Why I was wrong about AirPods… and right at the same time!

It's a fair cop. I was wrong about Apple's AirPods. But also right, at least up until the last year or so. Bear with me...

I'd always hated the circular plastic outer-ear Apple headphones - they came with every iPod and early iPhone and they sounded tinny and awful, plus they weren't comfortable in my ears for extended periods. So I always refused them and went to third party headphones.

Apple then redesigned them to be more 'sculpted' - which mostly helped the comfort issue. But not the audio. Then they went wireless with AirPods, which looked a little stupid (and still does, to some extent, even years later), plus the audio issues remained, at least compared to the competition.

But... we come to the third generation of AirPods (roughly £170 as I write this). They're sculpted, so adequately comfortable now. The long stalk is now shorter so they look marginally less stupid (plus so many people wear them that they don't stand out so much in 2023). And, best of all, Apple significantly improved the audio for this generation.

Now, we're not talking audiophile quality - this is still an outer-ear design, with the real world audio very evident around you. And there's no real seal for the bass. However... 

It's not bad. It's not bad at all. And, by turning on the bass boost in my iPhone's Music equaliser (it actually turns other frequencies down, not the bass up, in case you were wondering), I can get close to the sound of some in-ear-canal headphones. 

Yet with the benefit, arguably, that I can still hear what's going on around me, cyclists, other people, etc. because of the outer ear design. Why do I need this? Well, I'll admit that I've got a specific use case in mind when embracing this latest generation of AirPods.

You see, our family has acquired a dog (long story, I'll tell it sometime) and muggins here is the one that normally walks it. So it's about an hour at a time on country walks and I need entertaining with podcast and ebooks. Typically, I put in one earbud, for my audio 'feed', as it were, so that the other lughole can interact with nature, other people, the dog.

With just the one AirPod in and with only voice being rendered, in fact, the battery in the little coin-pocket case lasts well over 60 hours of listening, so I only have to charge the thing about once a month.

(If I do decide to listen to music and 'rock it up', with both AirPods, then battery life goes down by a factor of three, approximately.)

The 'coin-pocket' reference is also important as Apple designed the AirPods charging case to fit exactly into the standard jeans coin pocket. It's snug there and it means I don't have to remember to take the case with me. (Heading out and realising after five minutes that I've left the set-up at home isn't fun!)

Preempting any questions, no, they haven't fallen out yet, but then I'm walking and not running - with my clumsy running gait I doubt they'd stay in! And yes I have dropped them a few tines - the curvy design is quite hard to grasp and keep hold of when putting them in, especially when also holding the lead of an eager dog.

So yes, I'm now an AirPods convert, with the few caveats above, given that the audio quality and form factor have improved, to match the product's idea and flexibility.

Of course, if I do want to listen to music seriously, then I take my beloved Marshall Major IV Bluetooth headphones - substantially bigger but also with proper bass and oomph.

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