AirPods: Apple’s plans for future earphones seemingly revealed in major report

Almost every Apple set of earphones and headphones set to receive updates in 2024

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Apple plans to overhaul almost all of its AirPods next year, according to a major new report.

The standard version of the AirPods earphones will be replaced with two new options, and the long-neglected AirPods Max headphones will finally get an update, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

At the moment, Apple offers two versions of its basic AirPods, alongside the higher-end AirPods Pro and larger AirPods Max. The cheaper AirPods are known as the second generation and include most AirPods features, but the ones known as third-generation are more expensive and add water resistance, personalised spatial audio and other features.

Those newer, third-generation AirPods are selling less well than Apple had expected, according to the new report. Apple believes that is because more customers are opting to buy the cheaper, older second-generation version, Bloomberg said.

Instead of offering those various options, Apple will take all the existing AirPods off sale and replace them with two new AirPods that will go on sale at the same time, the report said. The higher-end option would get some AirPods Pro features such as noise cancellation and speakers inside the case to make it easier to find.

The two new generations would also continue Apple’s move towards USB-C charging. Last month, Apple updated the AirPods to drop support for the Lightning cable and include the standard, which came alongside the same change in the iPhone line-up.

Both of the new sets of AirPods are expected to be released next year. The last AirPods update came in October 2021, when the third-generation was released.

Apple will also update the expensive, over-ear AirPods Max headphones next year, the report claimed. Those headphones have gone without any changes since they were first introduced in 2020, which means they do not have access to Apple’s newer wireless technologies and still use the old Lightning cable to charge.

The AirPods Pro will get their own redesign in 2025, the report said. It gave no indication of what would change about the earphones, which were updated to get USB-C last month.