You can still use AirPods with non-Apple Bluetooth devices. The pairing process isn't as braindead easy of course, but they do work. That implies they adhere to

You can still use AirPods with non-Apple Bluetooth devices. The pairing process isn't as braindead easy of course, but they do work. That implies they adhere to the standard at least to some degree. I personally only use my AirPods with Apple products so I can't speak to whether they perform less well on regular devices, but, I somehow doubt it. Beyond pairing, it seems the only remaining secret sauce is in the relay between the two earbuds and coordination between the to for which one actually connects to the source device. None of that matters for the BT spec.