Ask HN: How are the Apple AirPods?
AirPods have been in people's hands a few days now, how are they? Met your expectations? Any problems exercising in them, or having them fall out?
The AirPods are by far my favourite.
The newer EarPod design (the ones that aren't the oblate spheroids) fit my ears really well, and so do the AirPods.
I find them much more comfortable than the PowerBeats (which uses the same W1 chip).
The pairing felt much better with the AirPods.
Re: Expectations
They surpassed my expectations. iCloud syncing of bluetooth pairing information is nice. Being able to hear the sound in my environment is also good when exercising.
Invoking Siri is so much faster using the EarPods an it is with the Apple Watch.
You can also double tap the side to answer calls (which I didn't hear about in any of the reviews).
We use SIP phones at work, and I've found an app called Groundwire (https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/groundwire-business-caliber/...) that integrates with call kit.
Re: Having them fall out.
I have not been able to get them to fall out, even when trying.
All in all, a worthy purchase, a few :O moments, and the ability to wrestle with my dog and forget they're in, but still be listening to music... Pretty fun moments.
But the main thing that no one but apple seems to get is the "recharge story". It's obnoxious to have to plug these things into a micro USB.
The Apple Watch and AirPods are how everyone should be doing recharging - a cradle that stores your device while it charges it.
I own both the BlueBuds X (which uses micro USB) and the AirPods. I love the BlueBuds X, but the charging solution for the AirPods is vastly superior to that of the BlueBuds. To me, the charging case is one of the killer features of the AirPods.
When you take them out of your ear, they conveniently pop into the case for safe keeping. While they are in the case they are always charging. They also charge incredibly fast. This makes it virtually impossibly to be "stranded" with dead headphones. Even when I ran the AirPods almost completely down, I was able to charge them from 2% to 84% in just a few minutes.
I've had several times where I've had my BlueBuds die on me and I wouldn't have a backup pair of headphones. The AirPod case's battery is large enough that you can get an additional 24 hours of playback from them. This means you could potentially not charge them for days and still be fine.
To me, using a standard Micro USB cord means that I don't necessarily need a specific charger for the Airpods, I can mix and match chargers with one of the other accessories that use the same standard. Also, remembering to charge the case seems like an additional step that I will likely forget.