Apple AirPod review: A beautiful, divisive look at company's plan for a wireless future
A first step in what is going to be a big line
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Your support makes all the difference.Let’s be clear, because there was some confusion on the day of the Apple event, the new wireless earphones don’t come bundled with the iPhone.
You get regular EarPods with a Lightning connector on the end – though, and I’m sorry to be a pedant, they no longer come in the plastic square that served as a useful carry case.
AirPods are a separate purchase, £159, and will be available from late October.
They look superficially the same as regular EarPods: same shape, roughly the same size. But there the similarities end. There are no wires, obviously, and there’s a huge amount of technology stuffed into them. So, for instance, there are optical sensors so each Pod knows whether it’s in your lughole or not. That’s because of a quite cool feature which pauses playback automatically when you take one out of your ear to hear what somebody’s saying to you, for instance.
They also contain what’s called a W1 chip which makes connecting to your iPhone or iPad or Watch a cinch. If you’ve used Bluetooth headphones before you’ll know about the faff of switching them to pairing mode, launching Bluetooth and finding the right item in the list and choosing it. There’s nothing like that with AirPods.
Place the AirPods in their case next to the iPhone and, well, that’s it. The phone recognises the AirPods and connects automatically, linking you by your Apple ID so you can seamlessly switch to an Apple Watch, Mac or iPad. It’s very slick.
You can access Siri by double-tapping on either of them. You can even ask Siri how much charge is left in the battery. The battery lasts five hours, though there’s another 19 hours of charge available in the cute little case which doubles as a charger.
AirPods are Bluetooth headphones so they will work with other phones, but you’ll have to do all that pairing business in that case.
The fit is excellent. My fears that they would tumble out in any active behaviour has so far proved unfounded. They survived a workout on the running machine perfectly (unlike me) and never once felt insecure. And they sounded terrific.
The look of the AirPods is quite distinctive and won’t please everybody. Seen in profile, when only one is visible, an AirPod looks like an elegantly designed Bluetooth headset. Which in a sense it is – each one has several microphones to work for noise-cancelling when you’re on a call.
And this being Apple, there’s even more attention to detail. The case has magnets inside so that as you put each AirPod in, it’s grabbed and held in place magnetically. When you open the lid an LED flashes to show it’s charging and when you take them out turns green to show there’s lots of juice left in the charging case.
This will doubtless be just the first pair of wireless headphones to feature the W1 chip. The AirPods are a strong first step in this line.
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