PRODUCT REVIEW: Apple AirPods

(Heart-Shaped Box - Ramin Djawadi)

Apple has a long and storied history of shaking up various industries when they choose to get involved.  Success or failure, Apple's involvement rarely leaves the landscape unchanged in their passing.  A year and a half ago, they jumped into the wireless headphone arena when they released the Apple AirPods.  The faithful swooned, as they always so, but everyone else was skeptical in the extreme, and some of the reports of questionable functionality that surfaced later indicated that AirPods might very well have been one of Apple's 'misses'.

A year and a half has passed and the smoke on the battlefield has cleared, so I elected to give them a try.

Should you?


THE SHORTISH VERSION:

If you have an iPhone and spent a lot of time on calls or listening to music in your office, at home, or on the go, YES.   Otherwise...maybe not.


THE LONG VERSION:

I am an audiophile.  I'm not trained up on frequencies, loss, delay, speaker action time, or dynamic equalizing, mind you.  What I am is someone who really enjoys music and has extremely good hearing, so I appreciate it when music sounds good.  I've bought and used many different kinds of headphones and earphones over the years in the pursuit of good audio at a fair price.  My current stable includes a set of wired Sennheisers for studio work when I'm doing Voice Over work, a set of Plantronics Backbeat Pro BT headphones for travel, and, until recently, a set of vanilla Samsung earbuds that came with some smartphone that I had awhile back.  Lastly, I have a set of M-POW Magneto BT earphones.  Each of these headsets have their strengths and weaknesses:

• The Sennheisers sound great, but there's that annoying wire to contend with, and now that Apple has gone courageous, I can't use them with my iPhone without also having to carry an adapter around with me.  Plus, I can't use them for phone calls.


• The Plantronics BackBeat Pro headphones also sound incredible, but they're big and heavy, so I only break them out when I'm going to be in one place for a long time, like a long plane or car ride.  I can use these for phone calls, and they sound wonderful when I do, but if I want to use them with more than one device, there's the headache of Bluetooth pairing to deal with.  Their battery life is excellent, but they charge with a MicroUSB cable, which is a standard I don't use anymore because...Apple.


• The Samsung earbuds are portable and I can make calls with them, but they're very sensitive to movement and their audio quality is sub-par compared to my other rigs.


• The Magneto headphones work well enough.  Their sound is better than my Samsung buds, if still on the weak side. but they take forever to power on and their charge only lasts for a few hours before I have to plug them in with a Micro USB cable, which I don't typically use anymore.  Additionally, while they're feather-light, you can't exactly wad them up and put them in a pocket without pulling out a tangled mess later.

So why AirPods?  The answer is 'Accessibility'.  See, when iOS 12 drops, Apple is adding AirPods to the list of compatible BT devices that can be used with their Live Listen feature, which is INSANELY COOL if you have a hearing impairment.  I don't, but I work on behalf of customers that do, so I wanted to check them out.

I was completely unprepared to fall in love with them, but fall I did.  Hard.

If you're not familiar with what AirPods are or how they look, there's a whole lot of Internet out there that you can fix that with, so I won't bother describing them in general.  "But Steve," you cry, "Why didn't you do an unboxing?"

Good question.  The answer?  There's not much to unbox.  They come in a white box that's typical of everything that comes out of Cupertino these days.  The packaging is simple and efficient.  Open box, remove AirPod case.  The pods themselves are already in the case.  Apple does do you a solid by giving you another lightning cable to charge them with, which is nice. 

Let's address a few things right away:

• BUILD QUALITY:  For the most part, the AirPods themselves feel robust.  The plastic they're made out of doesn't feel hugely robust, but they're so light that I'm not overly scared of dropping them.  The case, on the other hand, scares me for a few reasons.  The top of the case itself feels flimsy compared to the rest of the case, which is significantly heavier due to the battery inside of it.  I wouldn't want to drop this thing, especially on concrete.  Ware yourself.


• BATTERY LIFE: This is one of the major selling points of the AirPod system.  With a full charge, Apple says you can get 5 hours of listen time and 2 hours of talk time out of your AirPods, and I'd believe every last word of that based on the hard use I've put them through over the last few days.  That might not seem like a lot compared to other BT headphone solutions, but that's also where the case comes in.  The battery in the case can very quickly provide several additional full charges to the AirPods.  Apple says that you'll get up to 24 hours of listen time and 11 hours of talk time between the batteries in the AirPods and the battery in the case.  I'd believe that too.  I used them pretty hard over the course of three days and was only at half power in my case by the end of it all.  Apple says that 15 minutes in the case gets you 3 hours of listening time and 1 hour of talk time.  I'd believe that too.


• AUDIO QUALITY: There are a lot of folks out there that are banging on the AirPods for their poor audio quality, and I'll be honest, I'm not sure what they're on about.  No, the audio isn't as robust as my Plantronics Over-The-Ear cans, but those are huge, and have room for much more complex audio equipment.  The sound that you get out of the AirPods is impressive.  The only flaws I've found are that their bass response isn't that tight, so really bass-heavy music will distort a little when you get loud.  Getting them loud takes turning them up quite a bit.  My other headphones are MUCH louder, but these are more than loud enough for all but the noisiest environments.


• FIT:  Apple has taken a lot of heat in the past for the fit of their EarPods, and rightfully so.  A lot of folks don't like the way they fit and complain that they slip out of their ears too easily due to the slick plastic that they use.  Be warned:  AirPods are shaped almost exactly the same, and appear to be made of the same plastic.  That said, because you don't have wires jiggling them around, I find that they stay in place very well if you're using them casually.  People who run or cycle might have problems with them, especially once the sweat really kicks in, but for every day use around the house or the office, I had no problems at all.   Walking around Costco, I had to nudge them back in a time or two, but nothing that was annoying.  I have that problem with every pair of earbuds that I use.  (For those who DO want to use their AirPods for more active situations, there are silicon attachments you can get to lock them more securely in place.  Fair warning though, if you get those, you won't be able to close them in their case without removing them.  Quid Pro Quo.)  Because of this semi-loose fit, you won't get the noise isolation that you might get from other earbuds with felt or foam coverings.  Again though, I think they're just fine.

Based on the merits I disclosed above, these things would be worth the purchase price.  Apple is the king of adding additional features onto already good products, however, and AirPods are no exception:

• AUTO-PAIRING: I cannot, cannot, CANNOT express how wonderful the pairing mechanism for the AirPods is.  There's none of the usual rigamarole that you have to deal with most Bluetooth devices.  You simply take the AirPod case out of the box they come in, hold the box in your hand, and pick your phone up with your other hand.  Then flip the top of the AirPod case open.  BOOM.  That's it.  You automatically get a little pop-up on your phone's screen saying that it knows there are AirPods nearby.  You tap the 'Connect' button, and that's it.  Done.  Stuff them in your ears and go.


• PLATFORM PAIRING: There are lots of things to hate about Apple's 'Walled Garden' ecosystem, but there are occasionally advantages to it, and this is one of them.  If your iPhone is connected to an Apple ID, any other device with your Apple ID attached to it is also pre-paired.  Your Mac and iPad will already be paired, so all you have to do is flip over to your Bluetooth Menu and you'll find your AirPods there.  Just click connect, and voila!  THIS IS HUGE for those of us who move equipment between devices.


• DOUBLE-TAP: If you're hooked up to an iPhone or iPad, you can go into the Bluetooth Settings for your AirPods and assign Double Tap actions to them, such as triggering Siri or controlling your music playback.  This sounds like a gimmick until you realize that you don't have to take your phone out of your pocket to trigger Siri, answer or end calls, or control other aspects of your phone.  Ye Gods.


• SHEER PORTABILITY: There was a certain kind of genius in providing an easy-to-use case that is also a charging station.  Stuff the AirPods into their case so you don't worry about them rolling around in your pocket or bag and getting lint in the earpieces, and the case itself isn't prohibitively large, so you don't mind it in your pocket.  This makes you want to take them EVERYWHERE with you, and I absolutely do.


• CROSS-PLATFORM FUNCTIONALITY: Yes, you can pair them with Android devices.  You lose some of the enhanced features, but the battery life and portability stay the same, and that was a stroke of brilliance on Apple's part.  Building tech that works REALLY WELL on Apple devices but can be used on other devices as well is a wonderful revenue generator.  That sounds dull and corporate, but it's the truth.

This is one of those pieces of technology that perfectly exemplifies Apple's expressed design philosophy of doing something well, and giving something more as well.  On its own, this is a great product, but the added features and functionality built into them makes them well worth the $160 price point.  My recommendation is to get a pair from a store like Best Buy and take advantage of their 2 Week Return Policy.  I promise you, you will know immediately if you love them or hate them, and if you're an avid Apple product user, I suspect very strongly that you'll love them.

I know I do, and I haven't even gotten to use them for the reasons why I bought them yet.