DigiTimes: Next-Generation AirPods to Enter Production as Early as October

[jayducharme]

I don't know how Apple tests these things, but AirPods (and all Apple headphones) always fall out of my ears. Maybe I have a weird ear canal, but I've never been able to get them to fit. If they had a foam insert instead, I probably could wear them.

 

[bstpierre]

So I wonder if the all new design is to allow for noise canceling? I'm not sure how they'd achieve that with the current design where you're not guaranteed to get a good seal?

Active noise cancellation doesn't require a seal. The seal gets you some additional passive noice abatement. Active noise cancellation just makes a quiet zone around the error microphone. The quiet zone just needs to be big enough to fill your ear canal.
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Bout time. Runtime for my release day AirPods are down to 15/45 minutes L/R.

Looking forward to something new.

I am approaching the same situation. Am thinking about the Bose ear pods.

 

[44267547]

I don't know how Apple tests these things, but AirPods (and all Apple headphones) always fall out of my ears. Maybe I have a weird ear canal, but I've never been able to get them to fit. If they had a foam insert instead, I probably could wear them.

I don’t believe Apple ever include any type of ear-fittings for the AirPods, but there are some third-party options that will accommodate that issue. Take a look at ‘Spigen’, I believe they make some type of fitting for different size ears.

 

[Cold_Beaver]

Noise canceling would definitely get me to upgrade from my first gens. Almost bought the WF-1000xm3s but I am spoiled by the seamless pairing in the Airpods

Yea I couldn’t believe how difficult it was when I got a non Apple pair. I had to turn the Bluetooth on and press a button. Just so hard. Poor thing

 

[aFlockaCgulz]

I miss when Apple had reasonable prices.

Their prices started getting noticeably nutty ~3 years ago, and their response to falling sales was:
1 - Stop disclosing sales.
2 - Double down on increasing prices. Headphones contain $10 in components and plenty of competitors come in below $50? Forget about that! Charge $80! No wait, $160! No - $200! Wait, higher <insert new price here.>

Can we take a moment and remember - you’re buying headphones. They’re not a magical new product category. They come in the box with every iPhone. They came in the box with every iPod 18 years ago. Adding Siri lowered the quality. Adding batteries made them dramatically less reliable. And somehow people are okay with paying over double the price for an unquestionably worse product than what Apple offered a decade ago.

Unquestionably? I’ve used these every day the last two years.

All the wired EarPods I’ve thrown away.

So, no. Not Unquestionably?

 

[Herrpod]

Yea sure...there are not in ear wireless no cords easy to use sound quality better than airpods under 100$
And yea the first macbook air was reasonable priced at starting price 1799$ and so on
Apple haven’t changed

What a load of crap. There's literally tons of truly wireless earbuds with infinitely better sound quality than AirPods for not just under 100, but under 50 as well.

 

[macfacts]

Noise canceling would definitely get me to upgrade from my first gens. Almost bought the WF-1000xm3s but I am spoiled by the seamless pairing in the Airpods

How many times do you need to do the setup pairing?

 

[deeddawg]

Make them *sweatproof* and I'll be interested. Otherwise my gen1 units are still working just fine.

 

[ascender]

For what its worth, they might not be advertised as sweat-resistant, but the original AirPods have been one of the toughest sets of headphones I've ever bought. They got used nearly every day for running in all weather conditions, getting drenched in sweat & rain, without missing a beat.

 

[foobarbaz]

Yea I couldn’t believe how difficult it was when I got a non Apple pair. I had to turn the Bluetooth on and press a button. Just so hard. Poor thing

Until you want to switch to an iPad…

Switching is a terrible experience with many headphones. (That’s partly Apple’s fault, of course. They could make the process much easier.)

 

[jigzaw]

Can we take a moment and remember - you’re buying headphones. They’re not a magical new product category. They come in the box with every iPhone. They came in the box with every iPod 18 years ago. Adding Siri lowered the quality. Adding batteries made them dramatically less reliable. And somehow people are okay with paying over double the price for an unquestionably worse product than what Apple offered a decade ago.

Can we take a moment to remember - you’re buying a telephone. It’s not a new magical product category. You could get one at the store for like $40, plug it into your wall, and call whoever you wanted if they’re within the same city. And this phone will work fine for 30 years.

Untethering then from the phone jack on the wall, adding lithium-ion batteries, a computer chip, and an ever-changing operating system makes the suckers last 4-5 years at best but many have to replace them every other year to keep performance and battery life optimal.

And somehow, people are ok with paying 25 times the price for an unquestionably worst product than what Ma Bell offered 40 years ago.

————Sorry, couldn’t resist. For my 2 cents, the AirPods are a luxury item. Either wireless buds are compelling to you or they are not. For me the freedom to not have constant tangles, having to have my phone 15 inches from my my body to listen to a podcast or talk to someone at work, and the everpresent danger of hooking the wire on something while I walk thus yanking the buds out or sending the phone flying from my hand (used to happen to me at work quite often), is easily worth the extra cash for me.—————