Apple’s second application for Android happens to be far more useful than its first. Move to iOS is an app that assists in moving away from Android, so you can imagine that a lot of Android fans didn’t have particularly positive feelings about it. But this one is pretty good.

Beats Pill+ is an app to control the Beats Pill+ speaker, though you probably guessed that. It has some cool features, like an amplify mode for two speakers to play the same audio, and a stereo mode so two speakers play their respective channels. It also allows another person to connect to the speaker and play music with you.

Little extras are a charge indicator and the ability to rename the speaker. Despite the iOS user interface, it looks to be a pretty decent app. There may be some compatibility issues that need to be fixed, but if you have one of these speakers, hit the source link to download the companion app!

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Bluetooth earphones are a new thing for me. I never really thought about it, but the concept of having no cords to get tangled in while jogging or doing chores sounds absolutely fantastic. But they have had significant drawbacks in the past, like battery life and weight. How do a budget pair of earphones stack up these days?

Overview

Bluetooth version: 4.1
Supported profile: Headset, Hands-free, A2DP, AVRCP, Apt-X
Battery life: 7-8 hours
Price: $32.99
Where to buy: Inateck, Amazon US ($10 off with 5QQAWHVN), Amazon UK (£5 off with 99XZX57W)

These Inateck BH1001 earphones are made up of two large earbuds and a short cable in between, with a controller on one side of the cable. The earbuds have magnets inside them, which is meant for a pretty cool feature I’ll talk about later. On the ends are double seal tips that come in two sizes. On one side is a small cover for the micro USB port.

The controller has a multi-function button that turns the earphones on and off — as well as other functions — right by a mic and a status LED. The other side has volume buttons, which adjust volume independently of your device volume. Long pressing them changes the track.

Build quality

These Inateck BH1001 earphones are built fairly well. The earbuds are made entirely of plastic. The plastic is of decent quality, not fantastic but pretty good. This has the benefit of making the earphones really light, which is critical for comfort. There is no creaking or bending to speak of.

The wires are a bit thin, which may not be good for long term reliability, but they seem well built enough. All the buttons are nice and solid, and the micro USB port cover isn’t flimsy. For the price, I’m very impressed.

Audio quality

Did you expect sub-$40 Bluetooth earphones to sound good? No? Well, the Inateck BH1001 do. Once you get a good seal in your ears, the sound really is nice. The bass is surprisingly substantial and thumpy, and the mids and highs are very clear even at high volumes.

The balance of the sound, as with any budget audio product, could use some work. This isn’t an audiophile product, nor should you expect it to be for $33. But it’s far from bad, providing highs, mids, and lows without any one of those getting drowned out.

Overall the sound quality is plain good. I enjoyed listening to these earphones quite a lot.

Comfort

As I’ve stated before, in-ear style earphones don’t fit very well in my ears. Yes, my ears are weird. But these fit pretty well and stay in my ears for fairly long periods of time! It takes a while to make a proper seal for proper sound and fitment, but once they’re in, they stay in. The plastic construction keeps them lightweight, which means they don’t feel particularly heavy in your ears.

The cable is supposed to be behind your neck, which means it doesn’t pull on your ears either.

Battery life

The rated battery life for the BH1001 is 7-8 hours, depending on where you look. And in my testing, it has lasted about as long as advertised. Considering many more expensive earphones advertise around the same battery figures, that’s plain impressive.

My testing was done at medium volumes, and blasting your music may lower battery life, but overall the battery life is very good.

Features

One of my favorite features of these earphones is the magnetic ends. When you’re done listening to your music, take the earphones out and snap the ends together. They’ll stick together, becoming a necklace, and automatically pause the music. I love that feature.

The Inateck BH1001 also features a microphone for phone calls, but unfortunately it’s not so great. People hear me, but my voice isn’t all that clear. The sound is a bit muffled, probably because it’s a bit further back than it should be. But it works okay enough to be understood.

Extras

Included in the box is a surprisingly nice soft case with a zipper. It holds the earphones with space to spare, and even has a pocket for the extra ear tips and micro USB charging cable.

These Bluetooth earphones pretty much do it all. They’re very cheap, lightweight, sound good, have great battery life, and feature wireless (and no flaky connections either). The only issue is the subpar mic, but honestly, they’re great otherwise.

If you’re annoyed by your earphone wires constantly getting in the way and want something new on a budget, this may be perfect for you.

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There are plenty of console and PC video games that make the transition into mobile apps in some form. We’ve seen companion apps, somewhat related games made for mobile (Fallout Shelter comes to mind), and even full spinoffs like Call of Duty. And in some form, Titanfall will be coming to mobile.

Game developer Respawn Entertainment has partnered with Nexon, a free-to-play publisher, and mobile developer Particle City to create a Titanfall-based game for iOS and Android, among others. It’ll likely be free with in-app payments, which is Nexon’s style. What kind of game it will be is unbeknownst to us. It could be a spinoff of the full game, or some card collection game. We hope it isn’t the latter.

The game will be launching sometime next year, so hopefully more details surface soon!

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