With another September comes another round of new Apple products. The first to make it out of the proverbial gate this year is the new AirPods Pro 3. It was joined before long by a fresh batch of wearables and, finally, the iPhone 17 family.
As ever, Apple has made bold claims about the improved audio, fit, active noise cancellation (ANC), and additional features. Whether they hold water is probably up for debate, but we’re sure that won’t stop some people from jumping to upgrade. It probably helps that the price remains the same (at least in the US).
Apple AirPods Pro 3 coming soon
At a glance, the new AirPods Pro 3 look rather similar to the last ‘buds. Apple reckons they’re better. They stared at 10,000 ear scans to improve the fit, apparently. They’re now smaller, differently shaped, and come with five sizes of ‘foam-infused’ eartips.
They might be smaller, but Apple has still managed to shove in new features and improve others. A first for the AirPods Pro family is heart rate sensing, with in-earbud sensors that will chat with your other Apple products to relay heart info and provide encouragement (when you earn it, of course).
The Big Fruit Company couldn’t help but make at least one grand claim. This year, the new AirPods Pro 3 feature “the world’s best ANC”. We’re sure Sony, Bose, and co. will have something to say about that. Not that AirPods Pro 3 users can hear them. They’ll probably be too busy listening to live-translated audio in their ears, or measuring their heart rate from a new place on the body. Apple says audio performance has also been improved with a wider sound stage, but that almost goes without saying at this point.
All that with improved battery life, allegedly. Apple says the new ‘pods will manage up to eight hours of music listening with ANC enabled on a single charge. For users who use the AirPods Pro health features that showed up last year in the AirPods Pro 2, they can do that for up to ten hours on a single charge with transparency mode engaged.
With all the improvements, you’d expect the price to rise, right? Well, you’re in luck if you’re still hanging onto your all first-gen AirPods Pro. The new ones will cost the same as the old ones, $250 or around R4,380. That will probably change (read: increase) when they arrive here on or around the 19th of September. Local prices to be confirmed later.
