6 / 10

There were so many rumours about Apple's plans to ditch the headphone jack on the iPhone 7 that it came as no surprise last September when the firm unveiled its Lightning EarPods. Its AirPods, however, were a little less expected.

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Apple AirPods are effectively the same as EarPods but without the cable. They are powered by Apple's wireless W1 chip and balance in the ear. The AirPods connect to any Bluetooth 4.0 device and contain accelerometers that know when the AirPods are in your ear, and play – or stop – music accordingly. Elsewhere, a built-in microphone can be used to speak to Siri or make hands-free calls.


Our biggest criticism of Apple's existing range of EarPods is how uncomfortable they are. For a company that prides itself on design - and now has the audio and musical expertise of engineers from Dr Dre's Beats – its earphones have often bordered on appalling. There are even memes about how poor the sound quality and 'leakage' have been on previous models.

Following an initial hands-on with the AirPods at the September event, we criticised the AirPods for continuing this frustrating trend. Having now spent more than two months using them, has our opinion changed?

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Design and fit

The lack of wires on the AirPods is an immediate bonus as it reduces the weight and pull on your ears as you wear them. This isn't any better or worse than other, similar wireless earphones, though, so hardly sets Apple apart.


They are also far from snug when compared to the fitting of rival in-ear earphones, but are substantially more comfortable than any of Apple's audio products that have come before. In fact, that last sentence is indicative of our time with the AirPods and should caveat everything that follows - AirPods are not as bad as we thought they would be, but they're starting from a point of low expectation, and are nowhere near the high standard of other brands.

Gallery: Apple's iPhone 7, Apple Watch and AirPods Gallery Gallery: Apple's iPhone 7, Apple Watch and AirPods + 12

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Wearing the Apple AirPods draws some odd looks. People who are aware of them either admire you for wearing them (a man on the Tube remarked how cool they were) or frown at you, seemingly berating your choice. People who aren't aware of them (family members being a case in point) made - albeit tiresome - jokes about how we'd broken our earphones, while asking where the rest of them were. Of course, these people may have simply been looking at us like that anyway, but wearing AirPods makes you self-conscious and a little paranoid and this feeling becomes amplified when making calls or using Siri.

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Making calls and using Siri

Double tapping the AirPods activates Siri, as long as your phone has a web connection. You can then use Siri in the same way you would control the personal assistant on your phone. Shouting commands into, what to others looks like thin air, is unnerving though, and making calls while wearing AirPods is a similarly strange experience. Many of us have become accustomed to seeing other people talking to themselves before noticing their mouthpiece attached to earphones. At the wrong angle, AirPods seemingly vanish making it look like you're actually talking to yourself.


That said, we were pleasantly surprised with how well the AirPods picked up our voice without needing a microphone next to our mouth, and they did so particularly well in noisy environments. Tap gestures can be used to answer and end these calls, too.

Audio quality

Credit to Apple, it does appear to have learnt from some of its previous mistakes. There is much less sound leakage on the AirPods compared to previous EarPods and songs only started to be audible to people around us on the highest volumes. In the office, we tend to listen to music with one earphone in (so we can still hear colleagues but block out other noise). This is possible with AirPods but takes a little manoeuvring because AirPods will stop playing as soon as one of them is removed. A very minor point, but a valid one nonetheless.

Unlike its EarPods, or a myriad rival earphones, it's not possible to change the volume or skip tracks on the AirPods. This was a significant downside for us and is the main reason we wouldn't switch to using AirPods full time. It is an action we make regularly throughout the day and having to get our phone out each time was inconvenient, to say the least. You can skip tracks using Siri, but by the time you've activated it and spoken the command, it's quicker to use your phone. Siri also doesn't work underground when without a web connection, and we will refer you to our previous point about feeling self-conscious when wearing them.

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-Read more: The best wireless, Lightning and Bluetooth headphones for the iPhone 7

Exercising with AirPods

The lack of wires is fantastic when out running and we were impressed the AirPods didn't easily fall out while exercising.

Hands on with the Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus Apple Hands on with the Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus

On a 5km run, they didn't fall out once but did come loose a number of times which required us to adjust them. This was similar when cycling. Of course, when doing yoga it's not practical to wear AirPods, but the same can be said of any earphones - wireless or not.

We also attempted to make the AirPods fall out while dancing vigorously (to Drake, no less) but even then they only became loose with particularly sharp head turns.

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Pairing and battery life

Apple's AirPods come in their own charging case, which (like almost everything Apple) is sleek, neat and practical. With a built-in Bluetooth chip, the case will automatically pair with any Bluetooth-connected iPhone, iPad or iPod touch as soon as the lid is lifted. We struggled to pair the AirPods with an iPhone unless the two devices were practically touching, though. When a phone is recognised, a simple pop-up appears on the device you want to pair with and the AirPods are ready to use.

Apple claims the AirPods deliver an 'industry-leading' five hours of listening time on one charge but adds they will last 24 hours if you have the charging case with you. This is accurate, but frustrating. We don't want to have to place the AirPods back into the case half way through the day and sit in silence while we wait for them to charge. We often found ourselves resorting to our wired earphones while waiting, defeating the point somewhat. This is a problem with many wireless earphones, though.

A significant flaw with the AirPods case, in our experience, was that the magnets in the case regularly wiped our train ticket. If placed near each other in a bag, the ticket failed to work and had to be reprinted which meant making sure they weren't in close proximity - far from ideal.

Price

The AirPods are not cheap. While the Lightning EarPods ship with the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, along with an adapter so you can continue to use your existing earphones with the new handsets, the AirPods cost an additional $159 in the US or £159 in the UK and must be bought separately. This is expensive anyway, but when you factor in the average audio quality and loose fit it widens the chasm between the AirPods and its rivals.

Verdict

Two months with the AirPods was enough time to convince us the earpods aren't as bad as we thought but not enough for to make us want to swap our wired Sennheiser earphones for Apple's wireless ones.

Apple’s AirPods are selling surprisingly well Apple Apple’s AirPods are selling surprisingly well


Before writing the review we felt seven was a fair score but as we began to list all the ways we were disappointed this score moved down to six - and even fellow users have said this is high.

Having traditionally abandoned Apple's own EarPods in favour of rivals we're not willing to gamble on Apple's free, Lightning EarPods, let alone pay £159 for the privilege of having a wireless range. And no amount of 'courage' will convince us.

Read all of WIRED's Apple coverage here