AirPods - Initial Reactions
I don’t think anyone can beat the unboxing experience Apple provides. Like every Apple product unboxing the product is beautiful.
The AirPods are already inside the charging case when you first open the box. The setup is extremely simple.
Step 1 - Have your iPhone on the home screen
Step 2 - Open the AirPods case
Step 3 - There is no Step 3.
Your AirPods are now connected to every Apple device that is associated with your Apple ID
So with only two steps and under three seconds, my iPhone, iPad, MacBook Pro, iMac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV were all connected to my AirPods.
The AirPods case feels comfortable in the hand. Perfect size, not too big or small.
The case reminds me of the iPhone 5 C. Plastic, but not your poor mans plastic.
Someone spent a lot of time designing the sound that the case makes when you close it, it’s oddly pleasing. I have told this to many people, and the only people that understand it are the ones that own the AirPods. The best analogy I can give is a Zippo lighter. You hold it in your hand and flick it open and close - and in some weird way it satisfies you. The AirPods are the same. If you don’t own them you are rolling your eyes right now. If you do own them you are nodding your head.
The case attracts a lot of oil for some reason. It needs to be cleaned every few days with a cloth.
One of my favorite features is when you take the AirPods out of the case and put them in your ear they pair automatically. In addition, when you take the AirPods out of your ear your music pauses. These are small things but very useful.
Battery life is 3 -5 hours, depending on what you are doing. Listening to music? You’ll get 5 hours. Talking on the phone? You’ll get 3 hours. The case provides an additional 24 hours of charge time and it only takes 15 minutes for the AirPods to get an additional 3 hours of use. So in sort, battery life is not a problem in the least.
Your battery information is displayed very nicely as a widget on your iPhone. I like how simple Apple has made it to check the battery status of your Apple Devices.
One thing I did not expect was how often I would use Siri. You activate Siri by double tapping the AirPod. Setting timers, sending quick text messages, asking general questions is really nice to be able to do when you are on the move. Having Siri always connected to you makes her a lot more useful and convenient.
Having to use Siri to play, pause, or change the volume is ridiculous. There are no physical buttons on the AirPods, so if you want to do anything you have to double tap to activate Siri. I wish they would add more tap options.
Bluetooth range is better than I expected. It is absolutely nothing to worry about.
Yes, the AirPods stay in your ears. I was very skeptical that they would. I was honestly expecting to return them, but surprisingly they are extremely difficult to make them fall out.
Are they comfortable? Eh. After about 3 hours my ears start to get sore. I wish they were as comfortable as my Bose in-ear headphones, however I don’t see myself wearing them for that long very often so it’s not worth returning them over.
Sounds better than expected, but do not buy these for their audio quality. You buy these for the convenience of a truly wireless headphone - not sound quality
