Would have been nicer of Apple to just contribute a generic improvement back to the Bluetooth Standard, instead of solving a problem by creating "AirPods Bluetooth" and split the market.
Using that course, Google went and made Google-custom enhancements to Bluetooth as well, to apply nearly the same improvements to the user experience as Apple did.
And now here we are, with a universal standard that should work across different products and industries, but for good user experience you now have to brand-match your Bluetooth devices...
Really sad to watch common standards die. With all its flaws aside, I wonder if anything like Bluetooth would even be possible to happen today...
Interesting to hear that Apple managed to solve the issues within their closed ecosystem. So at least a solution DOES exists. The world could be so much better! Agree that it would be nice it thos solutions could penetrate the non-Apple world also.