Seriously, you look ridiculous with those white headphone wires hanging out of your ears. Remember when those wires meant you were cool? That you had the latest technology and were a trend setter? They now say that you are lame. You are behind the times. You don't know what cool is. You might as well wear socks and Teva's.

Remember this? Ads with images like this graced billboards, magazine pages, and tv, making white headphone wires the symbol of cool.

A shift in style, fashion, and technology is happening. Apple defined what digital cool was, and they can change anytime they want. They are replacing the old cool with new cool. The new cool is also the best product they have made in years: the Apple AirPod Bluetooth headphones. This product is so well designed, so well made, they will go down as one of the best product's Apple has ever made. I love this product, more than I ever thought I would. Below is my review.

A few months ago, I purchased a pair of Apple AirPod headphones. AirPods are Apple's first foray into wireless, bluetooth headphones. Sure, they own Beats which offers a few bluetooth options, but this is the first offering under the Apple name, and with the absence of a headphone jack in the iPhone 7, a critical offering.

With this product, Apple took some risks. Instead of making bulky over/on the hear headphones, or those silly around the neck wireless/but not really wireless headphones, they stuck with their iconic headphone design...just without the wires. That means the headphones are two, small pieces. They also look rather funny, with the "stem" that the wires would usually exit from, poking down out of the hear into thin air.

Had I told you a year ago that this is what Apple would do, you'd have thought I was crazy. Today, I am here to tell you that I think this is the best product that Apple has released in years...maybe since the original iPhone. Apple will sell 100's of millions of this product, at the price of $159, which is an attractive combination for Apple and it's shareholders (I am one).

So, why do I like these headphones so much? Read on.

Simple design

The design of these headphones shows exactly what Apple does so well: simplicity. There is nothing unnecessary on these headphones. No buttons. Plain white. Small. Beyond the physical design, they just work. They simply work. Easy to pair. Easy to use. When I first got my hands on them, I thought I'd have to figure out a new way to interact with a nuanced device, but I was wrong. They work out-of-the-box with almost no thought.

Pairing & using

Getting started with AirPods is easy. Just take them out of the box, and while near one of your iOS devices, clip open the lid on the case. They'll pair right away, with some handy visual indicators on your phone to confirm whats happening. One of the things Apple was really smart about was integrating AirPod info into the iOS operating system.

Of course, they also pair with your MacOS devices (laptops & desktops), WatchOS, and any other device that supports Bluetooth 4.0 or higher...even your PC or Android phone. Paring with non-Apple devices won't be as easy, but they still made it nice and simple, with the product's only physical button being a nearly invisible pairing button on the back of the case for pairing with non-Apple devices.

Simple pairing aside, the best feature of AirPods is how easy they are to use! Remove them from their case, put them in your ears, and you are ready to go! Seriously, no other action necessary! No power button, no need to pair, no need to select an output source. They just work, flawlessly! Whether with my iPhone or MacBook Pro, these headphones are the most simple bluetooth device I've ever used.

A few other things: They connection never seems to drop or degrade, I don't have to repair to reset, like I have had to do with some non-Apple bluetooth devices. The range is also great. The version of Bluetooth that they run is rated at up to 60 feet and I can confirm that they do operate well at 30-60 feet from the source. I also find the sound quality to be just fine...I'm not an audiophile or a music nerd, I only need decent sound for podcasts and short term music listening.

Battery & case

Apple did something unconventional for bluetooth headphones when they designed the AirPods, they made it a 3 piece product. The headphones are individual, disconnected pieces for the left and right ears, and they come in a case, making for 3 pieces of hardware.

There is a great reason for this. Apple has created a great combination of size/portability and battery life. They did this by putting a few hours of battery power in the headphones, and many more hours of use through a battery in the case. The case serves as a place to hold/secure your headphones, a way to charge them, and a way to recharge them on the go.

I got my AirPods in mid-April and have used them off and on 5 days per week since then. In early June, I count only 5 times that I had to plug the case into a lightning cable for recharging. Thats because the battery capacity in the case is enough to recharge the headphones themselves many times over. A headphone charge should last for 2-3 hours of continuous use, but I tend to use them for 20-60 minutes at a time, and then put them back into the case for safekeeping and automatic recharging. So, my headphones are almost always at 100% charge when I use them.

This combination of small batteries in the headphones themselves, a larger battery in the case, and a design that encourages placing in the case between uses has resulted in fantastic effective battery life. Like electric cars, battery life is typically the #1 concern of any wireless device.

Light sensors

The first time I used my AirPods to listen to music, I discovered a hidden and useful feature. Each headphone has a light sensor to detect when they are in your ears or not! They way Apple uses this feature is to pause/stop audio....and I presume to also conserve battery life.

When wearing AirPods, removing one from your ear will pause the audio you are listening too (music, podcast, whatever...might also pause audio/video but I haven't tried that yet). Putting the headphone back in your ear resumes the play of audio from where it was paused. Removing both headphones is like pressing stop, putting them back in your ear will not restart your audio.

What a simple, useful and unexpected feature! Thank you to the Apple Engineers that thought of this, its truly a feature that makes these headphones a delight to use.

Tap to control

In addition to removing headphones from your ear to control your phone/computer, there is one other way to interact with your Apple devices through the AirPods: double tap either one of the headphones while in the ear.

The default setting for double tap is to engage Siri. This is handy if you have your phone put away and want to do something like check the time or compose a text. The action on double tap can be changed to play/pause music, and I suspect with future software upgrades to both the AirPds and iOS, we'll get more possibilities.

Its Siri though that makes these headphones powerful. I suspect that Apple will take on Amazon Alexa via headphone integration, not through an in-home device. The killer use-case for voice controlled technology is mobile, and physical devices like Echo speakers will go the way of the landline telephone. Apple knows this and is building for a future that revolves around personal mobile devices for voice commands, and these headphones are a key element of that plan.

What could be improved on

Of course, the product could be improved in a few ways. I miss volume control. The freedom of wireless allows me to put my phone away more than wired headphones allowed for, but I can't control the volume except for with my phone. This is slightly annoying.

I also find that switching between devices to be less seamless than I'd expect from Apple. I use my AirPods with my iPhone and with my MacBook Pro. During the workday, I'll switch between the two a few times. There is no seamless or easy way to switch, and I can't be connected to both at once. So to switch, I have to disconnect from the Bluetooth menu on one device, and initiate connection to the other device. When I do this, it seems to take a long time for the connection to be established.

Finally, I wouldn't mind some other features, like wireless charging, longer battery life, and even some basic noise canceling would be nice. Those things will come with new iterations over the next couple years, and you can bet that I'll be first in line to buy new generations of this amazing product!

Update: On May 9th, 2017, Amazon announced the release of Alexa Calling, their device-to-device communication feature. While the feature appears to allow the equivalent of a phone call from one device owner to another, as I hoped they would do, it does not appear to offer the intercom like functionality I propose below.

The Amazon Echo, and Echo Dot come in white and black, and are powered by Alexa. The larger Echo offers music quality sound.

I love my Amazon Echo. I first bought the device because I wanted a small but good music speaker for my small studio apartment, and I liked the idea that I could play music from my Amazon music library. The Echo solved that need beautifully, and I soon fell in love with Alexa, the voice/AI software that powers Echo. I now also own an Echo Dot for my bathroom, and I use both of my Echo devices to do things like set a morning alarm, hear the news, get the weather, call an Uber, create shopping lists, get live updates on sports scores, assist me when cooking, hear my schedule for the next day, listen to recent tweets, and so, so much more. I believe we are still in the early days of what Echo/Alexa can do, we'll see an exponential addition of capabilities over the next couple of years.

This Christmas, I bought my parents an Echo Dot, and my sister received one for her home as well. I quipped to her that she'll love the Echo Dot so much, she'll soon end up with an Echo device in every major room of her house. I know I'd have more than 2 if I didn't live in a studio apartment!

The thought of my closest family members all having Echo devices, and the idea of my sister having one in each room of her bustling family home gave me an idea. Echo devices could do for voice-based communication what Apple's FaceTime did for video calling. In a world where we have an increasing reliance on text based communication such as SMS (texting) and Email, Amazon has the opportunity to usher in a new age of the telephone with device-to-device communication.

I'd love the ability to call my parents by simply speaking to my Echo and telling Alexa to connect me with them. On the other end, their Echo could tell them that I'd like to talk, and they could command their Echo to answer or take a message. As ridiculous as it sounds, removing the friction of dialing and holding the phone to my ear would lead me to more voice communication with my family, and less texting.

Anyone alive in the 70s, 80s, or 90s will recognize this!

Another device-to-device application is as an instant home intercom system. With Echo devices in each room of my sister's home, she'd have a network of devices that she could use to communicate with her children and husband, no matter where they are in the house. Using her voice to call the kids down from the playroom for dinner, or asking her husband to bring a screwdriver in from the garage, at just $49.99 for the Echo Dot, the Echo family of products could inexpensively and less obtrusively do what so many electronics companies and home builders did in the 80s and 90s with ugly, in-wall intercom systems.

Amazon has a lot of opportunity ahead with Echo/Alexa, and a lot of tough decisions to make about what to/not to build. I'd love to see them add device-to-device voice communication, would you? Like this post and share on social media if you agree!

You look ridiculous with those wires hanging out of your ears (Or, Apple's best product in years)