Ode to the AirPods 5
At their September event – the first under new CEO John Ternus – Apple broke up their keynote into four main product unveils: iPhones Pro, AirPods, Apple Watch, and the "one more thing": iPhone Duo. Of those, I currently hold three, with the fourth set to be pre-ordered next week. But of those three in-hand, I'm surprised by the one I like the most: the AirPods 5.
Don't get me wrong, the iPhone 18 Pro and Apple Watch Ultra 4 are great. But they're great in the same way the iPhone 17 Pro and Apple Watch Ultra 3 were great. I mean, almost exactly in that way. They are almost exactly the same in every way to the products that came before them. That's fine – great even to get some speed bumps and smaller spec upgrades each year, especially if these are your most-used devices, as they are for me. But the real upgrade are these new AirPods.
The AirPods have been pretty much my favorite Apple product since they day they launched almost exactly a decade ago. I'm not even sure how many pairs I've own, but it's a lot. But when the AirPods Pro launched seven years ago, I made that jump and haven't really looked back to the original variety since. Yes, I have a pair of AirPods Max as well, but my most-used version has been the Pros. Until now.
While they touted the upgrade in the keynote, I was skeptical about how good the active noise cancellation (ANC) would be on these non-Pro variety of the earbuds. But in my experience over the past few weeks, Apple may have undersold it. No, they're not quite as good as the ANC on the Pros, but that's seemingly only because of the silicon tips on those models that create a seal. Even without that seal, this ANC is awesome.
Awesome to the point where I'm relegating the AirPods Pro to my backup earphones.
Well that plus one more thing. The volume swipe on the stems. I have long loved this feature of the AirPods Pro – to the point where I wrote about it as one of the first posts on Spyglass. I swipe on these constantly, for music, for podcasts, for calls, even when watching TV. And now I can do that on the AirPods 5 as well.
It's such a good feature that I have no idea why you would buy the other version of the AirPods 5 without it. Yes, you'll save $20, but you'll lose this plus about an hour of battery life and the wireless charing case. It remains weird to me that Apple is even selling that lower-priced model given that small price gap. Just get the better ones, trust me.
And trust me in saying that for most people, the AirPods 5 are likely worth getting over the $100 more expensive AirPods Pro. I was never a huge fan of the tips, now I no longer have to deal with them. And I just don't miss that extra seal at all. Maybe I would on an airplane (I'll report back after a flight in a couple weeks), but I usually wear over-the-ear headphones on flights anyway.
The 5s are also so much nicer to wear over longer periods of time thanks to the lack of those tips. And I tend to wear AirPods for long periods of time. They also just fit my ears better, though your mileage may vary there. Have I mentioned how much smaller the case is for the AirPods 5 versus the Pro? Weight-wise, it's negligible, but in pants pockets, this space saving matters.
Anyway, just a love letter to a product I've long been enamored with and now have come back to after a dalliance with the Pro models. The AirPods – regular model – really may be the best product Apple makes. So much so that it's the only one getting its own post from me after the keynote. Well, until the Duo hits my hands...
