New AirPods

2020 was a fairly quiet year for Apple’s mainstream AirPods, which saw no updates from the prior 2019 models, although of course the company made an even bigger splash with the late-season announcement of its AirPods Max premium over-ear headphones.

Apple’s Beats division also didn’t sit still, with new Powerbeats and Beats Flex adding more wallet-friendly options to the mix of W1/H1 capable earphones, rounding out its overall product line quite nicely.

Unlike the three-year gap between the first two generations of AirPods, however, most reports suggest that 2021 will be the year of more AirPods updates, with new third-generation AirPods expected to adopt an “AirPods Pro Lite” style of design, offering in-ear passive noise isolation without the active noise cancellation features. For the second-gen AirPods Pro, which could arrive later in 2021, Apple is also said to be working on a design that will see the stems eliminated entirely.

To throw one other wildcard into the mix, there’s also the possibility that a lower-cost “sport” version of Apple’s AirPods Max could come onto the scene. Rumours abounded last year that AirPods Max were supposed to come in two versions, and there was even the possibility of interchangeable parts, but when only the single $549 model debuted, we weren’t sure if Apple had abandoned its plans for a lower-cost version due to some of the production problems it ran into, or if it’s simply been holding off on it for a later release.