Apple's AirPods are perhaps the most iconic true wireless headphones on the planet, popularizing the emerging form factor when they launched in 2016. Four years later, the world of true wireless headphones has been transformed. Now these fully self-contained headphones can deliver audio quality that rivals the best in-ear headphones, with added features like noise cancellation, gesture controls, and low-latency Bluetooth connectivity. In other words, true wireless earbuds have never looked so good, and that's thanks in no small part to Apple's innovations in personal audio. More recently, the company announced that AirPods Pro noise-canceling devices will receive Dolby Atmos spatial sound, depending on your head and device movements, to ensure sound always seems to come from the correct position. However, there's one aspect of Apple's true wireless earbuds that's long awaited an update: the design. Despite the AirPods being updated in 2019 with their new H1 headphone chip (allowing for faster pairing times and a hands-free Hey Siri feature), the design has remained unchanged. And, with the AirPods 3 slated to arrive in 2021 (or maybe even 2020 if we're lucky), it's the perfect time for Apple to part with the look of the original 2016 AirPods.
What's wrong with the Apple AirPods design anyway?
Before we address the various reasons why Apple should discontinue the original AirPods design, it's important to note that it has served society well, very well indeed. After all, the original AirPods are arguably the first true wireless headphones to really grab the public's attention, convincing many of us to cut the cord permanently. They still dominate the market today. In 2019, Apple held 50% of the true wireless headphone market share, eclipsing well-known audio brands like Sony, Bose, and Sennheiser. This is partly due to the instantly recognizable design of Apple's AirPods: when you think of a pair of true wireless earbuds, you're likely to conjure up an image of Apple's headphones, with their all-white plastic shell and long ear stems. . It's a design inspired by the wired Apple EarPods, which come free with iPhones (at least, for now), and is therefore an already familiar and reliable look. The simple act of removing the cable between the two earbuds and between them and your phone seems like a no-brainer for a company that wanted to encourage potentially hesitant buyers into the world of truly wireless listening. This design, while recognizable, isn't perfect, and could set Apple back if it chooses to implement it again with the AirPods 3.
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(Image credit: future)
Goodbye long stems
One of the most ridiculous aspects of the original AirPods is their long ear loops that stick out of your ears when you wear them. These earbuds may have made it possible to implement touchscreen controls, but as the AirPods Pro have shown, these controls don't require a huge footprint to work. On the much shorter Ear Rods of the AirPods Pro you'll find a capacitive force sensor; tap it and you can activate noise canceling or transparency mode, as well as skip and pause your music. Plus, innovations in system-in-a-case (SiP) electronics mean you can put a lot more technology into smaller devices. This is a technology used by the AirPods Pro, and is said to be used once again for the AirPods 3, so without the mechanical necessity of these long earbuds, nothing is stopping Apple from ditching the best Apple AirPods and Apple deals. AirPods Pro Today Apple Wireless AirPods... Apple AirPods Wired... Apple AirPods 2 Wireless Real... Plantronics BackBeat PRO...
Better fit leads to better sound.
The design of the original AirPods was decidedly "one size fits all", ultimately leading to sound isolation issues and giving some users the impression that their earbuds were never completely safe for their ears. This has been corrected with the AirPods Pro, which come with silicone tips in a variety of sizes. In addition to responding to more headphones, silicone or foam tips provide a better seal and therefore superior sound isolation and passive noise reduction, enhancing the sound of your music while avoiding a whole world of noise. of carnage of your favorite songs. This increased passive noise reduction could also be a much-needed feature in the AirPods 3, which is rumored to omit the noise-canceling smarts of the AirPods Pro.
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The TicPods 2 Pro (photo) is inspired by the AirPods. (Image credit: Mobvoi)
Beat the copycats
The success of the AirPods has meant that a host of Copycat true wireless earphones have flooded the market in the years since their release, and while many of these alternatives are pretty good in their own right, many more are poor 'Pods' imitations. originals. Where respected audio brands like Sony, Cambridge Audio, and Sennheiser opted for stemless designs, cheaper brands like Jabra, Xiaomi, and Mobvoi took inspiration from Apple, leading to an influx of low-quality AirPod dupes. This may be a side effect of Apple's success, but this influx could give the impression that the original AirPods design is good, cheap, and can be paired with headphones that just aren't that great.
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The AirPods 3 could look like the AirPods Pro (photo). (Image credit: future)
When will we see the AirPods 3?
It's been over a year since the last iteration of Apple's true wireless headphones, the AirPods (2019), naturally there are already murmurs of another updated model to come. For a while, we had expected Apple AirPods 3 to launch in 2020, but recent comments from industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggest we might wait a bit longer, speculating that the next generation of AirPods would kick off. mass production in early 2021, with a new AirPods Pro model also arriving in 2022 (via AppleInsider). According to 9to5Mac, the prolific Apple analyst believes that Apple "will continue to sell second-generation AirPods through the holidays this year," replacing the popular true wireless earphones with AirPods 3 "in the first half of 2021." In any case, we expect a big design update, and this was backed up by a prediction from Kuo. Kuo, who has made a number of correct Apple predictions in the past, says that AirPods 3 "will adopt a compact system-in-package (SiP) solution similar to AirPods Pro," in a research note obtained by MacRumors. This means that the original AirPods design really could be abandoned for good, and we think that would be a really smart move by Apple.