AirPods impressed me. My first experience with them was so good that I immediately wanted to blog about it. And that’s how I began blogging.

I had already seen that AirPods were paired easily. I was, nevertheless, startled when I paired them with my iPhone. Pairing looks easy when you watch it, but it’s effortless when you do.

After few minutes of use, I began dreaming about the possibilities this device enables. And that’s how you understand that a product is great.

I decided to buy AirPods because I was tired of putting my headphones on and off whenever I leave my desk. I reach over to my bottom drawer, or fill my mug with water many times in a day. Putting on and off my headphones for trivial tasks is more annoying than doing so for larger tasks. AirPods free me from the distraction of managing my headphones, and allow me to focus.

Switching between devices was another headphone management problem I had. Unplug the headphones from the current device, plug them to the next device, and repeat as many times as necessary. I have the habit of using my iPad during my work breaks, so I switch as many times as to be annoying. AirPods are better than wired headphones in this regard. A swipe and two taps are enough for AirPods to connect to another iOS device. But it’s still annoying, especially when switching takes 5 – 10 seconds. It doesn’t always take so long, but it does so as often as to be annoying. Auto-switching, which was previously announced but retracted before shipping, is a must.

I listen to podcasts whenever I walk or do chores. I always put headphone cables inside my shirt to reduce friction and not to let them mess around. Cables drive me mad by constantly pulling down my ear. I have to fit headphones in my ear regularly. AirPods are truly wireless; there is no cable that could pull them down. Truly wireless operation was also the reason I chose AirPods over Beats X.

I was heartbroken when my dreams about how useful AirPods would be turned out to be false. When AirPods are connected to my Mac, I don’t have the option of answering a phone call over my AirPods. Yes, I can answer it on my Mac via handoff, but why should I? I want the freedom of grabbing my phone and stepping outside my open office to have some walk and not disturb my peers.

AirPods, by design, are not suitable for noisy environments. Even the most basic in-canal headphones isolate noise better. Unfortunately you have to turn the volume up to hear better, but that only causes more damage to your hearing. I am looking forward to hearing about in-canal AirPods.

You have to reach your iPhone to adjust volume of AirPods. When you change environments from indoors to outdoors, from walking to commuting, and back, you frequently need to adjust volume. Reaching over to iPhone becomes troublesome. Apple Watch is a convenient option if you have one, but switching to Now Playing app is harder than pushing volume buttons of your iPhone over your pants. The best way to adjust AirPods volume would be to use Apple Watch crown, directly on the watch face.

Other problems are minor. AirPods play a tune when they connect to or disconnect from a device. Connection tune helps when nothing is playing, but it’s unnecessary when you put on your AirPods while already listening to something from your device speakers. AirPods should better play the audio as soon as they connect rather than spending time to announce that they connected, which is very obvious. The relation between Apple Watch and AirPods is very strange. When listening to music on my iPhone via AirPods, watch timer silences AirPods when it goes off. I understand that it might help to pull the attention, but it should just resume the audio, which it doesn’t, after dismissing the alert. Resuming audio is indeed a more general problem. When you answer a phone call while listening to music via AirPods, music doesn’t resume after you hang up. I am confident that these issues are going to be fixed in next major release of iOS.

Speaking of AirPods improvements in next major iOS release, we haven’t heard much about AirPods in WWDC, except that double tap can be set to different functions for each ear. I hope the lack of announcements is because there were more important things to talk about, and not because there were no new features to come. I would love to see this great product become greater.