I’ve been traveling this week, and one of my trusty companions is my set of AirPods. I love being able to listen to music and podcasts, often using both AirPods, but when I want to listen to audio while also being able to hear the outside world, I just wear one of them. I just got the audiobook version of Daniel Suarez’s latest book Change Agent, and I look forward to using my AirPods to listen to that this weekend. Even though AirPods have now been out for many months, they are still very hard to buy, as noted by John Gruber of Daring Fireball. But if you think that they might appeal to you, I encourage you to buy a pair. Jason Snell of Six Colors explains his thoughts after using AirPods for four months, and I agree with most of what he says, except that in my experience, my ability to use AirPods on a plane depends upon what I am doing. For music and many podcasts, AirPods are loud enough even with the background noise of a plane. But for some movies and TV shows, I agree with Jason that the volume isn’t quite loud enough to overcome the background noise, so I instead use a wired set of headphones that fit more snugly in my ears and thus block out some external noise. And now, the news of note from the past two weeks:
- Legal technology expert Brett Burney recently gave a presentation called Top 10 Apps for Lawyers for MyCase. You can watch the presentation and learn about all of the apps that he recommends in this post on the MyCase Blog.
- Also on the MyCase blog, New York attorney Nicole Black writes about a presentation at ABA TECHSHOW regarding iPad Tips for Lawyers.
- California attorney David Sparks discusses whether it is necessary to take a laptop when traveling, or whether the iPad is enough. Except for the times that I have gone to trial, I have not travelled with a laptop since 2010, instead relying upon my iPad. I’m out of town as I type this post, using my iPad Pro in split screen mode.
- San Diego attorney Jeff Bennion discusses the dangers of using public Wi-Fi at a place like Starbucks.
- In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell says that using ApplePay still feels like living in the future, even though it has been out for two years now. I agree; every time I have the opportunity to pay for something with my watch, it still makes me smile.
- In an article for Lifehacker, Thorin Klowsowski explains the basics of using 1Password, the password manager that I use every day.
- I recently wrote about using Apple’s CarPlay technology in a car. If you have an older car and you want to upgrade it to add CarPlay, Luke Flipowicz of iMore recommends the best CarPlay-enabled receivers.
- Tech journalist Steven Aquino reviews Apple’s new Clips app.
- David Pogue of Yahoo explains how to forward a text message.
- And finally, Apple’s new Apple Park campus is nearing completion. Here is a cool drone video showing the state of the construction, both during the day and at night. It looks very neat:
It might be a stupid question, but are there any quality benefits of using AirPods instead of the old fashioned wired ones?
Also the thing that bothers my with the AirPods is, that with wired earphones, I’m able to listen all day long.
Did you had any shortcomings regarding the battery life so far?
Tom,
I address much of this my my review of the AirPods:
http://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/2017/01/review-apple-airpods.html
But in short,
(1) The sound quality of the AirPods is essentially the same as the earpods that come built-in with an iPhone. Which means that the sound is very good, but you can get better quality with expensive headphones. Also, there is no noise cancellation, so if you are in a noisy environment you can hear the outside world. Except for when I am on planes, I consider this to be an advantage because I want to hear if someone is trying to talk to me while I am using AirPods.
When it comes to quality-of-life, however, the AirPods are much better. There is no cord to get in your way. And you can easily wear just one of them if you are only listening to something in the background while still clearly listening to the outside world.
(2) I have never run out of battery life with my AirPods. You can use a set for five hours before you run out of power, and I guess I have never gone more than five hours straight without stopping. When the AirPods run out of power, just slip them into the charging case, and only 15 minutes of charging gets you another three hours. So if you plan to use them all day long as you suggest, as long as you can take very short breaks of a few minutes to charge them, you can get another 20 hours of charge with the case, so in other words you can go 24 hours before running out of power in both the AirPods and the case. And of course, you can charge the case while the AirPods are in your ears, so if you have access to a Lightning cord during the day, you can essentially use AirPods constantly as long as you take a few minute of break time every few hours.
Again, in real world use, I have simply never had an issue with battery life. The case works so well that you always want to put your AirPods in there when you are not using them, and as as result whenever I take my AirPods out of the case I virtually always have a 100% full charge. This experience is far, far better than prior wireless headphones that I have used.
-Jeff
Wow, thank you very much for your fast and very detailed answer.
This was a great help to me and now I have to check out the AirPods in the Store, if they have any in stock. 🙂
Once again, thank you Jeff