Hey,
So after a false start at the beginning of the week, Apple have finally dropped firmware Version 7E101 for the AirPods Max USB-C to allow ultra low latency and USB-C to USB-C connection to devices to get lossless audio.
I'll not speak on the audio aspect of the update, you'll find loads on that, rather I thought I'd look at it from the voiceover user perspective.
First off, latency is drastically reduced compared with bluetooth. It's not bad on bluetooth, the AirPods in general seem to have an upper hand in this over other headphones, but there is a noticeable improvement. I would say, and maybe it is just because I'm taking particular notice, there still seems to be a tiny lag between input and voiceover speaking. This may well just be me and how voiceover behaves. I don't think it is one of the snappiest screen readers out there. For reference, I use Alex but, on the whole, a big improvement.
One nice thing to note is that, even when plugged in, removing your headphones, due to the wear sensor, voiceover returns to the speaker of my iPhone. Other headphones that you might connect in a similar way would remain connected meaning, sound would continue to come out of the headphones until you disconnect them.
Please ask any other questions and I'll try to answer. Covering a few I anticipate:
No, this is not available on the lightning version of the AirPods Max.
Update is done by plugging in the headphones, outside of the case, and leaving them next to either your IOS device or Mac, there is no manual way of updating.
Any USB-C cable, it seems, will work, as long as it can transmit data.
The microphone appears to work over USB-C to USB-C where it does not when using the new Apple 1.2 M USB-C to 3.5 cable.
Hope this helps.
Comments
Lag
The tiny amount of lag might just be a factor of the synthesiser. Back when I used a macbook pro 2009 I always found a tiny delay in the speech, even from the day I took it out of the box brand new. That's just the price of a higher quality voice sadly.
Spatial Audio and spatialized stereo
I am thinking about getting the USB-C AirPods Max. Does spatial audio work via USB? Also, there is a feature called spatialized stereo, which makes tracks that aren’t in spatial audio sound like they are in spatial audio. Does this work over USB?
This also works in other apps like YouTube as well
USB Audio Class?
Have you yet tried connecting to anything except a Mac or iOS device? Can you, for instance, drive your APMs from a Windows box?
That's Very, Very Reassuring
I must confess to a newfound admiration for the wonderful audio engineers at Apple, who clearly have our keenest interests at heart …
How have you found other processing affected by the USB interface? If you manipulate the phone/media headphone accommodation settings while connected via USB, does it work and can you hear the difference in realtime?
Are you going for the 3.5 mm jack cable yourself? Do you see a need for one now you've got functionally equivalent (and betterff) from the USB interface?
That's Awesome, Thanks
Seems pretty likely that one of these is in my future, irrespective of whether the Lightning ones I now have break, so I can travel lighter. Thanks for filling in the details.