In-flight entertainment systems, for the most part, are wired headphones only but sometimes you want to watch that new superhero movie or classic you keep putting off. Or maybe you didn’t download everything you wanted to on your tablet for a really long flight. Nobody wants to get stuck with the terrible headphones airplane staff provide you with, fortunately there’s a convenient way to connect your fancy wireless earbuds with any headphone jack.

Twelve South AirFly Pro Bluetooth Wireless Audio Transmitter/...

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Taking Off With AirFly

The AirFly Pro is a small Bluetooth transmitter you pair wirelessly with your cordless earbuds or headphones, then plug in to a headphone jack. It’s made by a company called Twelve South but is also sold directly by Apple online and in their stores. Twelve South actually made a few different type of AirFly, the regular AirFly, AirFly Duo, and AirFly Pro.

The main differences are the AirFly connects to only one device at a time, the Duo and the Pro let you connect two sets of headphones at the same time, and the Pro let’s you do things in reverse; which is stream from an iPhone to a headphone jack. For example to stream music to a car that doesn’t have a Bluetooth connection or a rental you don’t want to sync your phone with.

The AirFly Pro is pretty small, comes with this small pouch, and measures 10.92 centimeters at its longest and weighing only 15 grams, easily fitting in the palm of your hand. It charges via USB-C and on a full battery gives you around 16 hours of listening time. The design is fairly simple, you’ve got an audio jack and a pairing button. On the side there’s a switch between transmit and receive modes as well as a small reset button to return to factory settings.

Pairing Your Headphones And Earbuds

Pairing the AirFly with your headphones is pretty straightforward. you push and hold the power button down for 4 seconds. Once the indicator light is flashing orange and white, it’s ready to pair. Then you’ll put your headphones in pairing mode and hopefully in about 5- 10 seconds you’re all set.

I recommend pairing the AirFly Pro when your at home because it’s not the most intuitive, since you have to rely on indicator lights and it’s just much easier to have everything set up before you get on a plane. Once you’ve made the connection though, it’s  process you don’t have to repeat for the same earbuds or headphones again.

Sound High Quality

The sound quality from the AirFly is very good and depending on the wireless headphones you’re using, the AirFly really provides them with a strong audio feed to play from. There’s hardly a lag from what you’re hearing to what you’re seeing on the screen and airplane announcements aren’t four times as loud as everything else.

Compared to other, cheaper Bluetooth transmitters, the AirFly Pro is well worth its slightly higher price tag. The competition generally is laggy, with worse battery life, and for frequent flyers, an AirFly Pro will be invaluable.

The first generation Bose QuietComfort had great sound quality and the best noise-cancellation you could get in earbuds. Still, they were hard to recommend for everyone because they were big, bulky, and not very comfortable to wear for long periods. With the new Bose QuietComfort II though, Bose has addressed nearly all the shortcomings of the first version and improved upon pretty much everything else.

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Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II, Wireless, Bluetooth, Proprietary...

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You can watch my review of the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II above or read on.

Smaller Case, Smaller Buds

Bose has overhauled the design of the QuietComfort II. Gone is the larger pill-shaped case from before which has now been replaced with a thinner, puck case that’s reminiscent of the AirPods Pro 2. The case is 30% smaller, is lighter, and retains 18 hours of battery for the earbuds. Gone is wireless charging but since it gives us a smaller case, it’s a tradeoff most will be happy with. The case charges over USB-C, taking 3 hours for a full charge and can quick charge the earbuds in 20 minutes.

Now the earbuds themselves have undergone a design overhaul as well. They are 20% smaller and 30% lighter than before, with a pill shape that’s got a sleek rubber band around the edge to secure the fit. As a result of the physical design and light weight (6.2 grams each) the QuietComfort II Earbuds stay in place and are very comfortable to wear for hours at a time.

Sound Quality ANC

Active noise cancellation (ANC) has always been a strong point of Bose headphones and earbuds and these QuietComfort II are no different. Activating ANC turns off the outside work so much so that you’ll hardly be able to hear yourself type once activated. The ANC is adaptive, meaning it adjusts to spontaneous loud sounds like a sneeze or noisy truck passing by. For frequent flyers the ANC will make engine noise mostly disappear. For times you need to hear the outside world, a long press on the earbuds will scroll through Aware mode or turning ANC off.

Aware mode uses the microphones in the earbuds themselves to funnel in outside sounds to your ears so, in theory, it’s like you’re not wearing earbuds at all. And the QuietComfort II do a good job at this, really giving you the feeling of not wearing earbuds for the most part. Aware mode is great for when you need to hear a gate announcement at an airport or listen for your name at a coffee shop.

Worthy Of Upgrade

There are a few minor gripes I have with the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II. Mainly that it (still) doesn’t have multi-point support and the long press to scroll through ANC modes is slow. Both of these issues could potentially be resolved with software updates but still, if you’re using the previous version, these are a worthy upgrade. For everyone else shopping for active noise cancelling earbuds, Bose has just made these a top contender you should take a close look at.

When the iPhone 14 was announced this past September, it was, well more or less the standard release we’ve come to expect in recent years. A better camera, improved battery, but also quietly mentioned was the removal of a physical SIM card slot. The iPhone 14 models have gone completely eSIM, on U.S. models only for the time being, so what exactly does that mean?

What Is An eSIM?

Let’s start with physical the SIM cards you’re probably familiar with. SIM stands for (Subscriber Identity Module) and they’re thin plates of gold on plastic that have information embedded on them which identifies your phone to a mobile network. It’s how Mint Mobile for example, recognizes your phone and associated cellular plan. With physical SIM cards, when you want to switch networks, you have to remove one card and insert the other, for another mobile network. (Some phones have dual SIM card slots, but the concept is the same.)

eSIMs are basically a software version of the same thing. Instead of a physical card with your phone’s identifying information, that information is stored on your phone like a file would. Many newer phones have a physical SIM tray and support eSIM but the iPhone 14 has dropped the tangible cards altogether.

The Apple Shift

Chances are on a regular basis you don’t think about SIM cards much. They only really need to be changed when you’re switching carriers from a regular provider or temporarily when traveling internationally. Many countries do support eSIMs but not all carriers everywhere do. With Apple completely removing the SIM tray from their U.S. phones (sure to be coming to international phones soon enough) it will push major carriers everywhere to support eSIM in a big way. As Apple and the iPhone goes, so does the smartphone industry.

What This Transition Means

At the moment, unless you’re using an iPhone 14 purchased in the United States or some other eSIM only phone (which isn’t many of you yet), these changes won’t affect you directly. For iPhone 14 and other eSIM only users, transferring your old phone to the new one will be a relatively straightforward software sync of a few minutes. When traveling, most other countries have some eSIM provider – though it might not be all the carriers everywhere yet. So if you want to get a local phone line and data plan, you can try adding a new eSIM using a service on your phone. (Which is much simpler, cheaper, and faster than having to get a new physical SIM card.)

Otherwise in the instances where an eSIM is not available, you can add an international plan to your primary cell line for the duration of your trip or bring an older phone with a physical SIM tray as a backup just in case. And as you’re reading this probably by the time the iPhone 15 rolls around, eSIMs will be a lot more common and familiar around the world.