Comment by phil21

I used to think Bluetooth was nearly unusable both in audio quality and annoyingness.

Then I moved to the Apple ecosystem including iPhone, Airpods, and MacOS. It Just Works(tm) 99% of the time. The last 1% is a little annoying, and almost always has to do with device switching.

I also haven't had a problem with third party devices for many years now. My car does wireless Carplay just fine, and before that worked nearly as well with Android Auto. Rental cars the past few years even work - although pairing them the first time is roughly as annoying as digging through my bag for USB cable I suppose.

I've lost more pairs of wired earbuds than I have Airpods so far. I thought for sure I'd lose Airpods once every few months due to how often I forget things, but for whatever reason I find them to be easier to keep track of - the case fits perfectly in the "key pocket" in jeans, and it's become third nature to pat that pocket whenever I leave just like I do for keys/phone/wallet.

Not dealing with the annoying cable is great. I get a phone call, and I just grab the earbuds out of the case from my pocket within 10 seconds and I'm good to go.

For at-home PC use it's a different story, although I don't really find myself using my wired high-end cans much anymore. It's either airpods for day to day Zoom calls, or full on high-end speaker setups if I actually want to listen to something or game. Even high end cans cannot hold a candle against moderately decent speakers. The difference is night and day.