Kinda makes you wish Apple just put a headphone jack on their $500 headphones so it could be a proper competitor with it's peers.

I would have bought them had they did. I think they're gorgeous and hear they're the best wireless experience out there right now.

It's a 3.5mm deal-breaker.

The good news is that their competitors aren't afraid to fill in the gaps. I've heard nothing but good things about the Surface Headphones, which also offer the same ANC/over-ear setup as the Airpods Max, just at a $350 cheaper price.

Not only that, unless you are using Airpods, iPhone bluetooth audio is far inferior to anything out there. Even cheapo Windows sounds better than iPhone bluetooth.

I've tested the stock dongle with high end and generic $1 dongles, and most, even audiophiles cannot tell the difference. Surprisingly the iPad Air 3 seems to have the best sound coming out of the audio jack, far outpacing any of the dongles and predecessors.

BT does allow you to get around a low-quality DAC on a phone though. If you have decent headphones and listen to music where fidelity really matters (classical, jazz), you can quite readily tell the difference between the wired headphone output on a low-end Android device and e.g. the same headphones plugged into a FiiO Bluetooth amp connected to the phone.

Very true. I was using the fiio BTR3 for a while with my last phone which didn't have a headphone jack. But keeping the connection was so frustrating... It would just randomly drop or crackle. Making sure it was charged too. I switched to a galaxy s10 which is okay fidelity-wise but at least it's usable. Then I got a portable music player for music and audio books which was a game changer. Will never go back, so long as BT is the wireless standard.

Indeed. The jack's gone on my phone after 4 years of continuous use now, but my go to earbuds are bright pink Sony ones that cost I think £5 at most. They're comfortable and match my ear nicely; I can buy 5 of them for the price of even a fairly bad set of wireless ones.