Hands-On With Apple's New AirPods

[MLJH]

My wife and I received our AirPods yesterday. My wife wore them for 4 hours straight while at work and they managed to stay in all the time, the only issue she had was that her ears were getting a little sore towards to the end of her shift.

I have been using them to play audio from iPhone then  watch then iMac the only think I have noticed is that it takes a while to connect to the iMac but other than that flawless. I used them on a 5k run outside and they were superb, I normally use a set of Jaybirds for running and the left side earbud tends to fall out all the time.

Overall I am happy with the purchase, anybody out there who is thinking about getting them but worried they will fall out, give them a go, you could be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Night Spring]

Honestly people must have huge ears for these to fall out...I've found it impossible for these to fall out.

Actually, they could also fall out if your ears are too small. In that case, the AirPods wouldn't go deep enough to get a secure seat in your ear.

Hah, apologies, I was also on Twitter at the time reading up on owners experiences of them falling out. I suppose I was also using personal experience as I've never had an brand or model earphone remain permanently in. Since owning iPods since 2002 and minidiscs, CDs, tapes before them I'm still looking for one that remains in. I mean physically it's impossible without a clip due to the shape of the ear.

Have you tried earphones with ear tips, like the ones from Bose?
http://www.bose.com/prc.jsp?url=/sh...essories/stayhear_tips_large_acc.jsp&color=wh

 

[darkpaw]

In a way I don't believe your claim. I've never encountered something with such poor bluetooth range. It shouldn't be possible.

And, in a way, I don't believe your claim. It works both ways. I'm just saying that's the issue I have with those headphones. As you don't have that specific set and haven't experienced the problem, you cannot say my claim is false. I'm just telling you from my actual experience. If you don't believe me, not a problem, but I'm not lying.

 

[pjny]

Regarding range: My LG Tone Pro would cut out when I walked to another room in the opposite end of my apartment which is (based on my foot measurements) 39.2 feet. The rooms are separated by 15 foot narrow hallway leading into the kitchen and there is are a few book cases and tables that I imagine cause signal range to drop.

I was shocked to have the airpods continue to play with the phone in the other room and not line-of-sight. The light was off in the other room and I was smiling in the dark.

Regarding audio: The bass response seems to be a lot deeper than on earpods. The hi-hat on a track was a little muted when listening to it on airpod vs earpod/LG TONE.

Pairing: I pulled them out of the case this morning and put them in my ear. I hit play on podcast app and didn't have to turn on the bluetooth headset, hope it pairs, switch to bluetooth settings, hit pair with bt headset, wait three seconds...

I also like how the phone automatically switches from speaker to airpods if I have a podcast playing and I put on the airpods.

CONS:

For some reason I think the airpods are a little tighter in my ear than earpods. They fit easily but I can feel their presence along the edges of my ear compared to earpods.

Everyone focused on losing the earpod. I misplaced the charger in a jacket pocket and wish it had a find my charger feature . You can lose one earpod and still be in business but lose the charger and game over in 5 hours max.

Double tapping my ear to stop the music hurts.

And, in a way, I don't believe your claim. It works both ways. I'm just saying that's the issue I have with those headphones. As you don't have that specific set and haven't experienced the problem, you cannot say my claim is false. I'm just telling you from my actual experience. If you don't believe me, not a problem, but I'm not lying.

 

[FriendlyMackle]

recieved my AirPods today and not impressed. Got them in my ears now and just browsing safari on my iPhone 7 plus and I noticed a faint scratchy popping noise at random times when I'm scrolling a page or bringing up the keyboard.



I can replicate this every time I bring up the keyboard



apple support said to return them for repair! Like I'm really going to get a brand new product repaired rather than replaced!



anyone else notice this?

I think you should take the chance and return them -- I don't see how they could possibly repair them after reading the ifixit teardown. Airpods seem to be composed at least 50% of glue + components, and the shell casing probably would not survive 'surgery'. Just my thinking on this. I would be curious to know if Apple could (or would actually) try to 'fix' a poorly performing pair, or just scrap them and replace with a new item.

 

[robbysibrahim]

Wow, what a great first day with these little buddies. I think I'm keeping them.

Some of the little things:

• Nice in-ear tones when connected to a device.
• Didn't hear a battery-low warning tone. Left ear just died.
• Only 3 tap gesture config options and they apply to both left and right: Activate Siri, Play/Pause, Off. Wish I could separately config each pod.
• Charge up was FAST. Forget the 15min charge = 3 hours playtime. I got to 100% charge in about 25 mins.
• Where the $160 went: Virtually no BT stutter when connected to multiple devices and switching sources. This is the reason I backed these and their W1 chip. I DO get the very rare BT stutter though.
• If you pull one side out (music pauses), hit play again, music still plays out of both pods even though one is in your hand. Hmph.
• They're small, I get nervous taking one out to answer questions at my desk. They're either in my ear, in my hand for a short moment or right back in the case!
• I did receive teases on their appearance. #dontcare #earlyadopter4life

Ok, they're charged. Time to take off my Bose, back to the Pods!

 

[profets]

Geez, every trivial little thing becomes an "experience" these days. You put the earphones into pairing mode, tap once in the BT settings, done. And usually you never have to do it again on that device. Doesn't even rise to the level of a first world problem.
But you still have to manually switch with the airpods. They should have integrated an API in the OS that apps could use to reconnect the airpods automatically based on certain events.

I use 2 Bluetooth headsets across a Watch, iPhone, iPad and Mac. I have to reconnect my Jaybirds to my watch and phone every morning during my workout when I switch from strength training to the treadmill.

It's a pain, and a terrible experience. If all you use is a single headset with a single device, then fine. But that doesn't mean that Bluetooth pairing is a relatively terrible process that hasn't improved to match use cases of today.

You'll still have to do that with the airpods. The only step you save is having to disconnect from the previous device. So the airpods only solve half of the problem. The (semi-)automatic pairing/reconnecting probably works by having the device signal commands to the earphones via BT LE. With better software integration, they could have done better. Hopefully they'll improve with future OS updates.

Have you been using the AirPods? What exactly are the steps if say I'm listening to music from my watch but then want to start listening from my phone?

Yes. You need to go into control center or the music app on the new device and select the airpods as output. Then it takes a few seconds to switch over. If the previous device was still playing music, it may continue playing through its speakers, so you may have to stop playback there (this happened when I tried switching from a phone to a Mac).

Thanks. Curious to try it out tomorrow when mine arrive.

So what are you thinking then - switching should be more seamless or could be improved on the software / OS side?

My problem with Bluetooth headphones right now, is that never mind just changing output from one device to the other (the way you describe with the AirPods), but I can't simply disconnect easily from one device (the Watch doesn't have the option to disconnect, only Forget) and then connect to another device. Some Bluetooth headsets I tried seem to be able to pair to multiple devices simultaneously, but then music playback / A2DP would never switch and would require forgetting and pairing to the next device.

Ok - I've been using the AirPods for several hours today, across multiple devices - this is a HUGE improvement when it comes to connectivity and using headphones with several devices. It's not just a one step difference from regular Bluetooth headphones, it's much more significant.

When moving from the iPhone to an iPad or Mac, yes, there is a single step, choosing the AirPods as the output device.

But the one that really amazes me is moving from iPhone to Watch and vice versa. I'm listening to a podcast on the iPhone through the AirPods. While listening, I go to my watch, pull up the local music on the watch, and hit Play. Within a second the music stored on the watch was playing through the AirPods. A minute later, I picked up the phone, the podcast controls were still on the lock screen. I tapped play and the podcast was playing through on the AirPods within a second.

For connectivity with multiple devices, this is a game changer. So happy this is finally possible. Disconnecting, forgetting, re-pairing over and over was becoming such an annoying process.

 

[Rigby]

When moving from the iPhone to an iPad or Mac, yes, there is a single step, choosing the AirPods as the output device.

But the one that really amazes me is moving from iPhone to Watch and vice versa.

Good to hear that it seems to work seamlessly with the watch. I suspect there is some additional handshake going on between the watch and the phone. Doesn't do much for me though since I don't have a watch.

I'm going to return the airpods. Don't really like that I have to get the phone out everytime I need to adjust the volume (or talk to Siri which often isn't socially acceptable). The double-tap (which I have set to play/pause) isn't reliable, which is a pain especially when trying to take a call. I also had some problems with Spotify on the Mac: when I take out the airpods, it doesn't pause but suddently continues playing through the computer's speakers. Was quite awkward today at the office actually.

For connectivity with multiple devices, this is a game changer. So happy this is finally possible. Disconnecting, forgetting, re-pairing over and over was becoming such an annoying process.

I never once had to forget or re-pair my current set of JBL BT headphones.

 

[The Game 161]

Good to hear that it seems to work seamlessly with the watch. I suspect there is some additional handshake going on between the watch and the phone. Doesn't do much for me though since I don't have a watch.

I'm going to return the airpods. Don't really like that I have to get the phone out everytime I need to adjust the volume (or talk to Siri which often isn't socially acceptable). The double-tap (which I have set to play/pause) isn't reliable, which is a pain especially when trying to take a call. I also had some problems with Spotify on the Mac: when I take out the airpods, it doesn't pause but suddently continues playing through the computer's speakers. Was quite awkward today at the office actually.
I never once had to forget or re-pair my current set of JBL BT headphones.

Thats very odd. It shouldn't start playing on another device.

i get your reasonings though. if i didn't have an apple watch i too would find it frustrating.

 

[Abazigal]

Been using my Airpods for about a day.

I find the speed of switching from one Apple device to another isn't as instantaneous as the hype would have you believe. Switching typically takes a few seconds at least, and I have had at least one instance where connecting to my iPad was stuck and took over 20 seconds. I guess Bluetooth just is that finicky, and software can only compensate so much.

That said, I have switched between my iPhone, iPad, iMac and mba and the process is still more seamless and convenient than when you use conventional wireless headphones, bugs and all.

Sound is okay. Nothing fantastic but not all that bad either. As a rule of thumb, I listen to my Sony hear.on headphones at 4 volume bars. With the airpods, I have to crank up the volume to 10 or 11 bars to be able to hear anything clearly.

Having my audio auto-pause when I remove one AirPod is a pretty neat feature. The days of having to pause my music before putting my headphones away are over.

Overall, I knew what I was getting into when I ordered the Airpods, and performance has been in line with my expectations more or less. No regrets.

 

[asleep]

DetroitBorg's Airpods review...

 

[kyykesko]

Had lunch with a friend who bought these. He's returning them, the sound quality was just sad according to him.

I haven't touched the device, I'm not even going to. I've no use for mediocre quality headsets that double as mediocre quality headphones you need to recharge several times a day. Even when you have FOUR NEW ITEMS to RECHARGE!

 

[Rigby]

Thats very odd. It shouldn't start playing on another device.

It was not another device. I was listening to Spotify on my Mac and took the airpods out of my ears because I wanted to talk to someone. But Spotify didn't pause as I expected, but continued playing, with the music now blaring out of the Mac speakers.

 

[bobob]

It was not another device. I was listening to Spotify on my Mac and took the airpods out of my ears because I wanted to talk to someone. But Spotify didn't pause as I expected, but continued playing, with the music now blaring out of the Mac speakers.

Was quite awkward today at the office actually.

It can't have been that awkward if you keep your Mac speakers cranked to a "blaring" level - - your coworkers must cringe at every alert sound anyway.

 

[whsbuss]

It was not another device. I was listening to Spotify on my Mac and took the airpods out of my ears because I wanted to talk to someone. But Spotify didn't pause as I expected, but continued playing, with the music now blaring out of the Mac speakers.

Did you try that with iTunes/Apple Music? AirPods don't do 3rd party integration.

 

[Lappen71]

Had lunch with a friend who bought these. He's returning them, the sound quality was just sad according to him.

I haven't touched the device, I'm not even going to. I've no use for mediocre quality headsets that double as mediocre quality headphones you need to recharge several times a day. Even when you have FOUR NEW ITEMS to RECHARGE!

I don't understand what you think your comment will accomplish when its so obvious fake.

 

[The Game 161]

Had lunch with a friend who bought these. He's returning them, the sound quality was just sad according to him.

I haven't touched the device, I'm not even going to. I've no use for mediocre quality headsets that double as mediocre quality headphones you need to recharge several times a day. Even when you have FOUR NEW ITEMS to RECHARGE!

Well your friend clearly wants to lose his hearing very quickly if he thinks the sound on the AirPods are sad. It's perfectly fine for earphones. You don't want crazy sound everyday otherwise you're eardrums would be shot.

You also don't need to charge the case everyday. It's coming up to TWO days since i last charged my case and i still have 60% left.

 

[Rigby]

Did you try that with iTunes/Apple Music? AirPods don't do 3rd party integration.

But why? I can pause Spotify by pressing the button on my wired earpods or JBL Bluetooth earphones. Why can't the airpods send the same event? Also, pausing Spotify on an iOS device works as expected.

 

[Keirasplace]

Had lunch with a friend who bought these. He's returning them, the sound quality was just sad according to him.

I haven't touched the device, I'm not even going to. I've no use for mediocre quality headsets that double as mediocre quality headphones you need to recharge several times a day. Even when you have FOUR NEW ITEMS to RECHARGE!

Complete lie.

 

[Rigby]

It can't have been that awkward if you keep your Mac speakers cranked to a "blaring" level - - your coworkers must cringe at every alert sound anyway.

I actually have my own office and this happened when someone was walking in. But thanks for your brilliant observation.

 

[whsbuss]

But why? I can pause Spotify by pressing the button on my wired earpods or JBL Bluetooth earphones. Why can't the airpods send the same event? Also, pausing Spotify on an iOS device works as expected.

Well I can tell you when I double-tap my AirPods and tell Google Play to pause it starts right back up after Siri stops. I have not tried setting the AirPods to Play/Pause instead of Siri

 

[0098386]

I do know a few people close to me (wife being one of them) who have a tough time with the bundled Apple EarPods always falling out, with little movement. They're both getting the AirPods as they're curious if it'll improve without the wire tugging on them. I have seen someone who couldn't use EarPods due to them falling out being able to keep AirPods in, even when vigorously shaking their head.

When you say it's physically impossible without a clip due to the shape of the ear, are you referring to yourself or everyone in general? I don't think the assumption holds if you assume the same for everyone.

Everyone in general, well, the public as a whole. I remember a video of Ive talking about studying the shapes of many ears to create an average model. When not moving I find they sit well and feel stable enough, even walking is fine. But running? Hah, they're out of there.
[doublepost=1482358133][/doublepost]

Have you tried earphones with ear tips, like the ones from Bose?
http://www.bose.com/prc.jsp?url=/sh...essories/stayhear_tips_large_acc.jsp&color=wh

I am very curious about these! I saw a pair whilst passing through a shop once so I didn't look into them. As I say I'm curious and would love to try some eventually. I hope Apple produce a pair like that as I hear they stay in quite well.
[doublepost=1482358209][/doublepost]

And, in a way, I don't believe your claim. It works both ways. I'm just saying that's the issue I have with those headphones. As you don't have that specific set and haven't experienced the problem, you cannot say my claim is false. I'm just telling you from my actual experience. If you don't believe me, not a problem, but I'm not lying.

Hmm, but the range of bluetooth is greater than that. I believe the standard it must meet is 2 metres otherwise it's a faulty product.

 

[RobinInOR]

One thing I have trouble with is Safari radio streaming and handing off back and forth with the watch or other interruptions.

AirPods paired to the phone
Listening to a radio station through Safari. Phone is locked and sleeping.
Phone call comes in
Answer it through the watch screen that pops up
Watch says 'handed off', so I assume it passes the call to the phone, and I'm talking via the pods on the phone.
Hang up the call from the watch, and the pods won't continue the safaris radio cast.
I have to unlock the phone and bring up Safari - then it auto starts up again.

 

[profets]

Everyone in general, well, the public as a whole. I remember a video of Ive talking about studying the shapes of many ears to create an average model. When not moving I find they sit well and feel stable enough, even walking is fine. But running? Hah, they're out of there.
[doublepost=1482358133][/doublepost]
I am very curious about these! I saw a pair whilst passing through a shop once so I didn't look into them. As I say I'm curious and would love to try some eventually. I hope Apple produce a pair like that as I hear they stay in quite well.
[doublepost=1482358209][/doublepost]
Hmm, but the range of bluetooth is greater than that. I believe the standard it must meet is 2 metres otherwise it's a faulty product.

I've used them quite heavily for over a day now. For me, the right one fits perfectly. Never moves and can't even tell it's there most of the time. The left one feels a bit looser, but it never falls or moves much. This morning I did the usual 30 minute strength training and then 30 minute treadmill run. They were perfect the whole time. No movement. I got a bit nervous as my one friend who can't use the EarPods tried the AirPods, and they worked well, except the left one would fall out while running about once every 10 minutes. The wife who find the EarPods fall out too frequently was able to use them for a 30 minute run without issue. I thought for sure she was going to have a tough time with them. She was quite excited to use them too.
[doublepost=1482360487][/doublepost]

One thing I have trouble with is Safari radio streaming and handing off back and forth with the watch or other interruptions.

AirPods paired to the phone
Listening to a radio station through Safari. Phone is locked and sleeping.
Phone call comes in
Answer it through the watch screen that pops up
Watch says 'handed off', so I assume it passes the call to the phone, and I'm talking via the pods on the phone.
Hang up the call from the watch, and the pods won't continue the safaris radio cast.
I have to unlock the phone and bring up Safari - then it auto starts up again.

That's unfortunate. After the call is ended, are the media controls from the radio cast still showing on the lock screen of the iPhone?

 

[RobinInOR]

That's unfortunate. After the call is ended, are the media controls from the radio cast still showing on the lock screen of the iPhone?

Yes, they show as paused, and I can see the http address of the radio cast. I click the arrow to start it up again and it won't, it just goes back to a paused state. I have to unlock and bring up Safari (if I have left it at the home Screen) or if I left Safari in focus I have to refresh the page. The way it's acting I think it's a Safari issue with Bluetooth connections, or maybe this particular cast. I would expect that is a buggier scenario than the music app with Bluetooth.