Apple’s fully wireless earbuds solve its newest problem
OUR EARLY VERDICT
The dream of wireless headphone is here in 2016, and although Apple isn’t the first, it’s trying to be the best with easier syncing and long battery life than its primary competition.
FOR
- No more tangled headphone cables
- Intelligent connectivity and pause functionality
- Familiar EarPods design and comfort
AGAINST
- Funky design isn’t for everyone
- Yet another thing to charge
- What happens when you lose one?
Apple’s AirPods are fully wireless earbuds that solve its newest problem of no longer having that old 3.5mm headphone jack in the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
But they’re more than that, really. The design of these cord-free earbuds match that of Apple’s wired EarPods, and they have a few novel functions you won’t find anywhere else.
They’re designed to work with iOS 10, macOs and watchOS 3 better than normal Bluetooth earphones, and, yes, they still have Bluetooth inside to work with non-Apple products, too.
We tested them out at Apple’s latest event, along with the iPhone 7 and Apple Watch 2. Here’s our first impressions on how the AirPods worked.
Release date and price
You can’t get the AirPods right away with your iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus and Apple Watch Series 2. They’re not launching on September 16 like everything else.
Instead, Apple pegged the AirPods release date as “late October.” That’s a good thing if you’re already upgrading your phone and watch (and downgrading your bank account) this month.
Apple’s AirPods will cost $159 at launch. That seems like a lot of money when the wireless (but connected together) Beats Powerbeats2 Wireless Earbud headphones cost $120.
Good news: AirPods are still cheaper than Samsung’s fully wireless earbuds, the Samsung Gear IconX. Apple’s version lacks fitness functionality, but the Apple Watch already has all that stuff anyway.
Between now and late October, you can use the Apple EarPods that will have a lighting cable on the end and come free with the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
Or, you can continue to use your current headphones thanks to an included lighting-to-3.5mm jack. Until you lose that and seriously consider AirPods – until you lose one of those, too. Great.
Magical connectivity
What’s sold us on the AirPods is the seamless connectivity and pause-and-play functionality that has Apple trotting out its favorite adjective, calling them “magical” wireless earbuds.
Here’s the magic: Take them out of the special AirPods case and they instantly turn on and connect just by being near your iPhone. You don’t need to dive into a hidden setup menu at all.
Even better, the Apple’s new wireless earbuds can sync up with a newer iPad, iPod touch, Mac or Apple Watch just as quickly with a one-tap setup in Control Center. Super easy.
Maybe the coolest thing is the fact that someone from Apple began speaking to us when we were demoing the AirPods, saying,”It’ll pause if you take out one of the AirPods.”
We took out the right AirPod from our ear to say “What was that?” and the music stopped right on point. Very clever. We popped it back in and it started the music again.
Do AirPods really work?
You may heard that they work perfectly, or maybe you read that they’re fraught with problems. For us, we saw them demoed twice; perfectly the first time and pairing issues the second time.
The effectiveness of the AirPods connectivity really depended on the demoer (or maybe the AirPods they picked up). So all of the other first impressions you read may have been based on one encounter and one demo.
Then there’s the fact that these are not final production models, with the AirPods release date in late October. There’s still time to work out any software syncing glitches.
If they work as well as they did for us the first time, it’ll live up to Apple’s “magical” description.
Familiar comfort and style
An Apple designer’s toddler yanked the cable from their EarPods and “Eureka!” The idea behind AirPods was born. Or, that’s at least how we like to think they came about.
They really do look like EarPods minus that always-tangling cord. AirPods still have the plastic stem on the ends, which at first looks odd hanging from your ears. But it’s there for good reason.
The stems point toward your cheek and contain microphones to pick up on what you’re saying. You can chat away on phone calls, or issue Siri commands by double tapping either AirPod.
Do they stay in your ear? So far, we gave them a solid “early 90s grunge headbagning” test and they didn’t fall out once. That’ll vary for people with different ear shapes, of course.
Our biggest issue with normal EarPods falling out has been tugging at or brushing up against the cable. That’s obviously not an issue here since these are truly wireless earbuds.
Sound quality
Trying out the AirPods in a crowded room of tech journalists isn’t the ideal way to test sound quality. But it’s a good way to gauge how well they filter out external noise.
These aren’t giant, noise-canceling headphone cans that fit around your ears. However, they were still able to pipe music to my ears without ambient noise leaking through.
The headphones are able to pull this off thanks to dual beamforming microphones that filter out background noise, according to Apple. That leaves us with wirelessly transmitted high-quality AAC audio.
I could still hear voices at the level of a murmur. That’s what I’ve come to expect from current EarPods, and the AirPods don’t stray too far from this sound quality.
Battery life and charging case
Apple’s AirPods battery life is five hours, which means it lasts longer than Samsung’s Gear IconX and many of the Kickstarter-funded fully wireless earbuds out there.
Five hours is just enough to last you on a cross-country flight from San Francisco to New York, but what do you do when you run out? There’s a great answer for that.
Apple designed a case for its AirPods that holds more than 24 hours worth of additional charge on top of those five hours of the earbuds. Pop them back in and they’ll juice up again.
You can stow this small white case in your carry-on travel bag and recharge them almost six times before seeking a lightning port.
Best of all, if you’re short on time, 15 minutes of charging equals three hours of battery life, according to Apple’s test at 50% volume.
Early verdict
Apple’s lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack is one of its biggest risks in years, and AirPods act as great way to quickly get over such a shocking change.
They look and feel just like those familiar EarPods – minus the cable – and their play-and-pause connectivity is so intelligently designed, it’s enough to bring back the “magical” descriptor.
With five-hour battery life and a charging case for 24 hours of additional battery life, AirPods could stealthily set the bar fully wireless earbuds in October, all while everyone is focused on the past and the missing headphone jack.
Source: techradar.com
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In my opinion, ‘no more tangled headphone cables’ is not really a positive – I’ve never been wracked with despair at my headphone cables’ want to tangle up, and it takes barely a few seconds to detangle them if they are. It’s hardly an argument that warrants the purchase of £120-odd pair of bluetooth headphones, or for the removal of the universal 3.5mm jack. Furthermore, that ‘no more tangled headphone cables’ is your first positive is also something of a backhanded compliment, if that is the best reason you can think of for Apple deciding to bin the 3.5mm jack. It pales into insignificance when weighed against the drawbacks of a) something else to charge, and b) what happens if you lose one.
I can’t believe you’ve also not put a further drawback relating to the price, and to the fact that iPhone 7 users have essentially had the functionality of being able to listen to music whilst charging removed, unless they invest in (preferably) these expensive headphones, or indeed, any other set of bluetooth headphones.
To be fair, their ‘against’ arguments are just as silly…
“another thing to charge” is not a real argument, as pretty much everything will have to be charged.
and “what happens if you lose one” is also a pointless argument, as the same can be said about any small item you own. They’re just jumping on the meme bandwagon, where people just like to make pointless criticisms in an attempt to be humorous.
Uug — how do you change the volume … ? here in UK ‘nobody’ is gonna stand on the tube and shout at Siri ‘Volume up’ !! – APPLE pls add a touch based slider on those white stalks to adjust the volume !!!
Sean Landberg, … I thought people in UK are cleverer than that. Thats funny or rather sad comment … ” Uug — how do you change the volume … ? here in UK ‘nobody’ is gonna stand on the tube and shout at Siri ‘Volume up’ !! … oops , I got it. It is your First Smart Phone. It’s OK to hate Apple, just try to do it without embarrassing yourself.
Well this reviewer, just like all the others have not mentioned the single most important performance question . . . Is there any DELAY caused by the fact they are wireless, so that if you watch a movie, the audio and video sync is correct or not?
Do they warn you when they are too far apart, like if you leave on in your ear and walk away from the other one?
Sega CD still has better sound. Why…CDs are uncompressed audio. Music you listen to on portable electronics like smartphones are all highly compressed to save room or limit the amount of data being streamed.
That final line “all while everyone is focused on the past and the missing headphone jack” is pretty patronising; people prefer wired headphones for a number of reasons. They’re not as outrageously expensive as these things and can deliver very good decent sound quality regardless, like Audio-Technica’s ATH-M50x for example. And people have spent a lot on wired headphones because they’re very good at delivering top sound quality. You shouldn’t have a pop at people like that when not everyone will want wireless headphones, especially those that spend hundreds or even thousands on them, or want to spend this much on headphones.
Audio-Technica’s ATH-M50x are an example. Great sound quality at a reasonable price
Compare this with some average decent in-ear headphones like Sennheisers:
Disadvantages:
More expensive
Worse audio
Bad noise cancellation
No rubber buds
No volume rocker and mic control
Advantages:
Like the mic being on headset and not flopping on your shirt
Wireless
Fact is that their are other WIRELESS headsets for cheaper that are better and that most mid range earbuds have none-tangle cables.