We’ve always been largely unimpressed with the quality of Apple’s EarPods headphones, and were hoping to see a dramatic improvement in their standard following Apple’s acquisition of Beats in 2014.
As a result, we are relieved the new lightning EarPods are so much better than their predecessors.
With the AirPods, Apple has created a bold new kind of wireless headphone, removing the annoyances of struggling to pair and remembering to turn them off to avoid battery drain.
They’re surprisingly good at staying put within your ear, and the battery life is commendable.
£159 ($159) may seem expensive for earphones but the demand for the product has seen huge demand which lead to worldwide shortages
Again, the price is steep enough to put some people off, but we would argue $159 (£159) is not entirely unreasonable for high quality wireless headphones – AirPods are roughly in line with their rivals.
The likelihood of losing them is real, but this fault lies in the hands of the consumer, rather than the manufacturer.
We would, however, welcome a set of small buttons on one or both of the AirPods’ stems to skip or replay tracks and change the volume while exercising, as Siri voice commands are just not suitable during exercise.
Overall, the audio standard and brilliant pairing and charging technologies make AirPods an attractive prospect for Apple fans looking to invest in new wireless headphones for use across the entire product range.
They’re not perfect, but for a first generation product, they’re pretty good.