While most of Apple’s 2023 ‘Wonderlust’ event was dedicated to the iPhone 15 range and the new USB-C port, Apple also revealed the same upgrade for the AirPods Pro – but that’s all the headphones got. No new model, no new chip, just a new case.
The AirPods Pro come with one big change in 2023 – the switch to USB-C. Moving away from the Lightning connector just like the iPhone 15, this means that you’ll be able to use the same chargers across both devices. While the Apple AirPods 4 are expected to debut sometime within the next 12 months, with greater features such as heat detection on the horizon, but that’s still to come.
Not that we were expecting a huge upgrade this year. The 2nd generation AirPods Pro only came out last year, although with iOS 17, Adaptive Audio has been updated, blending Transparency and Active Noise Cancellation modes to adapt to your experiences throughout the day. AirPods now include a toggle for quickly muting and unmuting, and Automatic Switching has been improved.
This year is more about incremental changes for the Apple ecosystem, such as the new port on the iPhone. The Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2, for example, also didn’t really receive many new features this year, and while the switch to USB-C represents a huge shift for Apple, it’s not a terribly big change for most people.
In short, you can probably skip this upgrade if you bought last year’s AirPods Pro 2, but the introduction of USB-C is pretty cool, and may be attractive to some customers. But it’s an incremental change, and it certainly doesn’t warrant the labelling of ‘AirPods Pro 3’.
At its 2023 iPhone event, Apple unveiled the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, the Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2, USB-C for the AirPods Pro 2, Roadside Assistance via Satellite, and a bunch of environmental promises. This article has been updated since it was first published.
Image: Apple