PRODUCT REVIEW: Apple AirPods Pro

 (Ordinary Man - Ozzy Osbourne Feat. Elton John)

The rush to make things smaller and sexier has pulled a number of industries along for the ride.  Personal audio equipment is no exception. As with anything else they're involved with, Apple has influenced the development of personal audio a great deal, from their excellent AirPods to their 'courageous' decision to do away with mini-pin jacks on their mobile phones.

Their current juggernaut in this space is the AirPods Pro, a set of true wireless earbuds that are ostensibly designed for professionals.

I mean, they must be, because they tacked on the 'Pro' to the name, so...

Yeah.

Anyway, they went on sale not too long ago so I snagged a pair.  Are they any good?

THE SHORT VERSION:

Yeah, but only if you can get 'em on sale.  And, you know...have multiple Apple devices. Would not pay full price.

THE LONG VERSION:

Can we go back to the whole 'Pro' thing for a moment please?

Image Credit: Unity Electronic

A MacBook Pro is very clearly for professionals because normal mortals don't need the extra wattage in it, and...well, people don't spend the money on MBPs unless they're either professionals or gigantic nerds.  I can totally see the justification for the 'Pro' label.  Admittedly, where Apple is concerned, 'Pro' frequently just means 'Premium', but if you squint at it hard enough in the right light...

iPad Pro? iPhone Pro? Same thing. Different design, better gizmos, better hardware.  Pro. Promium? Yeah.

iMac Pro? Mac Pro? Same.  I get it.

AirPods Pro? I sort of...no.  No, I'm sorry, I don't see it.  When held up against other products in the same category, their feature set and functionality is unremarkable. There's nothing here that makes me go, "Yeah, I could see why professionals might like this, why it might justify the INSANE price tag."  And it is insane, a whopping $250 brand new.

In comparison, some top tier buds from companies like Jabra, Anker, Bose, and the undisputed champion in the space, Sony? They all do this job as good as or better than the AirPods Pro, they do it cheaper, and in many cases, they do it better.  And they aren't marketed to 'Pros'.

Lots of people do durability better.  Lots of people do battery life better. Lots of people fit better in the ear. On, and on and...

Definitely not 'Pro'.

"What about the noise-cancelling tech that Apple put in them?" It's crap.  If you've ever used really good noise cancelling headphones or earbuds -- and by really good, I mean you can get a set for $60 from Soundcore -- you know what solid ANC sounds like.  This ain't it.

"Uh...Transparency!  That's Pro!" Not really.  Other people do it, and other people do it better.

"You can use 'em as discount hearing aids like you could with the Gen 1 AirPods!" Don't bring Accessibility into this.  You won't like where you end up.  Besides, other people caught onto that trick after the first AirPods came out.  This isn't a unique trick anymore, even if it's still cool.

"They have...really cool touch controls?" I'm glad you brought that up, because I want to talk about one of the single biggest problems that Apple has with their innovation strategy.  Specifically, that whole 'Think Different' thing.

See, 'different' is not by default 'better'.  In many cases, 'different' actually has to work harder in order to BE better because you're struggling uphill against established use patterns in the case of product development.  Apple hasn't caught onto that fact yet though, not in 25 years.  In their mind, not only is 'different' better, it's premium.

In the case of Apple's touch-sensitive controls, they went off the deep end in pursuit of 'Different'.  For anyone not familiar with AirPods Pro, their control surfaces aren't buttons, or electrostatic switches, or accelerometer-based switches like the ones in the original AirPods.  They're that strange hybrid of haptic and electrostatic switch that they first incorporated into their iPhone home buttons and magic trackpads.  When this is done properly, you 'feel' like you're pressing a button, but all you're actually feeling is a tiny motor spinning around.  It's a neat trick, but again, you have to have done it properly.  That sort of worked well on the iPhone, and it feels alright in a MacBook, but it doesn't feel at all normal on the AirPods Pro.  First, you have to find the control surface on either bug.  That surface is placed at a strange angle, so you have to grope around a little at first. Then, when you -do- find it, you sort of...have to squeeze kind of hard to trigger it.  You don't notice the requisite force to trigger this mechanism on your phone because you already have muscle memory tuned to exert that force on a button.  Same thing with the track pad.

You have no such memory for the earbud though, and so it just feels odd.  They could have done more with a button here, or just leveraged the same mechanism that they did in the previous generation of device.  Different, in this case, is just...different.  And that's not good enough.

"They still have that cool battery charging case, AND it's Qi-compatible!" Well, yes.  The case itself feels solid, and very much like a premium product.  From its materials to its functionality, it's very nice.  It's not unique though.  For a hundred bucks less, I can get the same functionality from Soundcore's Liberty 2 Pro buds, AND Soundcore has the decency to use USB-C.

Apple KNOWS that USB-C is the future.  They've embraced it on their iPads and their laptops and their charging bricks and their cables, so why the hell aren't they doing it here?!  You want to get rid of waste in landfills?  Qi charging is nice, but get on the USB-C wagon so we only need one cable instead of two.

Unfortunately, the case has something going for it that's not awesome, and that's the way the buds rest in it.  In the OG AirPods, you KNEW when you'd gotten a good seat.  You could see it and feel it.  Not only do you not get that satisfying click with the AirPods Pro, the shape of the buds makes getting them in and out of the case feel clumsy.  Really not sure what the hell Apple thought they were doing here, or if they even thought at all.

"Alright then," you ask. "Why the hell did you buy 'em?"

For starters, I snagged my pair during a 20% off sale, which brought their price down below $200.  Once you get the price tag of these things down below two bills, things start to come a little bit more into focus.

I, uh...I also had a gift card.

Possibly the biggest selling point of the AirPods Pro is the same selling point that their pleb cousins, the AirPods, have going for them, and that's incorporation into the Apple ecosystem.  I have an iPhone, an iPad, and a Mac.  These things play between all of those devices effortlessly.  No pairing, no hassle, no nothing.  They just work, flawlessly.  They connect quickly, somehow know what they should be connecting TO, and...yeah.  I'll give Apple credit here in that this alone commands a certain cost that I could justify paying.

Beyond their compatibility with all things Apple, I absolutely have to give some credit to the fact that they absolutely sound incredible for true wireless earbuds.  If Apple pushed the boat out on one single thing, it's clearly the audio. They easily tie with my current contender for best sounding bud, the Soundcore Liberty 2 Pro.  The Liberty 2s have better bass, but where the AirPods Pro lack a bit of low-end, they make up for it in spades with their startlingly clear audio and stereo representation.  Like...the audio is really, REALLY clear.  This doesn't register on a lot of newer music, but I try not to soil my ears with anything produced after the mid '80s.  Music made before that time came from artists that really played around with spatial audio and channel manipulation and it sounds really incredible on the AirPods Pro.

To add to the audio experience, Apple finally got the hint and included a few differently sized ear tips in the AirPods Pro box.  That was a smart move for two really big reasons.  First, everyone else who gives a damn about audio has been doing it for a long time now.  Apple needed to get with it to stay relevant.  Second, and way more important, is the fact that the audio quality of earbuds lives and dies in the fit within the ear.  It doesn't matter how incredible the audio equipment within the bud is, if you can't isolate that sound within the ear, you shouldn't even have shown up to the party.  The extra tips that ship with the AirPods Pro help with this, and it even sounds like you can buy some made out of memory foam.  Those are liable to end up positively disgusting after a few hot workouts, but the journey getting there should at least sound incredible, no?

And that's really it.  The two biggest things I can recommend about the AirPods Pro are their compatibility with Apple devices and their bonkers audio quality.  If you can get them on sale and you have several Apple devices, these things are a no-brainer.  There's a reason why they show up on every single Top 10 list for this type of thing.  They're feature-rich, they sound incredible, and they work better than anything else with Apple tech.

Aaaaand for a heavy discount, they're worth every penny!