> a Bluetooth world that frankly, hasn't existed in several years... "poor audio quality that skips and cuts out"
That's every day for me! What earbuds, stereo or mono, are you using that never have this problem?
I've used a bunch of little bluetooth 4.0/4.1 receivers that my nice 3.5mm earbuds plug into.
Pretty much never had a problem with skipping or quality for any of those supporting apt-x.
This is true even when i'm also wearing a bluetooth watch, etc.
That's great, but also not the same as Bluetooth earbuds. I don't have trouble either with any kind of receiver that doesn't sit within my actual ear - presumably it's something to do with either additional signal attenuation, or lack of space for a sizable antenna, or both, but whatever the reason, getting rock-solid reception in a truly wireless earbud seems to be a very difficult problem to solve.
(If you're not sure what kind of device I'm talking about here, the Rowkin Mini is a good example - note the complete lack of protrusion beyond the pinna. I suppose the AirPods themselves don't really qualify by this standard, since they seem to have their antennae in the microphone boom which protrudes below the ear; on the other hand, I'm willing to tolerate such a protrusion if it's the only reasonable way to get good signal, and improved microphone pickup is a pretty good bonus besides.)
Not possible before - without W1 it wasn't possible to jump between audio coming from multiple sources transparently
Uhh, I have a desk-based headset that can switch audio streams automatically.
In any case, this: http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/7/12829190/apple-w1-chip-ipho... seems to suggest that it's a refinement on Bluetooth with the NFC pairing that, well, already exists in numerous products out there.
Nice refinements? Sure. But it also likes to compare itself against a Bluetooth world that frankly, hasn't existed in several years... "poor audio quality that skips and cuts out", and "pairing that is constantly problematic, where users don't know whether they will re-pair the next time" (https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/12/apple-w1-chip-how-it-works/ )