It's also pretty much confirmed at this point that the next pair of AirPods won't be using bluetooth - which they will get a lot of shit for but is probably necessary to address a lot of these issues.
That also further increases the interoperability problem though, if I can't use my headphones with non-Apple devices even after going through the pairing dance. (Unless Apple uses some other open protocol, which I doubt!)
Yes, AirPods are currently surprisingly easy to switch from an iPhone to a Windows laptop (click open the Bluetooth menu and connect to AirPods), which is quite similar to the behavior I use to switch between AirPods and a Mac (I rarely use the "Switch to AirPods" notification on Macs that pops up seemingly-inconsistently).
I understand it’d be an issue to many people, but I had Airpods for 5? years now and not even once paired them to anything other than an Apple device. I have non-apple BT speakers but don’t have any BT transmitting devices that aren’t Apple… my LG TV maybe (which I use with an Apple TV) but I assume pairing them would be a pain.
I hope it's an open protocol that operates on WiFi spectrum. Every implementation of Bluetooth is horrible, and you start to wonder if the Bluetooth spec itself is the issue..
If Apple does go proprietary you won't be any worse off, assuming they still support Bluetooth (and I'd be very surprised if they stopped supporting Bluetooth).
