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If youre a keen reader of TechRadar.com (and if not, why not?
Anticipation around these parts, it seems fair to say, is keen.
Thats why Im here.
To explain why Apple’s AirPods, in all their many and various guises, are a supreme irrelevance.
Because the MacBook Pro is the best, highest-performing, most reliable and most effective laptop around.
Same with my smartphone: my go-to is theiPhone 14 Pro.
Great camera, flawlessoperating system, 1TB of memory and very acceptable battery life indeed.
Soon enough itll become antiquated, and then Ill buy another iPhone.
Thats because it uses Bluetooth 5.3 and has codec compatibility way beyond what Apple considers necessary.
Sure, they fulfil those criteria that Apple (and its devotees) deem to be important.
But unlike many Apple products the ones I own, for example they dont offer anything approaching class-leading performance.
In fact, theyre bang average.
Im not entirely sure why this should be, I just know that it is.
When it sets its mind to it, Apple is capable of turning out profoundly impressive equipment.
The originaliPod HiFifrom 2006 sounded like someone shouting into a bucket.
Every incarnation of the HomePod has been left for dead by any number of price-comparable alternatives.
Spatial Audio isn’t enough… And yet theyre ubiquitous.
Its not as if theres any compelling reason to choose AirPods over the raft of available alternatives.Spatial audio?
The biggest let down?
But the biggest problem of all for AirPods of every jot down is sound quality.
How about thethird-generation AirPodsat $179 / 169 / AU$279 or thereabouts?
Thinking of chucking 229 at Apple for some AirPods 2 with active noise-cancellation and spatial audio?
And one of those reasons is considerably less valid than the other.
