Review: Apple's AirPods as irritating as they are impressive

Apple is pitching the AirPods, its new wireless headphones, as "effortless" and "magical."

But I found them to be as much annoying as awesome.

The AirPods represent Apple's vision of the mobile future. The company announced them at the same time that it unveiled the iPhone 7, the first model of its smartphone to lack a headphone jack. In explaining that move, Apple argued that tethering a wireless mobile device to headphones with wires was absurd and outdated. They're right. Wireless headsets and headphones are nothing new. If you owned the original iPhone, you could make calls via a Bluetooth headset. Wireless headphones, which you can connect to your smartphone and listen to music, have been around for years.