Me: "Joy, do you have any cute stickers I can stick on my AirPods case?"
Queen of Stickers, Joy: "I got ya, bruh."
Me: "Oi, that's Papa to you. Oooh that's a cute duck."
I had to do this to distinguish my review-unit AirPods from my wife's (I bought her a pair as a Christmas pressie).
How do I feel about them so far? Well, having lived with them for a few months now, here is my assessment.
The pairing process is wicked fast and painless. You open a new pair of AirPods and your iPhone will detect them and ask if you want to pair them. You say "Yes" and it's done. None of that pressing some button until a blue light blinks etc.
Once you pair them, it is paired across all the Apple devices you use that are logged in via your Apple ID. So you don't have to pair them again with your iPad Pro, Apple TV 4 or Apple Watch. That's also very neat.
The other neat thing is that AirPods work out of their case. You take them out and wear them, and your iPhone knows and auto-connects. There is no need to turn them on. Place them back into the case, and you auto-disconnect and the buds are charged. The AirPods last five hours on one charge and the case that is also a powerbank for the buds will let you use the AirPods for up to 24 hours. A quick-charge option gives you three hours of use if you charge them inside the case for fifteen minutes.
Will you lose them easily? Not really. I find myself putting them back into the case when not in use. Like my favorite Erato Apollo 7, you can't hang them around your neck and forget them.
I also like how the AirPods know when you take one earbud off and will auto-pause the music or video, and resume when you put them back on. It doesn't always work but it works enough of the time to make it very convenient. Using the AirPods for phone calls is also very good, with the mics picking up your voice so well, the other party thinks you are holding the iPhone to your ear.
Double-tap one of the AirPods while you are wearing them, and you can get Siri to do stuff. You can also set the double-tap to do other things instead of Siri, like pause and play.
What do I not like about them? The audio quality is about what you get out of the EarPods you get free with your iPhone. These aren't audiophile earphones by any stretch of the imagination. The isolation isn't great too, and you can still hear the ambient sound from your surroundings when you wear them. My Erato Apollo 7 has way better sound and isolation.
I also wish I could control the volume or skip tracks using the double-tap but the only way you can currently do that is to double-tap for Siri, and tell Siri, "Lower the volume by 50 percent." or "Next track."
So, that S$238 you are paying for is mainly the battery life, the ease of use, and the ease of pairing.
That said, these are the most convenient wireless earphones I've used with my iPhone. Now if only Apple can make them less dorky-looking by shortening the stems. And improve the audio quality, darn it.
There you go, the good and the bad things about the new AirPods. The few flaws I've noted don't seem to have affected their popularity or sales, I think. There is a six-week waiting time for a pair on Apple's online store as of now. And I can't find them in physical stores right now.
