AirPods on Stage
While the coming of Apple’s third-generation AirPods was not a surprise, the fact that they got stage time this year most definitely was.
Granted, the debut of Spatial Audio gives Apple a bit more to talk about, as it’s been putting a lot of effort into that technology, and this makes it more accessible. Still, it’s fair to say the AirPods Pro and AirPods Max were both considerably more significant products, and both of those were slipped out much more quietly via press release. We’ll chalk this one up to timing, along with the fact that Apple clearly felt like running a general music preamble before it got into the main event.
The other surprise to come out of this was the fact that Apple isn’t fully discontinuing the 2019 second-generation AirPods either.
Instead, the wired charging model is dropping to $129 and will be sold along with the new $179 third-generation AirPods, which not only include wired charging, but also work with MagSafe.
Since we doubt the AirPods will handle faster charging, this likely just means that they magnetically attach to a MagSafe charging disc.