We have opposite experiences, to the point where I actually wonder if you have a defective set of AirPods. The process for me, on every single one of my Apple devices, is:

1. Put AirPods in ears.

2. Hit play.

There's no step #3. I do honestly wonder how our experiences differ so greatly. For me, it's at the point where AirPods are more seamless than my IEMs, because instead of having to fiddle about untangling the damn cable, I just pop them in my ears and go.

As far as I know everyone I know with AirPods has the same experience as me. Perhaps you should take yours back to an Apple store.

Try pairing your AirPods with your laptop as well. Now when you put the headphones in to listen to Podcasts on your phone you hear the chime and think you're good to go, so you turn on your podcast and hear nothing.

Wait, you can hear it, it's just really quiet. So you turn up the volume. Ohhhh it's coming out of my iPhone speakers. Now take headphones out to confirm, then put them back in. The AirPods found your laptop somewhere thirty yards away and had connected to that! Don't mind that the lid is closed and its asleep, and your iPhone is activated, in your hand, and playing audio.

Now on your phone:

0. Pause Podcast

1. Home button (close Podcasts)

2. Home button (first press didn't work)

3. Home button (get to first app page)

4. Settings App

5. Home button (because your finger slipped downward 1 pixel when you pressed the Settings App and iOS thought you wanted to search your phone instead)

6. Settings App

7. Bluetooth

8. Tap "AirPods"

9. Wait about 10 seconds

10. Double tap Home button

11. Find Podcasts app

12. Rewind 30 seconds

13. Hit Play

This happens to me all the fucking time.

When moving from my laptop to my phone, I just open the settings tray, 3D touch the media control, tap the AirPlay icon and select my AirPods. Sure, that’s still a few taps but your flow is about as roundabout as you can get.

Duly noted and that will certainly help me in the future, but I have to point out that plugging in 3.5mm headphones never required knowledge of a super-secret shortcut. You just simply had to plug them in. And even that takes less time than the 3d-touch-media-tray method.

I do the same thing. Where I think Apple could improve is by helping you understand that you can do it this way. I accidentally figured this out a while back.

That's the best case scenario, when it pairs as expected to, with the 10 seconds of spinning wheel.

One improvement is that if you're in the app, the mystery meat to look for if the concentric circles with a triangle on the bottom. That is the secret code for selecting the output source, which allows connecting to the AirPods.

I'd be mostly ok with this if:

1) it connected reliably when selecting the AirPods, and

2) pairing only took 2-3 seconds, rather than 10-15 seconds. 10-15 seconds is far too long for electronic devices to waste of a human's attention, especially for something that happens several times a day.

I've reset them several times.

It's important to point out that it's not every time. It's maybe 5% of the time, which is enough that I can never trust that they will actually connect. And the unusual, time consuming experience is the infuriating one that dominates the amount of time I spend thinking about the product.

It's also somewhat inconsistent between the sides, the left bud is somewhat less reliable than the right one.

I have some feeling that it may be some interaction with the MacBook Pro, which has some sort of weird interaction with the iCloud account such that pairings sync between iPhone and MacBook.

Before heading to an Apple Store try resetting the AirPods and repairing. Takes less than a minute. Mine were acting flaky after a year of daily use and this seemed to solve the problem.

This has been my experience with Bluetooth in general for the last decade.

I have only experienced this when connecting to non-Apple audio sources. At which point it’s just the usual Bluetooth BS experience.

I don't believe you.