Apple plans to launch AirPods Professional 3 this yr, in keeping with provide chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
All indicators level in direction of Apple unveiling the AirPods Professional 3 throughout its iPhone 17 occasion on Tuesday, September 9. Nonetheless, Kuo didn’t present a particular timeframe past the second half of 2025, which strains up with earlier rumors.
Kuo didn’t point out any new options which might be deliberate for the AirPods Professional 3. Nonetheless, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman lately reported that the AirPods Professional 3 will doubtless have the identical coronary heart charge monitoring function that Apple launched on the Powerbeats Professional 2 earlier this yr, together with a considerably smaller charging case.
When each Powerbeats Professional 2 earbuds are positioned within the ears, and coronary heart charge monitoring is energetic, Apple says LED optical sensors pulse at over 100 instances per second to measure coronary heart charge through blood movement. The function integrates with common health apps to gather information throughout exercises and sync it to Apple’s Well being app on the iPhone.
The function relies on the Apple Watch’s coronary heart charge sensing expertise. If somebody is sporting each Powerbeats Professional 2 and an Apple Watch, Apple says apps default to utilizing Apple Watch coronary heart charge information, and that can doubtless apply to the AirPods Professional 3 too.
Past coronary heart charge monitoring, it’s doubtless that the following AirPods Professional will function improved sound high quality, elevated energetic noise cancellation, design adjustments, and extra.
AirPods Professional 2 debuted on the iPhone 14 occasion in September 2022, and so they had been up to date with a USB-C charging case and some different tweaks in September 2023.
Whereas there may have been at the least a three-year hole between the launches of the AirPods Professional 2 and the AirPods Professional 3, the look ahead to AirPods Professional 4 is perhaps considerably shorter. Kuo mentioned that Apple plans to replace the AirPods Professional once more subsequent yr, with a “extra vital” {hardware} improve (at the least one tiny infrared digicam).
Kuo beforehand mentioned AirPods with infrared cameras would supply an enhanced spatial audio expertise with Apple’s Imaginative and prescient Professional headset.
“For instance, when a consumer is watching a video with Imaginative and prescient Professional and sporting this new AirPods, if customers flip their heads to look in a particular route, the sound supply in that route may be emphasised to reinforce the spatial audio/computing expertise,” he mentioned.
The cameras may probably allow “in-air gesture management” as properly, permitting for system interplay with hand actions, he mentioned.
