I’m kind of between two color choices. Black and “pink.” See, the pink ones are great, except for the headphones themselves. That red band? Gorgeous. But the pastel pink? Eh. It’s just too light of a touch of color. Turn up the saturation, Apple! Either go very vibrant with red or hot pink, or just leave them white… or black.
MacRumors did a wonderful mock-up of each color combination, and I actually like the black ones with red ear cups, so I could go with that. Okay, color picked. I’ll grab black and throw on the red/pink earcups. So I’m good, right? I mean, sure, it’ll be an extra $70 on top of the $550… and I’ll also need Apple’s $35 Lightning to 3.5mm Audio Cable. The cable does come in black, so that’s nice. Okay, so we’re looking at $655 + tax… okay. Let’s pretend I can do that. After all, I “only” really need the $550 + tax now, and can pick up the cable and ear cups later.
Okay.
Fine.
Let’s say I’m cool with that.
But does Apple really think I’m going to be cool with this?
Seriously?
Delicate Mesh… Yeah, Let’s Put That Outside
Ah, yes, delicate mesh, the best thing to hold your heavy AirPods Max by.
I had some nice Beats Solo Pro headphones for about 10 days. I just couldn’t get over how uncomfortable they were. Sounded amazing. Transparency mode, active noise cancellation, and Apple’s fantastic syncing? Great. But feeling like my head was in a musical vice? Not so great. Still, they folded up nicely, came with a decent soft case that protected them, and there were plenty of third party hard cases that could completely contain and protect the headphones when you’re not using them.
Now let’s look at the AirPods Max case.
It doesn’t fully protect the headphones, leaving large gaps where anything could hit the incredibly expensive earphones. The most delicate part of the headphones, the mesh headband? That’s left outside of the case. You know, so you can hold it or maybe use a carabiner to attach it to your bag.
No, don’t do that.
Don’t put your $550 headphones directly on your bag with a carabiner.
But what else are you supposed to do?
Presumably, put them in another bag. Get a back pack, a small purse. Maybe a large fanny pack or messenger bag?
Ah, but you have other things in your bag, right? Keys, a computer or tablet, your phone. Maybe a portable battery pack or a charger? We can’t put your delicate headphones in there with that!
Okay.
So we get a case.
A case to store your AirPods Max that isn’t Apple’s.
But here’s the thing, it needs Apple’s magnetic enclosure to tell the AirPods Max to turn off right away. Otherwise, it’ll drain your battery life faster.
So we get a case for the AirPods Max and the Apple AirPods Max case.
So it’ll look like this:
AirPods Max -> Apple AirPods Max case -> actually decent case -> bag.
Nothing is protected in this “case.”
No Folding
Look at this case. Holds the folded up Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones and cable. No wasted space.
There’s also the fact that these headphones don’t fold. Both of my current over-ear headphones don’t fold. There’s my Harman Kardon headphones and my Steelseries gaming headphones. They spin the earphones around flat, but don’t fold up. The Harman Kardon ones at least came with a nice case that has held up over the better part of a decade, and the gaming headphones never really leave my desk.
Apple’s headphones, in comparison, are large, clunky, and have a case that doesn’t protect them at all. The case you’re going to have to get to actually protect these things is going to be massive. When I do return to going outside places, I hope to do so with a small bag, not whatever will be required to fit these.
This isn’t a huge issue to me. Not like the Russian nesting dolls required to protect the AirPods Max. But still, why, Apple? Why make headphones so difficult to carry around? If I’m going to pay $550 (or $655) for something, I’m going to use it every single day. There’s a reason I don’t use my Harman Kardon headphones every day. It’s only 65% because the Bluetooth has some serious delay and the battery life has gone downhill. It’s also because they don’t fit nicely in my bags.
So, long story short, Apple’s headphones don’t fit in a bag, they come with a terrible case, and they need that case for a few hours of battery life savings. It’s kind of sad to spend $550 or more for something that is so poorly thought out, even if it does sound great and features Apple’s amazing AirPods syncing and active noise cancellation. Apple put so much effort into making the AirPods Max sound great and sync quickly. They forgot that people have to actually bring their AirPods with them anywhere if they want to use them.
Easy to forget in 2020, I suppose.