It’s funny this pattern keeps emerging over and over in our lives — complain about something, lose any built-up joy and expectation of it, and then come to like it and enjoy it gradually. For context, I was very critical of AirPods just a while back.
Of course I only use them in “controlled” environments, still, but they sound…pretty good? Spatial Audio isn’t so bad, not even ‘head tracked’ which I disliked so much all throughout. A big reason I don’t like those in-the-ear earphones is they disconnect you from the real world: a car honking, a loud bang etc. This is where this head-tracking stuff shines. It allows me to turn my head and have these real world experiences filter through pretty…naturally.
Switching between devices is easy too. The battery backup is fine for me.
That said, I almost lost one earpiece on a flight recently when it fell down and I couldn’t locate it. Anyone could have just…taken it. Thankfully, the passenger behind me was kind. (The same two people I had let walk ahead of me when boarding. How cute that it was them!)
It’s true that they are designed to be lost and designed to be wasteful — that’s what still worries me the most.