By Alexandra Savage
Here’s the deal. I’m behind on the trends. I didn’t get Spotify Premium until last year and my iPhone still has a home button. If I had it my way, I would carry around a rotary phone in my backpack. Unfortunately, the world isn’t moving in that direction. For the most part, I’ve adapted. But there’s one hill that I will die on. I don’t mean to rustle any feathers, but I need to speak my truth.
I think wired earbuds are vastly superior to AirPods.
Let’s sit with that for a moment and explore the reasons why.
First of all, AirPods don’t have wires, which means that you don’t get to solve the daily puzzle of untangling them. The best part of my morning happens when I sit at my desk and wrangle with the Gordian Knot of tangled wires. It provides me with mental simulation. What’s the fun of AirPods? You take them out of the case and put them in your ears, and then what? No struggle? You should have to work for it.
Also, walking with wired earbuds forces you to stay alert because you never know when they’ll get caught on something. I’m reminded of a time when I was standing in a packed metro car on the way to work, and my earbuds somehow got tangled in the zipper of a woman’s purse. The experience of quietly opening the zipper so I could untangle my earbuds while I prayed nobody would notice and scream at me provided a thrill that I have never felt on my commute, and will likely never feel again. This is the kind of panic that you just don’t get with AirBuds, or whatever they’re called.
We also can’t ignore the low price of wired earbuds compared to the alternative. This comes in handy when your earbuds inevitably break because you dropped them down a sewage drain, garbage disposal, sinkhole, or whatever situation you typically encounter (those are just personal examples). Earbuds also provide more surface area so you’re less likely to drop them in the first place. Do you know how many times I’ve borrowed someone’s AirPods and immediately dropped them in the street? And watched as they were run over by a series of cars, sometimes an entire motorcade? Too many times to count. People should stop lending me things.
Lastly, AirPods are riddled with technical defects. You have to charge them, which means they’re terrible for long camping trips or walks of self-discovery. You can’t test whether you’re playing music too loud because they turn off the second you take them out of your ears.
At the very least, go for wireless headphones, or buy AirPods and tape wires to them. That’ll achieve the desired effect.
