Actually, I find airpods to be very usable as bluetooth earbuds for all kinds of devices, these days I mostly use them behind my desktop PC when playing games and they work just fine.
When I pop them out of the case they automatically connect to my PC just like they would an iPhone or other apple device. They won't automatically switch to the PC like they would for apple devices but they also won't just switch from the PC so I don't mind.
Taking them out doesn't pause media but the play/pause controls do work.
I do think that most people without an iPhone won't buy them so they're essentially still bought as iPhone accessories, but they don't have to be!
I agree about the watch though, that's definitely an iPhone accessory.
