AirPods Pro 3 on Android: you pay for half the earbuds

Would you pay a premium price for earbuds knowing the best parts stay switched off the moment you pair them with your phone? That is the question the AirPods Pro 3 pose to anyone carrying a Galaxy, a Pixel or any other Android device. In our view, the answer is a clear no, and the reason is not technical. It is a choice.

What you actually get on Android

The facts are fairly plain. Refurb.me says the new health features of the Pro 3, meaning heart-rate sensing, workout tracking and Live Translation, are iOS-only and will not work on Android. In Mashable's review, written after three weeks on an Android device, the reviewer adds auto switch, Conversation Boost and "Hey Siri" to the list. What remains is music and noise cancellation.

To be fair, those two things are very good. Mashable calls these the best-sounding AirPods to date and says the noise cancellation neutralizes ambient noise at a surprisingly high level. So this isn't a bad product. It is a good one with a large part of its pitch locked away.

The premium pays for features you can't reach

Here is the uncomfortable math. Earbuds at this level are sold on their extras. The headline additions of this generation are heart-rate monitoring that works with third-party workout apps, and real-time translation. On Android, you pay for them and get neither. What you keep is sound and noise cancellation, which, as Mashable points out, you can get from similarly priced rivals, and even from the cheaper AirPods Pro 2.

We think this is the real story, more than any single missing feature. The price doesn't change by platform, but the value does. A buyer who walks in expecting the full package and walks out with a pair of good-sounding noise-cancelling buds has been poorly served, whatever the spec sheet says.

Apple can fix this, which makes it a decision

The most damning detail is that Apple already has a bridge. Mashable notes that Beats earbuds use a chipset that supports Google Fast Pair and Find My Device, while still giving access to 80 percent of the features tied to Apple's H2 processor. The Powerbeats Pro 2 and Fit Pro use that technology. Mashable says Fast Pair would get the AirPods Pro 3 working on an Android phone in less than 3 seconds.

So the limits are not a law of physics. Even pairing is clumsy: the reviewer describes a finicky touch pad, and after that you still have to go into Bluetooth settings manually. Our reading is that this is lock-in by design, the same logic that keeps auto switching tied to one Apple Account across Apple devices, as Apple's own support page describes it. It is a legitimate business strategy. It is also one that costs Android buyers money.

Our advice, and a warning for Android rivals

If you live on an iPhone, the AirPods Pro 3 are an easy recommendation. Mashable says so too. If you are on Android, or you hop between platforms, skip them. Mashable's alternatives are Beats earbuds for people who swap between iOS/macOS and Android, and Sony's WF-1000XM5 for multiplatform support. We haven't tested any of these ourselves, so treat that as a pointer, not a ranking.

The other half of the argument is for Android makers. It will be tempting to answer lock-in with lock-in: your best buds work fully only with your own phone. We think that would be a mistake. Android's strength has been that accessories are open, and the AirPods Pro 3 show what the opposite costs the customer: a premium price for a degraded product. The brands that keep their features working across platforms are the ones that look good next to this.

Verdict: great earbuds, wrong phone. Before you pay for them, check whether you will be able to use what you're paying for.