iPhone 7: Apple launches ‘AirPods’ alongside new phone, allowing people to listen without any wires at all
Until now, most wireless headphones actually had a wire connecting themselves to each other. No more
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Your support makes all the difference.Apple has released completely wireless earphones, alongside the headphone jack-less iPhone 7.
Some reacted with horror, imagining just how easy it would be to lose what is essentially one tiny earphone without any wire attached at all. But others were excited by what appeared to be the first mainstream wireless headphones that genuinely didn’t have any wires at all.
The horror was perhaps the initial reaction. Popular Mechanics wrote that the wire that has been removed wasn’t actually a problem, making it far easier to lose the earphones and harder to use them.
But Apple sold the headphones as the ultimate end of what they hope is a wireless world. The AirPods have been made to be as easy as possible, they said, and had been designed from the ground-up as a better way of interacting with your iPhone.
And they aren’t limited just to the iPhone. Once they are paired – which is done by just placing them near the handset – they will sync over iCloud so that they can be used with any Mac, iPad or Apple Watch.
The EarPods will know which they are going to be used with, so that they’ll shut off or change if they’re taken out of the ear. And they’ll know if just one of them is in – meaning that they’ll listen out for Siri on just that one ear, and change the sound to mono.
Inside the EarPods is Apple’s W1 chip. The company said that has been designed to let them communicate efficiently with their phone and to do so without using too much battery.
The EarPods will last for five hours on one charge. Their case will also hold 24-hours of charge, meaning that they can be placed back in there when they run out of battery.
As well as being designed for listening to music, the EarPods function as a way of talking to Siri. They can sense touch on their side for triggering the assistant, and have a microphone that means they can be used for talking to it or to other people on the phone.
Aside from the EarPods, Apple looked to soothe worries about the lack of headphone jack by providing two main products in the box. It will give people earphones that plug into the charging port on the bottom, and will also put a dongle in every box that allows traditional headphones to be plugged into that same port.
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