38 Macworld • August 2019REVIEW
Each earphone has the same controls for play,
pause and volume on them, a relatively rare find
in wireless earphones of all shapes and sizes. The
physical buttons don’t take too much pressure to
tap and means you can wear one rather than two
for phone calls and still have all the controls.
It’s always a risk buying in-ear headphones in
case the fit doesn’t work for you, but I’m confident
that the versatile design of the Powerbeats Pro will
work for most people given I usually struggle yet
they have been very comfortable for me.
The only slight issue will be if you wear glasses,
as I do – sometimes for a snug fit the ear hooks
need to sit where glasses arms rest, resulting in the
hook and arm tapping audibly against one another.Sound quality and features
Down to business, then. And forgive me as I one
more time compare the Powerbeats Pro to AirPods.
I’m allowed, because they have the same H1
wireless chip to allow incredibly quick and reliable
pairing with iCloud devices – iPhone, iPad, Mac
(and iPod touch).
You need to have the Powerbeats in the case in
order to pair them, but all this requires on iPhone
and iPad is to open them near your unlocked phone,
et voila. It’s great and yes, it just works.
This great connection is unfortunately exclusive
to Apple devices in my experience. It is possible
to pair the Powerbeats Pro with Android phones,
and I did, but I found there to be drop outs and
inconsistencies. They’re also a pain to manually