I swear that the automatic switching feature was almost flawless when it first shipped, but at some point the "is the user paying attention to this audio source" heuristics were changed. It now seems very eager to switch to my phone and reluctant to switch to my Mac.

There was also a bug for a period of months–I need to check to see if this still happens, I've conditioned myself not to trigger it–where

1. I put in my AirPods

2. I click them in the audio drop-down in the Mac menu bar to connect

3. The "Connect to AirPods" notification appears

4. I click "connect" because I'm already connected and it's the biggest target to dismiss the notification

5. the AirPods DISCONNECT! Come on...