While we technically got a new set of AirPods Pro in 2023, the only real change was the adoption of USB-C charging, and Apple fans are itching for something new. AirPods Pro 2 are, after all, some of the best wireless earbuds you can buy, and they remain a no-brainer for iPhone users who want portable audio wherever they go.
So, just what are we expecting from AirPods Pro 3? Here’s everything we’ve heard so far about Apple’s upcoming earbuds.
AirPods Pro 3: Release date and price
AirPods Pro 3’s release date is something with little consensus around it. Optimists hope that we’ll see the new earphones as soon as September 2024 at Apple’s upcoming “Glowtime” event, given AirPods 4 seem like a certainty. Indeed, one leaker has tipped the high-end earphones as coming “soon”, but others are less sure.
Late last year, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman pegged the new earbuds for 2025, and reiterated the point recently. Twelve months earlier, the analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also suggested a release date of late 2024 or early 2025.
The short history of AirPods also leans towards a later release. The original AirPods Pro arrived in 2019, with the second generation coming three years later. Regular AirPods, meanwhile, have arrived in 2016, 2019 and 2021.
To date, every generation of AirPods Pro has sold for $249 — but given there have only been two generations so far, that’s not a very useful data point. If it doesn’t remain at $249, that price is only going in one direction, but we’d be surprised if it went higher than $289.
AirPods Pro 3: Rumored design and features
The scarcity of AirPods Pro 3 rumors and leaks is arguably more evidence that the earbuds aren’t just around the corner — though it could also be Apple just keeping a tighter lid on things than usual.
Back in October 2023, when predicting a 2025 release, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman stated that the upcoming earbuds are “expected to get a new design and chip” — presumably the H3, given the last two generations have packed an H1 and H2 respectively.
At the same time, Gurman also suggested that AirPods Pro 3 would follow in the footsteps of the Apple Watch with “health features… tied to hearing”.
“The company is working on a new hearing test feature that will play different tones and sounds to allow the AirPods to determine how well a person can hear,” he wrote elsewhere. “The idea is to help users screen for hearing issues, not unlike how the Apple Watch ECG app checks for heart problems.”
But it’s not just hearing where AirPods Pro could be looking to introduce health metrics. Apple is also reportedly working on packing the new earbuds with sensors such as a biometric monitor and temperature sensor. The latter might be especially useful as ear temperature is more accurate than measurements taken from the wrist — though, of course, you don’t wear earbuds all the time as you do a smartwatch.
Along with these additional features, you can also expect improvements on what we already have. It would be a surprise if sound quality wasn’t improved, and battery life wasn’t lengthened from the six hours seen on the second generation.
But one specific is offered by the leaker Kosutami, who claims that the next-generation Pro product will have “much better” digital ANC (Active Noise Cancellation). That, again, isn’t a huge surprise, given Apple boasted that there was a 2x improvement in ANC between the first and generation earbuds.
Finally — and consider this point extremely speculative at this point — one of Apple’s patents shows a new-look case for true wireless earbuds with touch-screen media controls. To be clear, Apple patents loads of stuff all the time, so there’s no guarantee that this will ever be utilized in any product, let alone AirPods Pro 3, but something to bear in mind all the same.
AirPods Pro 3: Outlook
This all sounds very promising, especially the innovative-sounding health features. But even without, AirPods have been one of Apple’s recent success stories, and any improvement to sound quality and ANC would be enough to see AirPods Pro 3 fly off shelves when they come out.
That “when” remains a question mark, though. While it’s possible we’ll see them on store shelves in just a few weeks’ time, at the moment we’d be surprised if they weren’t something to look forward to in 2025 instead.
