42 Macworld • March 2021AIRPODS MAX
THAT NOT-SMART CASE
We can’t quite call the AirPods Max
a design triumph, though. It ships
with something Apple calls a “Smart
Case” which is neither smart nor
a case. It’s awful. Really awful. Ill-
conceived and poorly executed, it’s in
the running for the worst accessory
Apple’s ever shipped, sharing rarefied
air with the ‘hockey puck’ mouse and
Apple TV Siri remote.
Thanks in part to its sleek metal
construction, the AirPods Max don’t
really fold up at all. The earpieces
merely turn sideways, and that’s it.
The Smart Case is a single piece of
flimsy plastic material that has been
folded up to form little pockets that
you slip the earcups into, then fold
the top over.It’s small and light, but that’s
about all it has going for it. It doesn’t
protect your £550 headphones at all.
The band, with its canopy mesh, is
completely exposed to get caught on
detritus in your bag, or crushed. There
are huge open slats at the bottom of
the pouches, so they effectively do
nothing to keep random bag items
from scraping up your earcups.
There’s a little cut-out on the right
side for the Lightning connector, so
you can charge in the case, but it’s
kind of absurd when there are huge
gaps all over the place.
Putting them in the case and
folding over the magnetic flap
immediately puts the AirPods Max
into a sort of low-power mode to save
battery, though the Bluetooth radio
will stay active for 18
hours so that Find My
will continue to work. If
you instead just put the
headphones down on a
table or something and
don’t touch them, they’ll
go to a low-power mode
after 5 minutes, with the
Bluetooth radio active
for 72 hours (again, for
Find My support).
To sum up, the
Smart Case:The so-called Smart Case will do nothing to protect
your headphones in your bag.42 Macworld • March 2021AIRPODS MAX
THAT NOT-SMART CASE
We can’t quite call the AirPods Max
a design triumph, though. It ships
with something Apple calls a “Smart
Case” which is neither smart nor
a case. It’s awful. Really awful. Ill-
conceived and poorly executed, it’s in
the running for the worst accessory
Apple’s ever shipped, sharing rarefied
air with the ‘hockey puck’ mouse and
Apple TV Siri remote.
Thanks in part to its sleek metal
construction, the AirPods Max don’t
really fold up at all. The earpieces
merely turn sideways, and that’s it.
The Smart Case is a single piece of
flimsy plastic material that has been
folded up to form little pockets that
you slip the earcups into, then fold
the top over.It’s small and light, but that’s
about all it has going for it. It doesn’t
protect your £550 headphones at all.
The band, with its canopy mesh, is
completely exposed to get caught on
detritus in your bag, or crushed. There
are huge open slats at the bottom of
the pouches, so they effectively do
nothing to keep random bag items
from scraping up your earcups.
There’s a little cut-out on the right
side for the Lightning connector, so
you can charge in the case, but it’s
kind of absurd when there are huge
gaps all over the place.
Putting them in the case and
folding over the magnetic flap
immediately puts the AirPods Max
into a sort of low-power mode to save
battery, though the Bluetooth radio
will stay active for 18
hours so that Find My
will continue to work. If
you instead just put the
headphones down on a
table or something and
don’t touch them, they’ll
go to a low-power mode
after 5 minutes, with the
Bluetooth radio active
for 72 hours (again, for
Find My support).
To sum up, the
Smart Case:The so-called Smart Case will do nothing to protect
your headphones in your bag.