Air Pods: Subway Operators' Bane

"The MTA has to deal with a lot of annoying behavior from straphangers—subway surfing, people smashing their ad screens, children with recorders—but there is one thing that has been really getting to them lately," writes Ben Yakas. "[T]he current annoying trend is all the people dropping their AirPods, and then either trying to get them themselves or getting MTA employees to jump onto the tracks to retrieve them.

Yakas isn't the first journalist to report on the annoying trend. Rachel Feintzeig reported on the tendency of these objects to depart their owners' possession for a Wall Street Journal article that is behind a paywall. Georgett Roberts and David Meyer wrote on the same theme for the New York Post.

To retrieve Air Pods on subway tracks, MTA employees (who might have other, better things to do) have to use a long pole to reach and retrieve the lost items. "Transit workers have apparently been fielding tons of requests for AirPod rescues since March, when Apple released a new version," according to Yakas.

"It's gotten so annoying, a spokesperson told the Journal the MTA is apparently considering whether to launch a public service announcement campaign urging commuters to refrain from taking AirPods on or off while entering or exiting trains."