【Glorious】

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple's new AirPods are Gloriouseither genius or a disaster. After trying them out at the iPhone 7 launch, I think they might be both.

Each AirPod looks almost exactly like a regular Apple EarPod, just with the cables cut off. The bottoms of each are silver and contain the microphones. They're equipped with sensors that detect whether or not they're in your ears -- take one of them out and the music pauses; put them back in and it resumes.

At least it's supposed to -- the iPhone 7's and iPhone 7 Pluses I tried the AirPods out with never resumed playback when I put the units back in my ears. Buggy pre-release firmware? Perhaps. I suspect it may have to do with the shape of my ears, which have never been that friendly to Apple's EarPods: They constantly fall out, so I always use a pair of third-party earphones.

That's really the rub of these AirPods -- which cost $159, by the way. Your experience with them will depend greatly on your experience with EarPods; if you don't like Apple's provided earphones, chances are the AirPods won't be your thing, no matter how much their wireless tech wows you.

And that tech certainly has lots of wow. The AirPods come in a carrying case that is roughly the size of a pack of dental floss on steroids. You can get 24 hours of music playback using the case -- it provides 19 hours of juice for each earphone, and the AirPods can each play for five hours on a single charge.

Hold the case close to your iPhone, flip it open and the pairing screen pops up immediately. One button and you're paired via Bluetooth -- across allof your Apple devices. It remains to be seen just how good those connections are, but Apple reps told me the AirPods would use Handoff (where your Mac knows what your iPhone is doing) to help you switch between devices intelligently. That's smart.

Once you're connected, music comes through fine, though it had trouble competing with the many voices chattering in the Apple hands-on room after the event. I was listening at mid-to-high volume, and I was reluctant to turn the AirPods all the way up, but that's what it'll probably take in louder environments.

You can double-tap either pod to call up Siri, and she had no trouble hearing me -- and only me -- in that loud, crowded room. That's a testament to how well Apple's beamforming microphones work to capture your voice and filter out everything else. For an incoming call, an Apple rep said you can answer with one tap, although that didn't appear to work when a product manager tried it out.

As I listened, I moved around a bit and bobbed my head up and down. As I expected, one of the AirPods nearly fell out within a few seconds. I saved it before it did, but it shows the risk with owning these things: They're small, expensive and, if they sit even slightly loose in your ear, prone to getting lost. These are definitely not the earphones you want to wear while working out.

Rocking some Apple AirPods.

A photo posted by Pete Pachal (@mirrorpete) on Sep 7, 2016 at 1:19pm PDT

And then there's the fashion factor: Seeing a device in someone's ear that isn't attached to a wire immediately invokes douchey Bluetooth earpieces. These are distinctive enough to be their own thing, but are they any less douchey? Society will decide, but you'll definitely stand out while wearing Apple's AirPods... for the first few months they're on sale, at least.

Apple says its vision of the future of audio is wireless, and the AirPods are a key part of that future. Looking at the effortless pairing process and smart device-switching features, there's a brilliance in their execution that no other wireless headphone can match. But between the tired EarPod design and the need to charge yet another gadget, they appear destined to inspire user frustration, not to mention self-consciousness. It's hard to see the AirPods becoming as ubiquitous as the distinctive white earbuds that preceded them over a decade ago.