I know you think you believe all that, but as an AirPods user and addict, I am at least somewhat confident in saying that you'd believe it a lot less after 48 hours using AirPods. Until you use them, you can't grasp just how rapidly they charge, just how easy it is to keep them topped off without even thinking about it, just by putting them back in the case, and the fact that you can't and don't "forget" to put them back in the case. Because the case is always with you, and because they're just a pain to carry without the case, and because of the penalty if you lose one.
AirPods are a miracle; a true "wow" product. And as an aside, the audio is really surprisingly decent. I'm a professional classical musician, so my ears aren't terrible.
Without being an Apple product buyer myself, I feel I can get a good pretty read on Apple products' success by the degree of condescension / stridency in reviewers' language. Like some Garner hype curve for fanboyism.
Judging by your tone, Airpod is still rising in popularity, yet to break through to mainstream, but may still do so.
Yes I would go with that and I hate Apple and have never tried airpods. I have tried normal Bluetooth headphones in Android world though and am prepared to believe that the Apple audio experience is better than what I am used to.
However, if you could go back in time by a short amount of years to show anyone the current iteration of music player and air pods then I think they would find the technology to be tantamount to magic and therefore a bonafide miracle.
At the other end of the scale you have the Apple fan and if they find these Airpods things to be miraculous then I think they are only being fair about what has been achieved here technologically to bring music to the consumer.
The recharging story is made even better by the ability to put one at a time in the case. That's particularly important for long phone calls/web conferences/etc, when the microphone tends to drain the battery faster.
With my wired headphones I don't have to do any hacks or workarounds to use them as long as the host device is turned on, I get better audio, they will outlast AirPods if I'm not rough with them, I can (and do, probably several times a day) move them quickly between my workstation, my laptop, and my two phones, they cost about the same, they're more comfortable, they have a better seal, they work where RF is not allowed, they work just as well with every device I own.
If I ever need a replacement in a pinch, almost every convenience store has an inexpensive pair of compatible headphones, good ones can be bought online or at audio stores.
Headphone jacks also double as line-out jacks, allowing you to play audio through any of the billions (!) of compatible systems without noticeable RF interference even in congested conditions.
I'm just sick of all of this "I know you think that" condescension. I'm not even telling people "The massive sucking sound you're hearing is a fad, you just haven't noticed yet.", I'm not telling people that wireless headphones aren't great sometimes.
I'm just saying: keep the jack there, it's cheap, it's convenient, it costs next to nothing in any way (BOM, water resistance, space), it gives customers good and valid options, even if they ultimately want to shove a little plug in the hole and forget about it.
It is not like a CD-ROM drive at all, because it is ubiquitous and common in use (unlike optical media at the time of the superdrive removal), and removing it does not notably improve the device in any way. It doesn't hinder form factor, it doesn't hinder any selling point of the device, and it makes hundreds of millions of people happy.
Four years ago, when Apple started removing laptops with optical drives — they only finished this time last year —
from their lineup, very few people were still using optical media on a regular basis. Today, almost everyone who uses headphones uses wired ones when they have the option to.
There's a difference between avant-garde, and jumping the gun.
AirPods are a miracle; a true "wow" product. And as an aside, the audio is really surprisingly decent. I'm a professional classical musician, so my ears aren't terrible.