Apple Has 'No' Plans Yet for AirPods Max 2 With 'Meaningful' Changes

[S.B.G]

As for me...I think Apple is missing a real opportunity to lead the market...
Ditch the heavy aluminum, use lighter materials for the cups.
Go to planar magnetic for better sound.
Charge less than people expect, and delight in how many will be seen wearing them on the streets. Make them, of course, able to play the highest quality files.

What Are Planar Magnetic Headphones?

The world of audiophile hardware is dense and hard to parse.

www.howtogeek.com

The "better sound" part there is wholly subjective.

I have planar headphones and IEMs as well as dynamic driver headphones and IEMs. For me, my preference is for dynamic over planar. I'd say 90/10 on the side of dynamics is what I listen to, and my ears prefer.

When talking about audio and what is "better" I always try to avoid making broad, declarative statements like that. Enjoying music is too subjective to be described any other way.

 

[gdmedia]

Without any significant updates it is a hard ask at that price point. There are so many great headphone options out there at all prices ranges.

In this particular class, wireless, Bluetooth and ANC, the Bose QC45's at half the price are a great alternative.

I did exactly that when my AirPods Max went kaput. The QC45's are excellent. I use them at the gym, where the ANC is essential and works very well in these phones. I wish they would put the pause button somewhere else than squeezed in between the up and down audio buttons, but that's my only complaint.

 

[goro123]

I'm late to the party… but I was wondering about 2 things :
- Can I use the AirPods Max plugged in while working in Garageband?
- Do other headphones support Appel's Dolby atmos?

Thanks!

 

[kcwookie]

Mine still work just fine. No biggie.

 

[kcwookie]

I wonder if this (alleged) decision is due to possibly low sales since introduction.

In my town, I see a lot of them running around.

 

[HazeAndHahmahneez]

What I don’t understand is why; Apple doesn’t shy away from discrete incremental upgrades to products, so why won’t they toss an H2 chip in the Max and give them some feature parity with the Pro 2s?

Apple really wants those AirPod pros to be top of the line, it seems…
even at a cheaper price than the Max’s…interesting.

That's lame. These headphones have great sound quality and ANC, but the design is comically flawed, and they are very overpriced. If they released a redesign that addressed a lot of the issues, especially the weight, and lowered the price, I'm sure they would sell a ton of these.

sell more than they’re selling now yes, but they don’t want to slash that price at all. Not one iota.

Perhaps there's an internal battle at Apple where a critical VIP is threatening to leave if they have to spend any more time and energy on such an unnecessary and ugly product.

nahhhh. Nothing comes before the almighty dollan sign.

I'll never understand their thought process

it is a pretty weeyid thought process…wicked weeyid, actually…

hmmm it seems like the name recognition of iPhone PRO MAXphones have really helped Apple push these cans to the masses despite not having the upgrades they ought to have at that Pro price point:

wata resistance/proofing
betta case
lighta weigt
comfortability
etetc
etc
H2
losless audio support or whateva the best quality there is that’s available on Apple Music, of all things smh…

They’re clearly not doing well enough to warrant development of any meaningful updates after four years on the market, I’d say that’s objectively poor performance. They’re competing with Bose QuietComfort Ultra, Sony XM5, Sonos Ace, Sennheiser, Bowers & Wilkin, etc.

My biggest problem is that they didn’t even update it with the features that have already been implemented in their own other wireless headphone products. They’re charging $549 for headphones that are missing several features from their sub-$300 earbud offerings. It’s really sloppy.

they’re not competing with all those names

theyre simply competing against themselves.

they truly are in a league of their own.

android. Why would anyone touch that mess, let alone look at it : (

What is SO frustrating about this is that Apple takes the wrong lesson from the lower sales. That shouldn’t mean stop improving on the headphones, it should mean go back and figure out why this isn’t a hit, and make the necessary changes to make it one.

I tried these on in a store just days ago, and I was immediately struck by the weight. That alone would make these a no-go for me. Redesign, fix the stupid case, and maybe drop the price 50-100 bucks and then see what happens.

It’s one thing if you iterate a few times and the product STILL doesn’t take off. But you don’t just abandon it. If that’s going to be your philosophy, you might as well give up on AR/VR too while you’re at it. 🙄

hmmm…(really wish we had a thinking emoji)….my guess is that they sell enough of these to where all the complaints we have do not at all speak for actual numba of units sold..

Airpods Max, the magic mouse of headphones

hmmm…the mouse is awesome idk what synthetic drugs youre smoking but umm…can’t speak on max as I’ve Neva owned some…

They don’t really need updating. They’re headphones not iPhones or MacBooks. I’m glad mine will last me a long time. Makes the cost of it on release day worth it. I like my tech to have longevity.

very interesting take…now i kinda like it, honestly.…

i just find it so hard to believe, but since usb C versions just released , it’ll really be 3+ years until possibly lossles, h2/3 chip, wata proofing, etc???….

This one was weird. I'll say that about the Apple Watch Ultra 2 as well, S10 gets the new chip, Ultra didn't get it. But keeping the H1 in the Max was kind of bewildering.

to make it even more segmented (but also more symmetrical), they could do pro and plus and regular of every (or many) devices And so the featiz ah basically the same on each level, simply different form factiz (in eeya, ova eeyah etc), this way beats and apple its all just truly one just different design philosophyes/form factiz..

What a shame. If they fixed the mesh headband, made it lighter, sweatproofed it, put in latest chip, remove the stupid bra case and drop price to 399 or 449 it would sell like crazy.

Its already a big status symbol headphone in gyms, offices and airports in LA/NYC so putting effort in an update is justified, shareholders be damned

they need to add all that stuff you mentioned (and then some) but def not for less than the msrp now…

yeah big cities these get a ton a burn theah…

In my town, I see a lot of them running around.

yup. I really think words like “Pro“ and “max” have helped push these off shelves.

I don’t see a true upgrade anytime soon so….

 

[johnsawyercjs]

Nope, they need a full redesign.

Of course, but Apple has already said they're not going to do that any time soon, and speculation is that one reason for this is that since the APM isn't one of their higher-volume products, they might not think the profit from it justifies the expenditure of a full redesign until some distant point in the future, but at least until they do that, it would cost them a lot less and be a lot simpler and faster, and appreciated by customers, to at least fix a couple of the major comfort issues the current model has, since they keep making them.

But I guess that would be an admission of a problem to begin with, and Apple has always been really bad about admitting mistakes or problems. Sometimes (often? always?) this seems to be because Apple thinks this would encourage class action lawsuits claiming damages from these problems, on top of the class action lawsuits they've already been served with over the years.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

In London on the tube, every other person has AirPods of some variation. Except Max. Almost zero. I see them, but hardly ever. People get the Max ones stolen off their heads too! Easy targets.

Maybe a fair number of those people have an APM at home for listening there, due to the better sound quality than with their in-ear Airpods.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

I'm late to the party… but I was wondering about 2 things :
- Can I use the AirPods Max plugged in while working in Garageband?
- Do other headphones support Appel's Dolby atmos?

The original Airpods Max model can be wired to a computer for audio playback using a Lightning to 3.5 mm audio cable. Apple makes one, and there are some third-party manufacturers too, but some people apparently have problems with the quality and compatibility of some of these third-party cables. Currently there are no Lightning to USB-C cables that will get you audio playback when plugged into a computer's USB-C ports.

The new USB-C Airpods Max currently have no cables available for a wired audio connection, either to a 3.5 mm audio jack, or to a computer's USB-C port.

Other headphones do support Dolby Atmos, since Atmos isn't an Apple product, but Apple adds to Atmos with Spatial Audio, which adds things like head tracking and custom calibration. But as far as I've been able to determine, no non-Apple headphones support Apple's implementation of head tracking, though some non-Apple headphones implement their manufacturer's version of head tracking, which works with those manufacturers' and some others head tracking protocols.

 

[Xade]

I was eagerly waiting for the refresh to replace my aging B and Os, but with just different colours and usb c, I still won't be buying them sadly! Maybe from B and O to B and W.....

 

[longhorn2004]

If Apple was going to update the Airpods why would they communicate that to Bloomberg? Why Osbourne the product?

 

[goro123]

Seems like the APM is following the path of the Original HomePod… or all HomePods actually. Not many updates.

 

[coderkind]

The sales are "too low" because they're charging too much for older tech.

 

[SactoGuy18]

I think if they are talking the current design model, understandable. But a new model with a improved ergonomics, UWB support, support for Bluetooth 6.0 and the latest wireless codecs, that's a very different story.

 

[AppleIsEveryWhere]

I think Apple will jump from H1 to H3 for the AirPods Max!

 

[Andy69]

While this should come as no surprise given that Apple just updated the AirPods Max in September, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said that Apple currently has "no concrete plans" to update the headphones again "in a meaningful way."

"I expect the company to keep the Max headphones around for the foreseeable future in their current form," he added.

AirPods Max received only two changes in September, including a USB-C charging port instead of Lightning, and new color options. The headphones did not receive Apple's H2 chip that debuted in the AirPods Pro 2 a few years ago, so they continue to miss out on Adaptive Audio features, and there were no improvements to active noise cancellation either.

This means the AirPods Max continue to have the H1 chip that Apple introduced in 2019, yet the $549 headphones did not receive a price cut.

Gurman believes that AirPods Max sales are too low for Apple to justify allocating more development resources to the headphones. So, if you are hoping for AirPods Max 2 with more significant improvements, keep your expectations low for now.

Article Link: Apple Has 'No' Plans Yet for AirPods Max 2 With 'Meaningful' Changes

I am due to buy the new Apple AirPod Max but only because I received £400 in Apple vouchers so they will only cost me £99 so now I can justify them even with the weak upgrade