You think Apple's going to include a pair of headphones they sell for $160 in the box, when they can provide the super-cheap lightning earpods instead to incentivize you to get so frustrated that you upgrade?
Hell, I know I ended up picking up a Jabra Halo Smart because I got so annoyed having to deal with the stupid dongle to use my $10 pair of Sony AS200's and the cheap Chinese Kinivo bluetooth headphones I had had substantially worse audio quality than even these cheap wired ones.
I thought about the AirPods, but I'd lose them in a heartbeat. I'm constantly forgetting where the hell I put my headphones as is, at least my Halo Smart is big enough that I can find it easily - if I lost one of the little AirPod's I would end up tearing my house apart looking for the dumb thing.
Yes they do work alone, iPhone will even switch to mono. About the replacement, don't know yet, but I think Apple support will let ppl buy them individually.
Not that people will do it all the time (I certainly wouldn't) but the charging case thing is there for a reason. Most likely the idea is you keep it somewhere handy (desk, backpack, laptop bag, etc.) and so you put the AirPods in it while not using them.
As far as them falling out, like on the subway or something, that'll be the problem.
Hell, I know I ended up picking up a Jabra Halo Smart because I got so annoyed having to deal with the stupid dongle to use my $10 pair of Sony AS200's and the cheap Chinese Kinivo bluetooth headphones I had had substantially worse audio quality than even these cheap wired ones.
I thought about the AirPods, but I'd lose them in a heartbeat. I'm constantly forgetting where the hell I put my headphones as is, at least my Halo Smart is big enough that I can find it easily - if I lost one of the little AirPod's I would end up tearing my house apart looking for the dumb thing.