Third-Gen AirPods Expected to Launch Early Next Year

AirPods Concept Credit: Va Lokos / Blink Audio
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While rumours about Apple’s next-generation AirPods have quieted down in recent months, a new report has surfaced confirming that we probably won’t see any new AirPods until at least early 2021.

To be fair, it’s hard to pin down a cycle for Apple’s true wireless earbuds just yet, as the company has only released three models in the past four years; the first-generation AirPods arrived in late 2016, and then we went two years without any updates at all before the second-generation AirPods appeared in early 2019, featuring the same design while also adding new Siri features and a wireless charging case option. Apple then followed that up with the AirPods Pro last fall, with an all-new design and the addition of Active Noise Cancellation (ANC).

So it was perhaps optimistic to expect that Apple would have yet another new set of AirPods coming out this year, but at the same time, there have been enough reports of Apple working on various wireless earbuds to have raised a few hopes.

It’s unclear whether Apple was expecting to launch something this year before the novel coronavirus pandemic hit, but certainly, since then it’s been shifting production around and it’s likely a lot of its plans have been slipping into 2021.

According to MacRumors, DigiTimes is weighing in with its own confirmation that Apple’s supply chain partners for its AirPods are on track for an early 2021 release of the next-generation AirPods.

Although the paywalled report doesn’t add any details about what we might expect, we have enough information from other reliable sources to get a pretty good idea of what Apple is up to.

What’s Coming

By most reports we’ve heard, Apple will be shifting the design of its standard AirPods to look more like the current AirPods Pro, and it seems that this is the likely source of the “AirPods Pro Lite” rumours that we heard earlier this year, which originally suggested that Apple was going to create a new mid-tier version of its AirPods.

It does seem much more likely though that the “AirPods Pro Lite” would really just be new third-generation AirPods that would adopt the “Pro” design while omitting some of the more premium features like ANC.

However, while Apple might adopt the design language of the AirPods Pro, we’ve already heard several reports that it won’t just be a copycat design, with Apple looking at ways that it can slim them down even further, shrinking the stem for a more low-profile fit.

Arguably, Apple does have some catching up to do when it comes to offering sleeker designs, as illustrated by Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds Live, although it still remains unclear how much of a tradeoff there is between design and functionality when it comes to true wireless earbuds.

However, although Apple’s dominance with the AirPods is starting to falter to Chinese rivals, it still has a lot of ground to lose before it needs to worry about keeping up with what others are doing.

Apple is also reportedly working on a second-generation version of its AirPods Pro, although those are likely to arrive even later next year — possibly a fall 2021 release — and are expected to offer new health sensors that will likely be exclusive to the “Pro” lineup.

However, while it looks like we may to have to wait until next year to see new AirPods in-ear headphones, several reports have suggested that Apple’s brand new “AirPods Studio” on-ear headphones should be right around the corner, and from everything we’ve heard, they’re going to be pretty exciting. 

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]

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