AirPods are a joy to use on iOS devices, but when comes to the Mac, things are a bit different. With iOS, AirPods almost always automatically connect to your preferred device, but their reliability on macOS is a bit buggy.
Thankfully, there’s an excellent third-party app called ‘ToothFairy’ that dramatically improves the experience of using AirPods on macOS.
ToothFairy isn’t a new application – it originally launched on macOS over a year ago. With so many people receiving AirPods as holiday gifts over the last few weeks, however, it’s an app worth highlighting again.
What ToothFairy does is make it far easier to connect your AirPods (as well as any other Bluetooth device) to your Mac. Natively in macOS, you have to click the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar, then choose the device to which you want to connect. ToothFairy simplifies this process: once your device is added to the app, you simply click the dedicated icon in the menu bar to quickly connect.
ToothFairy does far more than simplify the process of connecting Bluetooth devices to your Mac, though. It also dramatically improves the reliability of connectivity. It’s no secret that pairing Bluetooth devices to macOS can be a bit finicky, and can often require a full trip into System Preferences.
ToothFairy is able to dramatically improve the Bluetooth experience on macOS – especially when it comes to AirPods. For example, you take your AirPods out of their case and put them in, only for them to connect to your nearby iPhone or iPad. With ToothFairy, you simply click the icon you’ve assigned to your AirPods in the menu bar, and they will quickly connect to your Mac.
Personally, I find ToothFairy most useful with AirPods, but you can also use it with any Bluetooth accessory. You can add various items to your menu bar with ToothFairy, or assign “hot keys” for connecting and disconnecting.
The ideal solution here is for Apple itself to improve Bluetooth and AirPods performance with macOS, but that hasn’t been the case yet. ToothFairy is a pretty basic application but does one thing very well. The app is available for $3 on the App Store, and it’s well worth the money if you struggle with Bluetooth connectivity on your Mac – especially with AirPods.
