AIRPODS MAX
Theso-calledSmartCasewilldonothingtoprotectyour
headphonesinyourbag.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 tokeep 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).