3rd-Generation AirPods (2021)
The 3rd-generation AirPods are coming, but don’t expect them to drop any time this year. According to Ming-Chi Kuo, an Apple analyst and reliable source for everything related to Apple, the new AirPods will enter mass production in the first half of 2021.
If this is true, we can expect Apple to release a new set of AirPods by the end of next year. This correlates with what Nikkei Asian Review reported, saying that we won’t see any updates to the AirPods and AirPods Pro will be pushed back to 2021.
As for the changes the new AirPods will have, it seems as though everything will look the same on the outside. Kuo mentioned that the third-generation AirPods’ most significant change would be the adoption of SiP to replace the rigid-flex PCB+SMT design the current generation of AirPods has.
In case you’re wondering, SiP stands for System-in-Package, and it refers to a bunch of circuits enclosed in one or more chips. The SiP design is the same one the AirPods Pro currently has. This could potentially mean the 3rd-generation AirPods will have a better performance or sound quality, similar to the AirPods Pro.