Some questions about the Apple AirPods

Hardware & Accessories


I'm considering purchasing the AirPods after popping into an Apple shop the other day and handled a pair (haha) in real life. Much smaller and nifty than I first thought. Like the dental floss charging case. But before I put them on my birthday list, I have some questions if someone can help me with...

Once paired with my iPhone 6s, can I use one AirPod and navigate using VoiceOver like I can with a regular Plantronics Bluetooth headset? To read messages, facebook etc...

After I place the AirPods back in the case, does voiceover revert back to speaking out of theiPhone speaker as normal?

I also have an iPad Pro, and Apple Watch. If the AirPods are paird to all 3 devices, how does it know which to switch to? For instance, it was last used on my iPhone, I take it out of the case, and want to switch to my iPad. IS there some sort of button to pres to toggle between devices?

Has anyone have problems using AirPods on a plane?





Submitted by Tim Noonan on Thursday, April 20, 2017


Yes, the AirPods are great for single-ear listening. They are a really comfortable earpiece. Its best to switch double-tap to pause play if you use them in a single ear.

While connected to your phone, putting an AirPod in your ear will switch Voiceover to the AirPod, and taking it out will return to the phone's speaker.

At present, however, AirPods don't support multi-point connection to more than one device. So, unlike a Plantronics earpiece, they don't move to which ever device is making audio output.

Instead, to switch to another iOS device, you need to:

1. get to Control panel - by touching the status bar and then doing a 3-finger swipe up

2. switch to page 2 that has the multimedia controls

3. double-tap on iPhone,

4. flick to the AirPods, and then double-tap to activate them.

Yes, this process is as slow and tedious as it sounds.

This lack of Multi-point connectivity also means that the AirPods won't allow you to have Watch voiceover output go to your AirPods, unlike other high-end headsets..

To switch AirPods to a Mac, I highly recommend the Tooth Fairy app which allows you to assign a hotkey to the process of connecting to AirPods, or to other Bluetooth headphones.

Note that the latest macOS release automatically moves Voiceover to which ever device is active, unlike earlier versions. this means when you take the AirPods out of your ears, Voiceover returns to the speaker automatically.

Submitted by Jeff on Thursday, April 20, 2017

So, based on the above comment, am I correct in my understanding that if I have one pair of airPods connected to a given iPhone, I can have a different pair of airPods connected to a different iPhone and they won't get confused or try switching if they are in near proximity to one another? In other words, if my wife and I each get our own set of airPods, will they stay connected to our respective iPhones and not switch to the other's iPhone automatically?

For that matter, will this even work since airPods connect to all iOS devices associated with a given Apple ID? Will it be possible to have 2 different pairs of airPods on the same Apple ID?