If you've been following my account for the last couple of months you know that one of my biggest struggles in life has been finding the perfect headphones. My main goal this year has been to purchase AirPods so I would never have to worry about janky headphones and tangled wires ever again. As Apple's standard headphones are designed to fail after an extended amount of use, I figured AirPods were the solution. They were lower in price than the wireless beats headphones and I could get my name engraved on the case. On top of that, I don't have to worry about trying to hide the wire underneath my shirt as I walk around campus. So I finally managed to get enough funds to purchase some new Apple AirPods. Was it worth it? As much as I want to say yes, they are not.

Let me explain. First of all, I ordered these AirPods online on Apple's custom store app. I got the standard $160 AirPods and had the option to get a free laser engraving on the case. So I did all the steps, bought the AirPods and engraved my name on it. The order was supposed to come in on Tuesday but it came in a couple of days early on a Friday. I drive all the way to Crocker Park and go to that Apple Store. The transaction was quick and simple and they gave me my AirPods. I walk back to my car and open up the box only to discover my name is not engraved on the box. Instead, it was someone's username handle. Now I am annoyed. After having a bad week, I was hoping these AirPods would brighten my mood. So I walk back and explain my situation to the Apple employees and they were confused as well. Apparently, someone at their warehouse slapped my serial number on someone else's box. Such an odd occurrence that I would never expect from Apple. They checked and my AirPods were not back there in any of the boxes. The employees let me return the AirPods and gave me two options. Either get a standard pack of AirPods at that very moment or call a 1-800 number and explained the situation to them. If I call a 1-800 number there is no guarantee my AirPods were to be found/they would give me new ones. At this point, I've been so done with this week that I could not care less about getting the engraving. So I got these AirPods and synced them up to my phone.

Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in "The Lion King" 2019 Giphy

I have been using them for the last five days on and off. When they DO work- it's great. I walked into work today listening to "Be Prepared" from the new "Lion King (2019)" movie. But sometimes the headphones have difficulties syncing up to the phone. Like just now, for instance, I tried syncing them up to my phone to listen to music while I typed this, but instead of connecting both AirPods it's only connecting the one. I don't know if it's because I use the YouTube Music App and the headphones are not registered to connect to that? Which makes no sense because these headphones should be on the latest Bluetooth connection. I use the YouTube Music App every day. It's the best app for music and I recently discovered I can create Siri shortcuts to search for songs, which is a huge plus.

As I said, when the headphones work, they work well. I can use my Apple Watch to pause, play, and skip songs. Which is good because the double taps are finicky. I resynced them to do different tap controls. These headphones are also apparently supposed to read my texts, but I have yet to experience that.

To wrap this up, this was supposed to be the grand finale article about my Journey to getting AirPods. I plan to test these out more and figure out if I just got a bad pair of headphones or if Airpods aren't all their cracked up to be after all. Stay tuned for my honest review of these AirPods later on.