Some small but important details about the product architecture that's changed over time somewhat:
- The antenna is sticking out of the ear, while the densest components are deeper in the ear, making them more stable. Now the battery is in the ear and PCB is out of the ear.
- They've added large external mesh over the world-facing mic to reduce windnoise during phone calls. This creates a sort of turbulence that prevents acoustic howling. The air is channeled into a secondary chamber before reaching the mic.
- The airpods had two Infrared Detectors to prevent being spoofed when resting on the table.
- the cases moved from a resistive magnetic hinge to an over-center spring hinge, that's why the newer cases feel less satisfying and fidgety.
As much as I like the fun factor of my magnetic 2nd gen case, it is inherently flawed. The magnets attract magnetic particles, and as the lid is repeatedly closed they're slowly beaten into the plastic and I've never been able to get those marks out. I imagine with a manget-free hinge this would be severely minimised, as everywhere outside of the magnets there is basically no staining.
well the magnet you're referring to are closure magnets, not the hinge magnet. You can see them on iFixit's teardown as black rectangles. Those magnets attract gnarly metallic bits which, yes, permanently make marks on the surfaces of the interior. Airpods OG vs. Pro for comparison. Both have closure magnets, I think the primary reason to move away from them was space, based on the internals.
They use two so that if you rest the airpods on table in various positions, at least one IR sensor is pointing away from a surface. They turn on and off the device (pause, play) once both IR windows are covered by human skin (or detect a surface) which is the scenario in which they are fully in your ear. If they used only a single IR, the function wouldn't work if taken out of the ear and say laid face down on a book or table.
- The antenna is sticking out of the ear, while the densest components are deeper in the ear, making them more stable. Now the battery is in the ear and PCB is out of the ear.
- They've added large external mesh over the world-facing mic to reduce windnoise during phone calls. This creates a sort of turbulence that prevents acoustic howling. The air is channeled into a secondary chamber before reaching the mic.
- The airpods had two Infrared Detectors to prevent being spoofed when resting on the table.
- the cases moved from a resistive magnetic hinge to an over-center spring hinge, that's why the newer cases feel less satisfying and fidgety.