Apple's AirPods are now a creaky two-and-a-half years old. It was time for an update. In fact, many would argue – particularly those who expect a brand spanking new mobile handset each and every year – that a change was well overdue. So it's hardly surprising that the web has been awash with rumours for months that Apple was finally going to revamp its wireless buds.
Of course, once Apple uncharacteristically started to release details about new iPads and iMacs ahead of its conference next week, it became clear Tim Cook was getting the product news out the way well in advance so attention would be predominantly on the company's new TV and film streaming Netflix competitor. But while Apple clearly wants 'Appflix' to be the belle of the ball, as the AirPods have been such a global success, many have been eagerly waiting for an updated version.
We now know the second-generation AirPods add hands-free voice control, an extra hour of battery life for talk time and an optional wireless charging case to the features list. And while these are undoubtedly welcome additions, it is not a radical overhaul from the original design.
After Apple ditched the headphone jack on the iPhone 7, a polarising decision that paved the way for other manufacturers to follow suit, it clearly had to then offer something other than its standard EarPod buds. The EarPods, remember, were almost universally derided for being uncomfortable and having poor sound and terrible leakage. They were free, after all; and you get what you pay for.
That said, the AirPods' arrival was still a shock. Dropping the cable and placing the Bluetooth 4.0 wireless earpieces in their own carry case that doubled as a portable battery and charger was a neat trick. So was adding accelerometers so that your AirPods knew when they were in your ear, and would play – or pause – music or podcasts accordingly. As was allowing users to define the tap functions on the left or right AirPod.
It goes a long way to prove how well Apple did with this initial version when you consider that most of these features are now standard on the plethora of wireless earbuds available these days.
But the headphone market moves very fast. It's one of the few pieces of gadgetry almost everyone buys at some point. It's also a product that most of us will regularly upgrade or replace. At two-and-a-half years old, Apple needed to pimp its AirPods if they were to remain a viable option - one that you can charge £159 for, anyway.
So, what did Apple did get right and get wrong with the AirPods 2? Well, Apple's new H1 chip should make everything run seamlessly – but to Apple's credit it did anyway with the original system. It should mean that it will be twice as fast to switch between devices, 1.5 times faster connecting calls and a third less latency for audio from gaming. None of these things were really an issue before, but it's nice that they've been improved.
More battery life is always welcome. The new earbuds will last for five hours of music and three hours of talk time (an hour longer than the first AirPods). As for voice control, you can now say ‘Hey Siri’ and Apple's middling digital assistant will spring into life, ready and eager to misunderstand your next command. Before you had to double tap the buds to wake Siri, which again was not really any issue.
Perhaps the biggest improvement is the optional extra, the wireless charging case. The design of the case looks the same but will now suck up power when placed on a Qi wireless charger. This is genuinely useful and a clear improvement. Existing AirPods fans will rejoice.
However, Apple has not gone anywhere near the the one area I really hoped it would: the actual design of the AirPods themselves. I'm not talking about the aesthetic, which I confess I am not a fan of, as that has been given a firm cultural thumbs up by hordes of millennials gadding about “AirPod flexing”, showing off their headphones as an unsubtle form of social signalling.
No, I'm talking about how that unchanged design affects the sound quality, a blindingly obvious factor in any set of headphones. The AirPods are not earbuds, they are earphones. Earbuds not only lodge themselves in your ears, thanks to silicone tips, this design effectively blocks out ambient noise at the same time, making the aural experience that much better. Samsung's new Galaxy Buds are a good example of this. Earphones do no such passive noise-cancelling (as it's misleadingly called in the audio business – you can shove tissue in your ears and experience passive noise-cancelling any time you choose). Their open design means you can hear what's going on around you as well as what's being played.
That may sound useful, but in actual use when its loud it makes listening to podcasts or dialogue in films almost impossible. Try watching a film with audio supplied via AirPods while commuting on a busy bus or train and you'll see what I mean.
That open design also means that leakage is an issue. And while we're at it, Apple could have done so much better with the AirPods ergonomically. They sit in your ears with about the same level of security as those original free Apple earphones. Snug is the opposite of what AirPods are. It means there's a reluctance to use the AirPods for hardcore gym or training sessions.
And this brings us to another area where the AirPods could have been improved: with the inclusion of on-board fitness tracking. But, having said that, Bragi’s Dash Pros have tried to be all-singing and all-dancing wireless buds with health tracking and even translation included for some time, but they certainly haven't been taking the headphone world by storm. For now, Apple has quite sensibly opted to keep its fitness focus on the ever-improving Apple Watch.
It would have been good to see more complicated touch controls on the AirPods, too. Double-tapping on either one for a limited range of operations is useful, but you can't even alter the volume unless you physically take your phone out or now presumably tell Siri to do it.
What I would really like to see is something of an audio holy trinity: the rock-solid connection performance (which is unshakable and must be applauded) and friendly UI of the AirPods coupled with a design more akin to Samsung's Galaxy Buds (whose connection is anything but solid), where they are actually earbuds and small enough to almost look as if you haven't got anything in your ears at all, combined with the audio performance of Sony's WF-1000X earbuds.
That is unlikely to happen anytime soon, sadly, so until then I'll keep my AirPods in that eminently conveyable case on hand as my preferred portable earphones while relying on my trusty noise-cancelling over-ears for a noisy commute.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
