch of AirPods. And if you also count Beats sales, the Cupertino company took almost 40 percent of online revenue in the wireless headphone market.

New AirPods patent reveals exactly how seamless Bluetooth pairing method functions

A new patent application for “Wireless audio output devices,” published Thursday by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), describes exactly how Apple's new W1 chip inside AirPods enables zero-configuration Bluetooth pairing. In a nutshell, the charging case that comes with AirPods doubles as a physical pairing interface.

Aside from a built-in battery, the case features its own microprocessor and communications stack, a motion-detecting lid for starting the seamless pairing process with an Apple device and a physical button for manual Bluetooth pairing with non-Apple hardware, like Android handsets.

Testing the operating range of AirPods and Beats Solo3 vs non-W1 Beats headphones

Much has been said about the virtues of the W1 chip Apple started baking into their latest wireless Beats line-up and of course the AirPods. By now we know for sure that W1 facilitates a much faster pairing process, as do we know that the chip significantly amplifies both battery life and conservation techniques. What’s less prominently talked about - at least from official sides - is the operating range of these wireless headphones and the presumed effect the W1 chip addition has had on that benchmark.

For I felt information on the internet was just a bit too murky to count on, I decided to take it upon myself and conduct a little experiment: I packed my rucksack with four headphones (two of which boast the new W1 chip) and headed to a nearby park in order to pit them against each other. Pairing them one after another and then slowly making a bee-line for the opposite direction, one thing quickly became clear: the results for the maximum distance obtainable aren’t surprising in terms of order, but they definitely are in their clarity.

Samsung developing own AirPods-like earphones for Galaxy S8 launch

Samsung is probably going to rip off AirPods next: the company should debut all-new wireless earphones alongside Galaxy S8 launch, according to confidential information received by SamMobile. “Samsung is surely looking to put out a product that competes with Apple’s AirPods,” reads the report.

Samsung, of course, was found guilty of lifting Apple's hardware and software designs in the past.

It currently owes the Cupertino firm hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Back in 2015, Samsung copied the look and feel of Apple's wired EarPods for Galaxy S6.