Quick Takes: Audiophile Calls AirPods Best Truly Wireless Earbuds He’s Ever Heard in Year-Later Review

In addition to our standalone articles covering the latest Apple news and rumors at MacRumors, this Quick Takes column provides a bite-sized recap of other headlines about Apple and its competitors on weekdays.

Monday, March 19

Highlights

1. AirPods: the audiophile review: The Verge’s Vlad Savov finally got around to testing a pair of AirPods, over a year after they launched, and now understands why so many people are fans of Apple’s wireless earphones. Once dismissive of them, he now thinks AirPods are the best truly wireless earbuds he’s heard.

I say the AirPods aren’t technically amazing, but that’s only when comparing against existing standards for sound quality. In the category of truly wireless earbuds, the AirPods are the best I’ve yet heard. Bragi’s The Headphone and Dash Pro left me underwhelmed, with the latter being especially bloated and disfigured by an overabundance of bass.

Commentary: AirPods are easily one of Apple’s best new products in the past few years. They’re easy to set up, easy to use, easy to carry around, and more than likely sound “good enough” for the majority of customers.

2. The case for an ePad: Drawing inspiration from the education-only eMac, released in 2002, 512 Pixels’ Stephen Hackett envisions what an education-only iPad or so-called “ePad” could be. His suggestions include a more rugged design, Apple Pencil and external keyboard support, and more competitive pricing.

3. HQ Trivia had a weird night: The smartphone-based live trivia show offered a winner-takes-all $25,000 prize on Sunday night, but the would-be winner was ejected from the game for violating the rules, according to HQ. The company hasn’t explained what the rule-breaking behavior was.

Then, on early Monday, HQ Trivia was briefly removed from the App Store. TechCrunch confirmed that the game was briefly unavailable due to an unrelated clerical error. More specifically, someone forgot to update HQ Trivia’s expired credit card info in Apple’s developer portal, according to the report.

HQ moderators kick players that violate HQ’s Terms of Service and Contest Rules. For more information, please refer to our Terms of Service here: https://t.co/septsPVgOm

— HQ Trivia (@hqtrivia) March 19, 2018

Commentary: It sounds like HQ Trivia caught a cheater on its hands, but we may never know for sure. The good news is that the amount now rolls over, meaning next Sunday’s winner-takes-all prize will be $50,000, its largest jackpot ever. The game is scheduled to begin at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

Other Links

• People are accidentally setting off Apple’s Emergency SOS alert: While we don’t recommend it, the auto-calling feature can be disabled in Settings > Emergency SOS. When turned off, users must swipe their finger across the Emergency SOS slider to call emergency services.
• Google Pay now supports transit, starting with the Las Vegas Monorail: Apple Pay also works with select transit systems, including Transport for London, Utah Transit Authority in Salt Lake City, TriMet in Portland, all forms of transit that accept Suica in Japan, and others.

For more Apple news and rumors coverage, visit our Front Page, Mac Blog, and iOS Blog. Also visit our forums to join in the discussion.

Related Roundup: AirPodsTag: Quick TakesBuyer’s Guide: AirPods (Caution)
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Apple Seeds Sixth Beta of macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 to Developers

Apple today seeded the sixth beta of an upcoming macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 update to developers, one week after seeding the fifth beta and one month after the release of a macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 Supplemental Update to address a bug that could cause apps to crash when receiving a character from the Indian language Telugu.

The new macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 beta can be downloaded from the Apple Developer Center or through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store with the proper profile installed.

macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 includes bug fixes and performance improvements for issues that weren’t addressed in macOS High Sierra 10.13.3.

The update offers support for some features that are available in iOS 11.3, like Messages on iCloud, which uploads all of your iMessages to the cloud. It will also support Business Chat, a feature coming when iOS 11.3 and macOS 10.13.4 are released to the public, and it includes improved support for eGPUs.

The macOS 10.13.4 update also brings the smoke cloud wallpaper that was previously only available on the iMac Pro and it introduces a warning when opening up a 32-bit app as part of an effort to phase them out.

In the future, Apple plans to phase out 32-bit Mac apps, just like it did with 32-bit iOS apps. Apple says macOS High Sierra is the last version of macOS that will support 32-bit apps without compromises.

Related Roundup: macOS High Sierra
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