The article should have buried sony for how egregious they are. They require the app to collect location information, and ear. https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00233341 I'm not sure what else they collect.. but those are the 2 bad ones.

They've got a few settings that are software controlled (one being the bluetooth's internal volume) What happens if you get a software update and you open the app on a plane without wifi? You can't use it because it requires the internet to get the latest _required tos_ to use your headphones. You can't proceed further without being forced into an agreement. Clicking "don't accept" pushes you back to the tos screen.

I recently tried out wireless noise-cancelling headphones from both Bose and Sony, and (the important privacy issues aside) the user experience with these apps is just horrible.

You unpack your Bose headphone, eager to use them. But before that, you have to download an app on the iPhone, then download a software update program on your laptop, which in turn opens a program in the browser that downloads an update, then you connect the headphones with a wire to the laptop that the update gets installed, and THEN you can start using them.

I send both back and now I'm a happy AirPod user.

I didn’t find that an issue at all, and not sure what you mean about the laptop part I only use the mobile app to upgrade my qc 35s.

I do find the Bose UX to be horrible though for another reason, which is the incredibly stupid “feature” that the headphones can be connected to multiple devices at once. Since I use it both with my phone and laptop and they’re often in range of each other, sometimes the audio control will just switch back to the other device than the one I’m trying to use, I assume because of some background process that’s still open, and I lose my sound. If one device is on the edge of connectivity range, it’ll beep every couple of minutes as it connects and disconnects even though I’m not even using it. Then if I ever want to connect a third device like a tablet, it’s made to switch back and forth between exactly 2 devices not 3 so things get even more messed up.

It’s quite annoying, and I feel like I’m the only one bothered by these issues because I don’t see a lot of other people complaining. But I’ll definitely be switching to a different brand away from Bose when these headphones wear out. Probably the upcoming over ear Apple headphones, since I find airpods to not have any of these issues and generally work great at switching between two devices without being stolen back by the previous device.

I found this project which helps with the later problem: https://github.com/odlp/bluesnooze