“The AirPods are pretty great,” David Pogue writes for Yahoo. “Their strange design does present some problems—but not the ones everyone’s complaining about.”
“Bluetooth earbuds and headphones are nothing new. In fact, they now outsell wired headphones, at least by dollar volume. But Apple’s earbuds are, as you’d hope, far more elegant and slick than their rivals,” Pogue writes. “When you take one AirPod out of your ear socket, to answer the flight attendant, for example, your music pauses automatically—and resumes when you put it back into your ear. Yes, there’s an optical sensor in each one that recognizes when it’s in your ear. Very slick. When a call comes in, your music pauses automatically, and noise cancellation kicks in so your voice is clearer.”
“Nobody really thinks about this, but the AirPods’ ability to connect you to Siri really may be the killer app. You double-tap either AirPod to get an immediate, crisp ‘I’m listening’ chime—and then you talk,” Pogue writes. “And she speaks her reply, intimately and clearly, right into your brain.”
“Let’s put this to rest right now: The AirPods don’t fall out. That would be the ultimate audio dropout. (Thank you, thank you! Tip your waitress),” Pogue writes. “So if that’s what you’re worried about, forget it.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Another great review for AirPods.
SEE ALSO:
Wall Street Journal’s Best Wireless Earbuds: AirPods, ‘Apple’s best new product in years’ – December 22, 2016
Apple AirPods are very cool, but I am returning them – here’s why – December 22, 2016
Marathoner tests Apple AirPods on 10K run – December 19, 2016
Rolling Stone reviews Apple AirPods: ‘Surprisingly awesome’ – December 14, 2016
Apple AirPods could arrive in stores as early as November 17th – November 10, 2016
Apple’s AirPods remain on track to launch this year, sources say – November 2, 2016
Apple AirPods may be delayed into 2017 – November 1, 2016
Apple delays AirPod rollout – October 26, 2016
Survey: 12% of U.S. consumers say they’ll buy Apple AirPods; extra $3 billion in revenue – September 29, 2016
Bill Atkinson: Why Apple’s AirPods are the best place for Siri – September 28, 2016
Apple’s response to Amazon Echo: AirPods – September 20, 2016
Apple’s AirPods make Google Glass look even more ridiculous (if that’s even possible) – September 19, 2016
Apple CEO Tim Cook: AirPods won’t fall out of your ears (with video) – September 14, 2016
Why Silicon Valley is all wrong about Apple’s AirPods – September 17, 2016
What AirPods can tell us about Apple’s future – September 12, 2016
Hands-on with Apple’s new AirPods: Stayed in my ears, sounded awesome – September 10, 2016
Apple and a truly wireless future: AirPods are just the start – September 10, 2016
Whoever makes the first AirPods strap is going to get rich – September 8, 2016
“…ultimate audio dropout.”
Worth reading just for that👋👋👋
…and he’s right.
Yup getting a pair. I like my Jaybirds X2 but still have some issues with fit and getting the sound to be really good. I’m hoping the Airpods will be better.
As an owner of both, the AirPods audi quality isn’t quite as good as the jay birds because they don’t have a silicon seal in your ear. But they do sound better than EarPods and they do have a better Bluetooth connection than the jay birds. The AirPods don’t drop and reconnect like the jay birds sometimes do.
Earhoox silicone tips fix that
Three days in and I am hooked. The connectivity between devices is great, sound quality is very good, battery life is a non-issue as they are recharging every time I take them off, and the only time they’ve come close to falling off is when I taking off a shirt and they get caught on it.
The only real gripe is that I have trouble activating Siri consistently. (As I’ve been experimenting right now I find that using my middle finger to tap instead of my index finger brings better results. I think it’s because with a bigger finger you’re less likely to tap off center of the upper stem.)
I’ve found that tapping so you hear your fingernail making contact works pretty much all the time.
I wonder if David Pogue read what I wrote about him at MDN yesterday. I’m glad the AirPods (unlike the usual earbuds) don’t fall out of his ears.
But again: Ear shapes and sizes vary.
I didn’t read it and likely he didn’t either. I like to think that what we read, or don’t, doesn’t affect what we say and do, until it matters. By that I mean we doggedly stick to our preconceptions until the end. That is a proven formula for surviving in an unchanging world.
But then when it suddenly does matter what we say and do—when the world is spinning out of control—we stand at a crossroads. We can continue to go with our strengths, which are ritual belief and denial, and meet death by unforeseen means. Or we can awaken to new possibilities, although weakened like a newborn lamb, and either become martyred or shock the system; no one can foretell which and it is up to each of us to apply energy to the matter. That’s the pivot of history in a nutshell.
Well stated.
I had a crossroads where the question was whether to accept technology handed to me or to jump on technology and ride it like the lunatic bull it is. I chose to ride it and happen to have the talents to enjoy the ride while putting what I learn to work. I like meeting each new day of new stuff, happily dumping the old in the ‘past’ bin.
VERY few people want or even can keep up with the tech changes. Then throw in the entirely deliberate stupefaction of the masses, who never catch the clue of how to use a search engine to research what they want to know; Who can’t bother to thrash through what they’re told to separate the ‘Fake News’ from the justified or verified news; Who think voting for ‘change’ means voting for something ‘good’. Oops.
I never want to stop learning! But it does indeed become more challenging as the geezerification proceeds. That’s why I actively support the positive ‘new’ of the ‘young’ as well as the rest of us. It’s all about great, important, useful, beneficial, encouraging… ideas and actions among we humans on miracle planet Earth, our only home. 😀
I wear CIC hearing aids (complete in canal- you can’t see them unless you’re standing almost directly behind me). The original earbuds worked okay, but the recent iterations haven’t worked with my hearing aids; they keep falling out. I also can’t wear most sport earphones with the hearing aids in, since, you know…hearing aids in my ears. All this has pretty much restricted my ability to use headphones for work at a coffee shop, office, or even home, since I really don’t want to take my hearing aids out to use earphones.
I tried the AirPods at the Bellevue Square Apple Store today, and they not only fit, but they stayed in even when walking, jogging, and banging my head! I fully expected them to fall out all the time like the wired pods, but without the extra weight of the wires, they fit and stayed like a charm. I also found them to be louder and have much clearer call quality than all of the other wired and wireless headsets I’ve used. Even in a crowded Apple Store two days before Christmas, I could clearly hear people on the line, and they could make out my voice just fine without having to ask me to repeat myself due to background noise.
Apple products have been life-changing for so many people in so many ways. I can’t wait to see how the AirPods change my life and let me do more “normal” things for work than I’ve been able to do before. Now to just wait for them to be in stock 🙂
Numb-nuts lost one instantly. I’m assuming most people won’t be that dumb.
Is yahoo still a thing?