Yes, AirPods are currently surprisingly easy to switch from an iPhone to a Windows laptop (click open the Bluetooth menu and connect to AirPods), which is quite similar to the behavior I use to switch between AirPods and a Mac (I rarely use the "Switch to AirPods" notification on Macs that pops up seemingly-inconsistently).

I understand it’d be an issue to many people, but I had Airpods for 5? years now and not even once paired them to anything other than an Apple device. I have non-apple BT speakers but don’t have any BT transmitting devices that aren’t Apple… my LG TV maybe (which I use with an Apple TV) but I assume pairing them would be a pain.

I hope it's an open protocol that operates on WiFi spectrum. Every implementation of Bluetooth is horrible, and you start to wonder if the Bluetooth spec itself is the issue..

Fwiw, Bluetooth does operate on the same spectrum as WiFi. But I agree about the Bluetooth spec.

I hope you mean the 5 or 6GHz range. Bluetooth already runs at 2.4GHz, but that frequency band is cluttered as all heck.

An open protocol would be excellent though.

Yeah sure, I really don't know much about wireless spectrum. It just needs to be something that existing hardware supports.

If Apple does go proprietary you won't be any worse off, assuming they still support Bluetooth (and I'd be very surprised if they stopped supporting Bluetooth).

They’ll keep Bluetooth. The “find my” airtag eco system depends on it. Plus car audio and external speakers.

I always wonder if the removal of the headphone jack was a ploy to get iPhone users to use Bluetooth so the find my network worked better..

I don't think pushing users to Bluetooth is a ploy to get more users to use Bluetooth. Toggling Bluetooth off only means the user-land applications can't use Bluetooth, the system might still use it for location-based services, if those are enabled. The "Find My" network would probably do a similar thing of piggybacking on such a feature.