The thing is, it’s not just me/Sony. There’s been several reports of similar sort of issues for wireless headphones in general.
And in comparison, there’s very little issues with wired, so my point still stands - wireless audio still has issues - I don’t care if it’s a fault with Bluetooth or an implementation bug on the headphones or the app or the OS, the point is, there are still issues that you may be unaware of when buying a wireless headphones, when there’s next to none with wired.
You’re quick to blame Sony, but if you can’t trust a reputable Japanese brand who’ve been making audio equipment for over 70 years now, who can you trust? Afterall, reviews are “biased” and can’t be trusted, so I guess it’s down to pure luck then, right? And even if you get lucky and think you’ve made a good buy, there’s no guarantee that something won’t break with a future update. For instance, here’s a thread where someone’s mic stopped working after a Windows update - turns out that the fault was with the Intel Bluetooth drivers, and downgrading the drivers or the update fixes it. Who wants to put up with this sort of nonsense when you’ve got a meeting or an interview to attend to, and suddenly you find your headphones no longer work because of a fricking update?
This sort of unreliability is precisely why many people prefer sticking to the tried and trusted wired headphones.
Well, my point still stands. How is one supposed to know that this particular headset had these sort of issues? I did extensive research before buying mine, and no one reported any such issues. Admittedly, it was still fairly new when I purchased it so there may not have that many reviews, but Sony isn’t some random brand and their audio gear is generally well received.
On the other hand, I could just pick up any cheapo TRRS headset and know that it’ll work without a cinch. We’re just not there yet with wireless headsets if we can’t even rely on reputed brands to work consistently.
So I have a:
- Sony WH-1000XM5 (which I use in both wired and Bluetooth modes)
- Galaxy Fold 4
- MacBook Air M1
These are all fairly recent devices, with the Sony one being the most recent headphones in it’s series, running the latest firmware too, which was released last month.
Now here are my issues:
- Fold 4: When I get a call on Google Meet or Duo and I turn on my headphones, the audio doesn’t work. I have to disconnect the call, close the app, and reconnect for it to work.
- MacBook: Similar thing happens with Microsoft Teams. In this case though, my headphones is already paired with my MacBook and connected, so I fire up Teams (from scratch) and dial in to a meeting. You’d expect it to work fine right, but the audio doesn’t work, even though Teams detects my headphones as the output device. I have to turn my headphones off and on during the call (or reboot my MacBook) for it to work properly.
I can reproduce these issues consistently. I’m not a 100% sure if it’s an issue with my Sony headphones, but the point is, all these products that I’ve listed are fairly recent and fairly expensive, and I deserve a better user experience. Bluetooth has indeed come a long way, and at least for me, audio quality isn’t really an issue, but the fact that these sort of connectivity issues are still occurring on recent, premium devices, is unacceptable.
The lights at my previous workplace. They were super bright, depressing, fluorescent lights, and even though we had windows with natural light coming thru, they’d have the overhead lights on at full blast. Not only was it a massive waste of electricity, the lights actually hurt my eyes, and made me hate my workplace. I loved the WFH phase during covid since I could just rely on natural light - and was so much more productive and in a better mood. Unfortunately they started calling us back into the office with 3 compulsory days, and that was the last straw which made me quit my job.
Perhaps https://archive.org/ is the closest you could get? With nearly a trillion web pages in its archive, I don’t think I’ve ever come across a database of knowledge that comes close to it’s collection. What’s interesting is that archive.org preserves not only web pages, but several pieces of binary content such as music, movies, art and even software applications and entire operating systems. Not sure if it would be enough to rebuild our society, but it would be a great starting point for most of our essentials.
Why wouldn’t you prefer a headphone jack in your phone?
I’ve seen some people literally say that they don’t want a phone with a useless hole in it (in fact, it was said right here on Lemmy not long ago), whereas others claim that not having a headphone jack == bigger battery. Some, like Fairphone fanboys in particular, have gone as far as claiming that removing the headphone jack reduces e-waste…
- @d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz to
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If it’s something like a restaurant, just make a listing for it on sites like OpenStreetMaps or even Google Maps, for visibility. Make sure that the listing is fully fleshed out, including timings, photos, menu, pictures of dishes and ambiance etc - this is a step most restaurants fail to do, and it’s something very simple/
I’d say also make a website if you don’t have one already, and once again, ensure that it’s fully fleshed out with the same details as above. Maybe have an online reservation system. Use keywords for SEO so that your restaurant will come up in searches - maybe worthwhile hiring a proper web dev if you’d don’t have experience with this.
Then spread word via word-of-mouth, come up with a referral or coupon system, provide discounted meals for the first month etc. If your menu/service/pricing/location is good, then customers will flock to you on their own and they will do the advertising for you.
That may be the case where you and I live perhaps, but these countries that I speak of, have an entire ecosystem built around WhatsApp. Many companies there no longer provide a customer support number that you can call for instance, they expect you to interact with a bot run on WhatsApp, which can further lead to chatting with an actual agent speaking to them, but that’s all done via WhatsApp. Also many teachers in schools and universities share lecture notes and study material via WhatsApp groups. Doctors and medical labs may share electronic copies of your reports via it. Some restaurants accept reservation requests solely via WhatsApp. It can even handle payments now, and besides using it as a means to send money to someone, some companies have even built entire e-commerce platforms around it, using interactive bots and the payment features. So for you and I, WhatsApp may be just another messaging service, but in these countries WhatsApp is quickly turning into an “everything” platform, and it’s not trivial for someone to just replace it, unless they want to go live in a cave and cut themselves off from modern society.
That’s the thing though, they have been pissing everyone off for over a decade now, going back to the days when Facebook introduced the algorithmic feed/timeline thing, and then with the promoted posts, and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the data harvesting and ads and blatant privacy violations. They’re one of the scummiest organisations out there and yet you all keep using it’s products and happily whoring yourselves out to Meta. Sure you can switch in theory, so what are y’all waiting for? There’s plenty of reasons to switch, plenty of decent alternatives too. The truth is, you can’t really switch. You don’t have a choice.
If you think you’ve got a choice, I dare you to uninstall WhatsApp for a month or two, and see if you’re able to get by without any issues. Then you’ll know why I said they they have you by the balls - basically, you’re a hostage, a slave. You really have no choice, no freedom, even if you’ve got other apps installed. You may convince your friends and family to switch, but do you really think the thousands of companies, government agencies etc will just switch for no good reason? Will they make new chat bots for the alternative apps? Will they develop new SoPs/documentation for their internal staff, spend time and money on marketing and advertising the new way of contacting them? Waiting for Meta to do something major to piss everyone off may never happen - Meta isn’t that foolish, and as people get more and more used to Meta’s products and their way of doing things, they get more and more entwined into the ecosystem and they’ll find it even more harder to leave. If everyone’s going to wait for everyone else to switch, then no one will switch.
I was there. It was fine. You didn’t need phones to be able to function in a society. Phones were something like an optional convenience that you had only at fixed places, like your home or office. If you were out and about, you typically didn’t have access to a phone, unless you were in the vicinity of a payphone, so you weren’t expected to be available on phone. Whereas in the countries where Meta has monopoly over, everyone expects you to be on WhatsApp, and you don’t really get a choice in the matter.
In some of those countries, it’s not really a choice. Like, WhatsApp is the only way of contacting a company’s customer care (via chat bots that run on it), colleges and universities may have study groups on it and teachers may hand out notes etc in those groups, also apparently it’s also the only way to contact even some government agencies.