I was watching a video on my iPad Pro and I wanted a richer, louder sound, so I used Control Center to switch it to the HomePod mini sitting right next to it. That worked great. After a bit, I wanted to change rooms, so again using Control Center I switched the audio output to the iPad. I hit play on my video and while the video advanced, I couldn’t hear anything. After going in and out of Control Center a few times, suddenly I got a dropdown notice telling me that the charge level of my left AirPod Pro was down to 15%.
First of all, I wasn’t trying to connect to my AirPods Pro. Second of all, while I did take them on an hour-long walk listening to podcasts this morning, the case charged that whole time, and they were promptly put back into the case 3 hours before to charge. Thirdly, the AirPods Pro were sitting in that case in my purse 3 rooms away from me. To recap: I wasn’t talking to them, they should have been charged, there was no reason for them to start talking to me at all, and I couldn’t hear my video.
But wait, it gets better. As I was surrounded by fiddliness, Steve said he’d like to borrow my AirPods because he was going through the Apple Health Studies and the hearing one requires AirPods. I gave them my misbehaving headphones and for the life of him, he couldn’t get them to pair to his phone. I checked my iPhone and then my iPad to see if either were connected to my AirPods but they weren’t. Those darn AirPods had connected to my Mac!
I disconnected, and then … wait for it … the audio on the iPad started to work again.
Everything is Fiddly!
Addendum – two hours later I went to go for a walk with my headphones and I started hearing a session from the CSUN AT conference, but it wasn’t’ playing on my iPhone. I checked and it wasn’t playing from my Mac either. I was sure it couldn’t be my iPad because it was closed so I knew it had to be asleep. But I was wrong. My sleeping iPad had taken over my AirPods!