One fringe benefit of the disappearance of the 3.5mm headphone jack on the iPhone 7 has been Apple’s entry into truly wireless territory with its earphones. The AirPods as they’re called are wireless not only in their connection to the phone but there are no wires even between the left and right ear buds. They talk to each other using Apple’s W1 chip, a Bluetooth variant. The AirPods are not bundled in with the iPhone 7 but are an optional ₹15,400 purchase.
The AirPods came in for a lot of ribbing and fun-poking because they look a little peculiar, to put it politely. Wear these stark glossy white things in your ear and they are easily spotted with their long pointed tails. But in the world of tech, one gets used to peculiar looking things fast enough and it wasn’t long before users were clamouring for those AirPods.
Despite the looks, the AirPods are a marvel of design. They somehow manage to not fall out of the ears, even though they’re not in-ear phones that would lodge into the ear canal.
Comfortable to use
Shaking your head hard doesn’t push them out unless you do so really aggressively, of course, and deliberately. Or if you don’t wear them properly in the first place. They’re also comfortable enough to wear for a long time even though there’s no soft padding involved anywhere.
And then there’s the little white case that they fit into. This is a safe house for the AirPods and also a battery back up for them. It’s where you put the AirPods in for a charge, using a lightning cable plugged into the bottom of the case. The case itself also gets charged so that you can extend the AirPods’ own 5 to 6 hour battery life to 24 hours if you stop and let them rest in the case for a while. The case is great for keeping the AirPods safe when travelling, though you have to make sure you don’t leave them behind anywhere.
If one side of the AirPods does fall for some reason, the music or sound instantly stops until you pick up the fallen pod and put it back in your ear, whereupon the music begins to play again.
Multi-talented
Music isn’t all you can use the AirPods for. You tap twice on either one of them to activate Siri for the usual Siri commands. Siri can even read out articles and search results to you. If you have an Apple Watch, you can use that to control the music, though you can just as easily tell Siri to do things like change the volume level, change tracks, play a playlist — or tell you the weather.
The AirPods work with Android phones, but all the Siri capabilities will be missing, obviously, and they sound a little less than ideal on some phones. For example, a Whatsapp call on the Pixel dropped the sound to a whisper on the AirPods.
Clean sound
The music sounds perfectly balanced on the AirPods, in my opinion. Definitely on par with good quality wired earphones if not with audiophile level products. The sound is balanced, detailed and clear.
Though expensive when you add the cost to your purchase of an iPhone, the AirPods command their asking price because of the innovation without any appreciable deterioration in sound quality. If you want ordinary earphones, you let go of the convenience from the lack of wires, the excellent charging case, and easier-than-ever Siri interaction.
(The article first appeared in The Hindu BusinessLine.)