¶ The AirPods Pro In-Store Demo

I was in Omaha today for a fun event today, and on my way back towards Lincoln I decided to stop in the Apple Store at Village Pointe to check out the AirPods Pro. I walked in and it was extremely crowded and noisy in the store, which is a little bittersweet — on one hand, this is exactly why I loathe going to the Apple Store unless I must; on the other hand, this is a really great environment to test out AirPods Pro.

Despite how crowded it was, I was helped by a specialist right away, and I said I wanted to check out the AirPods Pro. He led me to another table, waved his iPhone in front of it, and pulled out another iPhone and an AirPods Pro demo unit.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Gross. Why would anyone want to try out earbuds that other people have have already done the same thing with? The specialist told me that every unit is thoroughly cleaned after every demo, and they place a seal on the unit to indicate they have been cleaned and not used since. He showed me the seal, which was a round tamper-evident sticker holding the lid closed. When he started to peel it off, the tamper-evident qualities came to light. Then he handed me the case.

I flicked it open, saw the pairing animation come up on the demo iPhone, and I tapped the button to pair them. Then I removed the bud and squished them into my ears.

And then the loud commotion of the store instantly dulled down to a barely audible hum. It was, for lack of a better word, incredible. I queued up some music and whatever din of my surroundings was left before was overpowered by the music.

And then I switched it to Transparency mode, and some of the commotion came back, but not at full force, and I could still hear the music well. I could carry on a brief conversation with the specialist, and then I switched back to noise cancellation. I toggled back and forth a few times.

Noise cancellation easily drowned out the chaos, and Transparency made music sound like a soundtrack to life happening around me.

In my brief moments with the AirPods Pro, I was impressed. Really impressed.

If you are interested in them and want to try before you commit, I would recommend Apple’s in-store demo if you have a store nearby.