I got my new AirPods 4 on Friday and I’m loving them. The noise cancellation is really astounding and for someone who lives in an urban environment, I really appreciate it.
I never really got to loving the AirPods 3. They would eject themselves from my ears a lot, causing damage to them. Some of that damage occurred early on and significantly downgraded the experience.
But the AirPods 4 so far seem to stick in the ears where they belong.
Anyone else loving these?
Why use the Airpods 4 rather than Airpods Pro? Comfort?
I’ve always had AirPods. Never had or even tried AirPods Pro. I tried other in-ear headphones before and didn’t find it comfortable so I’ve always relied on AirPods
Nearly anything in my ear canals causes pain. I couldn’t even wear a high-end hearing aid with any of the ear molds provided by the manufacturer — even their “special” ones. The only one that sort of worked was so loose that it repeatedly slid out. After a few days of pushing it back into place, the skin started to break down.
I ended up needing a custom ear mold for my hearing aid.
So I’ve never bothered to try the AirPods Pro, despite my heavy use of AirPods.
I’m looking forward to trying the noise cancellation of the AirPods 4, but my current pair of AirPods 3 are still in pretty good shape so I haven’t spent the money yet. Also, because of my hearing loss, I tend to avoid noisy environments, so I don’t have a great need for noise cancellation.
The noise cancellation is pretty good on the new AirPods 4. I was very surprised as to how they did that. That being said, it sort of feels like you’re under water at times. You can feel the pressure in a way, so i don’t want it on all the time. I turn it on if I’m listening to music and there’s some background sounds or a lot of traffic on the road
Here’s a good review of them: Hands-on with AirPods 4: better in every way
I’ve never liked in ear earphones before, but that was when they were wired.
I love the pros a lot, they’re my daytime AirPods.
I do lament the loss of the AirPods 1 and 2 as I liked the ability to double tap to pause but when my AirPods 2 die I don’t know what I’ll do for new night time AirPods.
Yes, I prefer the tap control to the squeeze control.
I have experienced a few times using the AirPods 4 that people on the other end of a call report that I sound “far away” when on a call or that they can’t hear me at all
Has anyone else experienced this?
I just returned my AirPods 4 with ANC today to Apple. I’m expecting a new pair to be delivered soon.
The issue was that when ANC was on and I on a call then the receiver on the other end would tell me that they couldn’t hear what I was saying or that I was “far away” when speaking.
Once ANC was off on the call then there was no issue.
Anyone else had this issue with AirPods 4 with ANC?
Just wanted to resurface this thread as more people may have gotten their hands on the AirPods 4 with ANC.
Here is my rundown of my experience with them:
I bought the AirPods 4 with ANC they day they came out and received them a few days later. Used them for three weeks and nearly went bezerk over the number of times this issue occurred. People reporting that when speaking on the phone I would drop out every other word or so. Extremely annoying.
I couldn’t for the life of me imagine that Apple would ship a product with such a terrible flaw and I couldn’t find any reports of this issue online. So I came to the conclusion that I must have had a faulty set of AirPods 4. It was a hassle returning them, but Apple finally allowed me to return them in exchange for a new pair.
Same issue with the new pair of course! On and off with Apple support and finally got in touch with a capable support assistant who helped me lessen this issue. It helps to turn off the noice cancellation completely when speaking on the phone. I don’t know what the reason for that is, but it helps.
It also helps, when on the phone, to swipe down to enter Control Center and then on the top you can see the microphone service when active in a phone call. Go into that and then turn off background isolation and set it to “Standard” instead. This will also help make people hear you better UNLESS, of course, you’re in a very noisy environment then having it on is more beneficial.
I still can’t believe there isn’t more outrage about this issue. Either the AirPods 4 haven’t sold enough units yet or this issue only happen to people with a certain type of voice or tone. I dont know! But there must be someone at Apple who has this issue and has escalated to make a fix, because it’s really annoying!
I reported it to Apple via Product Feedback - Apple and I suggest everyone else do the same to bring this issue to attention. I still can’t believe they were shipped with this, but I don’t want to be without the noice cancellation so I’m not switching them to another model or even keeping my AirPods 3.
I’ve had the AirPod 4 for a few weeks now and have had regular long conversations on the phone with no issues at all, using iPhone, Mac and with the Watch.
I’ve never had it drop a single word, and I talk a lot on the phone, every day. In fact, phone conversations sound much better than my AirPods Max, and my wife even commented when I got them how much clearer the audio sounds!
I’ve never touched the settings except I use noice cancellation on, as I work with an air conditioner near my desk. I’ve even not had issues when routing calls through my Mac, as I normally answer this way. The issue clearly only occurs under certain circumstances.
I’m not sure what to suggest beyond trying them with someone else’s hardware to see if the issue still occurs.
Based on my experience, a lot of people don’t even use the phone as a phone to make calls so don’t use Airpods for calls. If that’s the case they won’t have come across this.
I’d also guess that those that do use Airpods for phone calls would want better Better ANC and would step up to the Airpods Pro.
On my existing AirPods Pro, with noise cancellation on, I’ve had recent complaints that I can’t be heard because I’m dropping out. When I speak more loudly, the issue goes away. Maybe a similar mic tuning issue in software with noise cancellation on?
This is rare enough that they are still reliable for calls and voice recording, for me.
I hadn’t bothered to do tests because it’s rare enough, but I’m curious now. 
Thanks for your replies here. I think the issue, as also mentioned in a recent thread on Reddit with someone experiencing similar issues as I have described, is that with a small number of users whose voices are in a specific tone or depth the AirPods 4 treats the voices as noise and thus eliminates it. It could also be a software issue on the iPhone so trying them with a different phone might work.
I would still suggest even for @cornchip to bring Apple to the attention of this issue as the more people who report it the more likely it is they will look into it: Product Feedback - Apple
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