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> Why is the option to use the AirPods in “normal” mode being removed?

I'd challenge the idea that off/passive really is the "normal" mode, from the ordinary user's POV or Apple's POV. The headphones just don't sound good in this configuration, with neither the background nor the audio sounding clear. They aren't engineered to give good sound isolation OR good background pass-through without active support, and until this post, I didn't even realize that the active modes use more battery life.

The messaging to users is also unclear. Without understanding how ANC works, what does "off" actually mean? It's not turning off the audio playback, and it's not turning off the background noise. It IS however turning off the (newly-advertised) active features like Loud Sound Reduction, which users would expect to be working whenever they are wearing the headphones (or at minimum, whenever music is playing).

In typical Apple style, it makes perfect sense for "off" to be treated as an advanced feature; the problem is that they already shipped it a long time ago, and then removed it without any explanation.



>which users would expect to be working whenever they are wearing the headphones (or at minimum, whenever music is playing).

Why would that be the case?


One would assume because it's part of the reason for buying the AirPods in the first place. "Off" mode literally turns off all the ANC/Passthrough and other functionality and turns your AirPods into a basic set of in ear headphones. If people aren't expecting to use them with those features turned on, they are vastly overpaying for an experience they can get with any number of other cheaper non-anc headphones.

I suppose there are probably some people who buy AirPods for the better device to device bluetooth integration but otherwise don't use ANC, but I suspect they don't even approach a significant fraction of Air Pod owners.


>but I suspect they don't even approach a significant fraction of Air Pod owners.

A significant portion of Air Pod owners buy them solely because they are the apple brand of ear buds and don't think about it beyond that. A basic set of ear buds is mostly what people are buying and the other features are nice to have things and not the selling point. People in tech suppose that people shop based upon specific features and technology, but that's rarely true. Mostly it's people with an Apple device needing ear buds and the Apple brand of ear buds is AirPods, that's literally the amount of thought most of them are putting into it.


Could be that anything that puts more cycles on the battery means a replacement will come sooner.




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