I love my AirPods. I use them just about every day, mainly at work for phone calls. I don’t hear so well after playing bass in rock bands for most of the last 35 years and having the sound source directly in my ear is a huge help to me. Plus, it’s cool to have hands-free calls so I can type notes and Google stuff while in mid-conversation. Plus plus–no wires to snag and pop the buds out of your ears. Plus plus plus–you don’t have to pair and unpair them. You just pop them in your ear and they redirect the audio output of my phone automagically. Love them. But they aren’t perfect. They loosen in my ear after a few minutes and sometimes they can even fall out. That and the batteries aren’t what they used to be. I can talk on the phone for about an hour and fifteen minutes before they start warning me that they’re running low on juice. Sure, I can pop one into the charging case for a few minutes and get significant life back into it, but the whole thing still gives me battery anxiety. Nobody has time for that. So I impulse-bought a new pair of AirPods Pro. (Yes, you pluralize them like “attorneys general.”) I saw them on sale for $40 off a couple of nights ago and, clickety-click, click, click, They were delivered yesterday.
The charging case is bigger than the old, non-pro ones. The old one was dental floss sized. This one is more like Tic-Tac sized. But I was expecting that. The first thing that I really noticed is that they are hard to get out of the case. They’re strangely shaped and I couldn’t seem to figure out an easy way to dislodge them. Maybe I just have too much muscle memory from the old pair. Maybe it just takes a little time.
Second thing I noticed is that the charging cable that comes with it is Lightning on the case end and USB-C on the power end. The outlets mounted to my desk have USB-A. So does my 2017 MacBook Air. The Pros didn’t come with a power adapter. I have a couple at home, but they’re all USB-A, too. Maybe I’ll have to buy a USB-C to wall plug adapter for it. But then I remembered–I have a 10,000 mAh battery pack in my bag. I don’t use it much, but I do pull it out and charge it quarterly to just keep it topped up. I got it a couple of summers ago when I was mulling over one of the fundamental truths about travel: no matter how you plan, you will end up in a situation where your phone needs charging and there’s no convenient way to do it. (Ha. Remember travel?)
So I bust out the battery pack and sure enough it has USB-C. So I plugged in my AirPods Pro case and charged away. After further consideration, though, I think I may just charge them wirelessly like I do with my iPhone XS. I have a spare wireless charger that I can use for it. Let’s finally be done with this plugging in of things. What are we, animals?
They sound great. But just about all earbuds sound great to me, especially if you get a good fit and a good seal in your ear. I grew up listening to cheap stereos, radios, and boom boxes. They were never anywhere near as hi fi as a cheap set of earbuds are today. Also, remember: I don’t hear so good in the first place, so the subtle nuances that audiophiles may gush over when present and lament after when they are absent mean pretty much nothing to me. Give me a flat EQ and decent bump in the low end and I’m good.
Then, while sitting around at home last night, I started fooling around with the noise cancelation. Now, I am on record as publicly stating that noise cancelation is bullshit. I was wrong. It’s miraculous. When I turned it on with no music playing, my apartment became dead silent. Like, no sound of the fan in my space heater. No tire noise on the street outside. Nothing. I flipped it on and off a few times. Amazing. I know other people have known and loved this feature for years, but it’s new to me and it took me all of five seconds to fall in love with it.
According to some reviews I have read, Apple’s implementation of noise cancelation is excellent for the earbud form factor. It has three modes. On, Off, and “Transparent.” That last mode actually amplifies outside sounds so you hear them kind of like you aren’t wearing earbuds at all. I suppose this is handy for quick conversations at the checkout counter or if you’re walking or running outside and you need to hear traffic noise. I’ll have to play with it.
The other thing Apple has built into these is something they call “Adaptive EQ.” They say it uses a microphone to analyze the sound inside your ear and adjusts the lows and mids perfectly for your ear shape. Turn off the noise cancellation and Adaptive EQ goes off with it. You can really tell the difference. And it’s at this point it hits me: Apple intends for you to use the noise cancelation at all times, just going from canceled to “Transparent” as needed. “Off” seems to be kind of an afterthought, just there to accommodate some grumpy old person who doesn’t want any newfangled thingamajigs.
One thing I am having a struggle with is the plastic ear tips. The pros ship with small, medium, and large pairs. The medium ones are already on the buds so that is what I used at first. But they don’t seem to be sealing right all the time for me. Maybe I just need to get used to them. You have to put them in at a certain angle, with a certain twist, and it may take more than an hour of fooling around to make it automatic. Or, maybe I just need the large tips. Apple has a utility on the iPhone that tests for seal quality. It uses the microphones inside and outside your ears, mixes it with magic, plays a short snippet of music, and tells you if the seal is good or not. My phone said the medium tips were sealed well in both of my ears. I tried the large ones anyway. They seem to fit more snugly, but when I take them out they get turned inside out which is inconvenient. Maybe I’ll go back to the mediums again and try to learn how to insert them in the best way possible.
Another difference is the controls. Used to be you would tap a bud once, twice, three times to get them to do things like play/pause, skip track, summon Siri and more. Now there’s a squeeze function on the mic stalk. There’s no physical button there, but it seems like there is because when you apply enough squeeze it puts a little click in your ear. Neat. Anyway, you can squeeze once, twice, three times, or even long squeeze for different commands. And yes you can do some customization of these behaviors in your iPhone.
I guess I need to figure out a new home for my old AirPods. And I should order a case for the Pros. Sorry, AirPods Pro. There’s a ton of cheap ones with 4+ stars on Amazon. Here’s hoping this is an upgrade I continue to love as I become more and more familiar with them.