The Worst Generation Of AirPods That You Should Avoid (According To Users)

It's been nearly a decade since Apple announced first-gen AirPods. While many have adopted these headphones, it doesn't mean AirPods didn't face their fair share of skepticism initially.

Critics have had all sorts of complaints — AirPods were easy to misplace since there weren't any wires; the design wasn't well-received; the thought of spending $159 to listen to music was considered outrageous; and many even doubted whether the sound quality could match (or surpass) wired audio. It didn't take long for AirPod-related memes to take over social media, with many joking that cutting the wires off their old earbuds would essentially give them the same experience.

Fast forward to today, AirPods have become one of Apple's most successful accessories. The company has seven AirPods models in its portfolio, including the over-ear AirPods Max. Naturally, you may be tempted to purchase the latest model, the AirPods 4th Gen, if you're thinking of upgrading. But if there's anything Apple has taught us, it's that new doesn't always mean better.

While Apple has mastered the art of making even the most lukewarm of launches look compelling, the best way to find out how a product truly holds up (without purchasing it yourself) is to see what users are saying. So, we dug through reviews to find out which generation of AirPods you should avoid purchasing. After browsing blogs and community fora like Reddit, the consensus seems to be that the AirPods 3 are the most disappointing. 

Although the third-gen AirPods didn't offer a spec bump and is powered by the same processor as the second-gen AirPods, the H1 chip, it got a design refresh.

One Reddit user stated that the third-gen AirPods just wouldn't stay in-ear and kept falling out. They mentioned that they had purchased every AirPods model before, and no others had that issue. Now, you might be tempted blame the OP. After all, maybe they have oddly-shaped ears.

However, most of the comments under the post (and other individual Reddit posts) expressed the same poor fit complaint, with one user mentioning that they won't wear them on an airplane since they feared that the pods would fall out if they moved in the wrong way. In another post, a user mentioned that they noticed that the AirPods would start "getting loose" when they were eating. They said that if they bent over, they'd get close to completely falling out. Similar to the previous user, they mentioned that this wasn't an issue with the second-gen AirPods.

Despite all the negative feedback, the AirPods 3 do have a few pros like better battery life. According to Apple, the AirPods 3 offer one more hour of battery life than previous models, which translates to six hours of listening time and five hours of talk time.  Users also mention that the audio and microphone quality on the third-gen AirPods is much better than its predecessors.Nonetheless, while these are significant upgrades, the cons we mentioned are just as significant (if not more). Even if they offered the best sound quality we've seen in wireless earbuds yet, it wouldn't matter much if the earbuds kept falling out everytime you moved or tried to pause a track!

What makes the AirPods so intuitive is their on-earbud controls. The first and second-gen AirPods can be controlled by double tapping the top of the stem. By heading to your AirPods settings on your Apple device, you can configure a double tap to answer an incoming call, play or pause audio content, activate Siri, play the next track, or go back to the previous track.

The third-gen AirPods decided to ditch the tapping mechanism and adopted the same force sensors as the AirPods Pro. This means that instead of simply tapping the stem of your AirPods, you'll need to apply a bit of pressure and squeeze the stem. In Apple's Newsroom post announcing the AirPods 3, the company mentioned that the force sensor allows "easy and intuitive control of music and battery life."

Unfortunately, this was a change not a lot of people liked. In Reddit posts, users mentioned that their AirPods end up falling out whenever they attempt to squeeze the stem to force-click. While you may think that one way to take advantage of the force sensor technology without risking damaging your buds by them falling out is to take them out of your ear and then press the stem, the force click doesn't work when they're out of your ear. Besides, that defeats the purpose of "on-earbud controls" in the first place anyways.

I still use my first-gen AirPods Pro, and my buds never slid out of my ears due to the force. However, given that the AirPods 3's fitting has already been criticize as discussed, it makes sense why the force sensors might be more of a problem than a perk for some people.