Comment by heavyset_go

> How would this be Apple’s fault if the OS audio stack can’t do direct AAC streaming? Or are you saying the headphones themselves decode, re-encode and then re-decode the AAC?

There are multiple Bluetooth standards for lossless audio that work across platforms. Instead of implementing those features, Apple uses a proprietary protocol to half-ass it only for the case of AAC. Even in that case, it requires a proprietary Bluetooth stack to work. Without that proprietary stack, the Airpods default to low quality transcoding of audio streams at 256kbps, and don't offer true high quality or lossless audio playback. So even in the one case where Airpods offer some semblance of lossless playback, it's non-standard and applicable to AAC only.

Cross platform high quality and lossless audio, multipoint pairing, etc solved problems and features that even $20 white label earbuds on Amazon are able to implement.