Kuo: AirPods Pro 2 With New Design and Improved Chip to Launch in Late 2022

[SteveW928]

The shorter the stems, the lower mics quality is. And that's why AirPods record better audio than AirPods Pro. Without stem, these will sound even worse to whoever is on the other side of a phone call.

I hope they don't remove the stem. It's perfect for music controls, much better than that "tapping", which works 50% of the time.

Actually, I prefer to use the ‘stem’ as a gripping method to adjust them in my ear versus touching the earbuds themselves. So yes, I agree with what you said, but I use the stems as more of an adjustment method in addition.

^^^ These. All great points about keeping the stems. I hope the removal aspects of the rumors aren't true. I think they'd be quite hard to deal with and handle w/o the stems. I also think the stems help anchor them in people's ears, as they already don't stay well for some people (I inherited mine after my wife gave up on them. Never thought I could stand in-ear type earbuds, but the Transparency mode solves most of my 'pressure' issues, surprisingly.)

Everyone is talking about the technical limitations of lossless via Bluetooth, but here's the thing: AirPods are tiny. You are not going to notice the difference in sound quality with them.

If we were discussing high-end wired headphones or IEMs, sure. AirPods weren't designed with serious listening in mind. They trade sound quality for convenience and portability.

I don't think most could tell the difference between reasonably high bitrate compressed and lossless anyway, even with the highest end of headphones. It is more a marketing thing (which seems to be working!).

Marco Arment has covered this quite a bit on episodes of ATP podcast. Apparently, the difference most people hear has more to do with the prevalence of remastering often involved when creating the lossless versions.

 

[Wanted797]

But you know they eventually did iPods in a lot of other colors, right? So a comparison to iPods is kinda a weird argument for no new airpod colors.

I’m talking about the iPod earphones….

Not the iPod themselves.

 

[snipper]

There will never be other colors for AirPods than white -If they did, you wouldn’t immediately know that you’re looking at AirPods.

The AirPods aesthetic is iconic at this point and a key selling point for most buyers.

AirPods are just as much a fashion statement as they are consumer tech -People want to be seen wearing them just for the social capital, because everyone knows how expensive they are and that they only really work well with (equally expensive) iPhones.

Every time they release a new iteration and it’s only white they underline and cement the design and branding of AirPods.

It’s like those Louboutin womens high heels that all have the same red soles.

Creating a line of products that every consumer understands what is, can name instantly name, and wants to buy is every entrepreneur’s wet dream.

They’d be fools to do anything other than white.

Macs were always beige. The Apple logo was always in rainbow colours. The Apple logo was always straight up for the user on laptops. Scrolling was always in the natural direction. iPods were always white. Cpu’s were always from Motorola. The mouse always had one button. See where this is going?

As for social capital, that’s about people, not about showing off expensive hardware.

If Apple were the only brand selling white earplugs, then it would be a usp, but they don’t. Just about every brand sells white ones these days. White was remarkable once. There is nothing distinctive about white earphones any more in 2021. I’d say, the chances of coloured Apple earphones are bigger than ever.

 

[Jason111001]

Glad the "squeeze the stem" to skip tracks, stop, etc. will be gone. It was so much better on the standard iPods with tap.

 

[applesque]

that would destroy battery life.

I'm sure you're right!