14 September 2016

Business Insider: “Review: Apple’s new AirPods are a mixed bag”

Unlike Apple’s wired EarPods, there’s no dongle for controlling your music, answering calls, or adjusting the volume. That means you have to do everything through Siri or directly on your phone. It’s easily the biggest drawback to the AirPods, and it will likely be a deal breaker for many unless Apple comes up with a software fix between now and launch.

Let’s take volume control, for example. If you’re listening to music and want to turn up the volume, you have to double tap one of the AirPods. That activates Siri, which in turn pauses your music (ugh!) so you can say “raise the volume”. Then the music resumes with the volume turned up. Compare that to simply tapping on the volume button on the wired EarPods, and you can imagine how annoying the process is.

Steve Kovach

I didn’t intend to continue posting about this user-hostile choice from Apple, but here’s something I haven’t considered before: how do you control headphones when you take away the cable where the volume buttons and play/pause used to be? Apparently it’s more complicated than you’d think…

People try on Apple’s new wireless ‘AirPods’ for the first time

Related: people are already making fun of the design on Reddit (ear tampons is my personal favorite) – and if you’re worried you might lose one or both, you can order a $10 AirPods Strap to keep them together…

This is what AirPods look like from the front... from funny

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