vishae
vishae

Random thought. If I had two pairs of Apple AirPods, I can pair the right ear with my MacBook and my left ear with my iPhone…

I’m not sure what I’d do with that – and I’m definitely not saying I have the cash for buying a second pair of AirPods – but, random thought.

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jean
jean

@vishae Yes, that should work. Interesting idea, except for the expense. (I lost my first pair after 18 months, but I rely on them so much, I finally forked over for my second pair after two weeks of fruitless searching. 😭)

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jamescousins
jamescousins

@macgenie @vishae I’m not sure that would work, doesn’t iCloud sync the pairings with all devices using your Apple ID? Certainly mine work with devices I don’t use with headphones and have never paired with.

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ronguest
ronguest

@vishae Not sure I get the actual use case? I’m intrigued.

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vishae
vishae

@jamescousins well I can use either my AirPods or a friend’s AirPod anytime with my iPad. So I’m sure I can have more than one pair of AirPods associated with my iCloud account.

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vishae
vishae

@ronguest I haven’t thought it through yet, I was thinking something like tap the left AirPod (link to my Mac) to activate Siri to do one thing and tap my right AirPod (linked to my iPhone) to activate Shortcuts to do something entirely differently. Or, since I already have my AirPods set to do different things on each ear (I have play/pause on the left and Siri on the right), I can mix and match to make a call with my iPhone and control Siri on a different device with the other ear.

Now I’m beginning to imagine those “busy” people with multi-tasking up the wazoo, two phone calls going at once etc etc...

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ronguest
ronguest

@vishae Whoa - that’s ninja level!

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jean
jean

@jamescousins @vishae Too bad I lost my first pair, or I could test. But both pairs are visible in my Bluetooth screen, because I named them different names.

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jamescousins
jamescousins

@macgenie @vishae We could club together to buy a test pair!

What I found is that they were automatically paired with devices on the same iCloud account (they could pair with other things too). Then there's a decision made somewhere on what should be played, I discovered it because I put them in while using my MacBook before picking up my phone. As soon as I picked up the phone the sound switched from the MacBook and the phone suggested the Music app.

Apple are clearly trying to work out what you want to hear for you and I wonder if this is case where it would decide it knows best - who would want two different sound sources?

(I don't know why, but I'm really curious about how it would handle it.)

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jean
jean

@jamescousins @vishae Sigh. Of course if you own two pair, you're chances of losing one pair is increased 100%.

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jamescousins
jamescousins

@macgenie @vishae I do like that they appear in Fine My iPhone, but it's annoying that there isn't a way to identify them when you are at the location.

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JohnPhilpin
JohnPhilpin

@jamescousins @vishae @macgenie talking to a one pair household here ... and the pair is paired with all the devices - but only one at a time ... i think we live in an all or nothing world.

That said - @macgenie's comment (and the nature of this joke will obviously date it) ... reminded me of the statistician who always travelled with a bomb in his suitcase.

Why?

Because he was afraid of being blown up by a terrorist bomb - and at the time the odds were one in 10,000 that there would be a bomb on any plane he flew.

BUT

the odds that there would be TWO bombs on a single plane were 10 million to one.

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dougfredericks
dougfredericks

@vishae I can’t be the only person to sometimes put headphones on over the AirPods? Say listen to music on headphones while waiting for a call on the AirPods.

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vishae
vishae

@dougfredericks I’ve definitely done that before. But I’ve since discovered that you can play podcasts and music while on the phone. This only works when the call waiting music isn’t too loud or obnoxious though.

I’m surprised not more call centre use the “we’ll put your number in a queue and will call you back when you get to the head of the queue” feature. Who wants to wait on the phone for an hour?

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In reply to
vishae
vishae

@jamescousins when you say identify them when you are at the location... does making them play a sound not work for you?

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jamescousins
jamescousins

@vishae It only works when connected to your phone. If not, then it shows the last place they were connected (e.g. mine currently show as being at my office, although I have brought them home). You could be sitting on them and if you’ve not opened the case wouldn’t be able to ping them.

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