Apple Unveils AirPods Pro: A New Design with Active Noise Cancellation
by Anton Shilov on October 28, 2019 7:30 PM EST
Apple today has introduced a new version of its AirPods wireless earbuds, which the company is calling the AirPods Pro. Designed to be an even more premium version of Apple's earbuds, the AirPods Pro features a revamped design that is equipped with a custom high dynamic range amplifier, as well as adding support for active noise cancellation. And with a price tag of $249, Apple's high-end earbuds will carry a price premium to match its new premium features.
Apple’s AirPods Pro is based on the company’s H1 system-in-package, the same SiP that is used for the 2nd Generation AirPods introduced earlier this year. The new earbuds feature a new design with soft silicone ear tips (the company will ship AirPods Pro with three different tips) as well as new vent system that promises to minimize the discomfort of using the in-ear headphones. The earbuds come with a new custom high dynamic range amplifier, which is used to power a low-distortion speaker that can provide bass down to 20 Hz. Meanwhile, according to Apple the H1 SiP as well as the Adaptive EQ technology automatically tunes low- and mid-frequencies of the audio according to the shape of an individual’s ear.
The sweat and water resistant AirPods Pro comes with outward-facing and inward-facing microphones. These are able to detect external sounds, allowing the headset to support active noise cancellation. According to Apple, the AirPods sample the environment at 200Hz, allowing them to quickly respond to changes in outside noise. Meanwhile the new AirPods also add a new feature that Apple is calling transparency mode, which that allows the user to hear the environment around them while using the earbuds, essentially offering an option to reduce/eliminate the noise-blocking properties of the earbuds.
Meanwhile, the new AirPods also support an Ear Tip Fit Test, which can detect whether the headset has a good fit. And of course, the earbuds also fully support the usual AirPods features, including hands-free ‘Hey Siri’ functionality and everything that is derived from that.
Apple's AirPods Pro can work for up to 4.5 hours on one charge with ANC or Transparency mode activated, or for up to 5 hours without them. Talk time of the new headset is 3.5 hours.
The new AirPods Pro are compatible with a variety of Apple’s devices running iOS 13.2 or later, iPadOS 13.2 or later, watchOS 6.1 or later, tvOS 13.2 or later, or macOS Catalina 10.15.1 or later.
Apple’s AirPods Pro with a wireless charging case will be available starting Wednesday, October 30 in the US and 25 other countries. In the US, the product will cost $249.
Related Reading:
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Source: Apple
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s.yu - Thursday, October 31, 2019 - link
So true...yetanotherhuman - Wednesday, October 30, 2019 - link
Almost certainlyZolaIII - Tuesday, October 29, 2019 - link
As this is Apple you won't be able to go out & buy replacement memory foam ear plugs as they simply won't fit neither the tube nor case.willis936 - Monday, October 28, 2019 - link
So close to a great product. Porting the canal absolutely destroys the lows and no amount of DSP can fix that. Adaptive EQ using a canal facing speaker is p cool though. They could flatten out nasty resonances with that. Finally, 200 samples per second is simply too low for ANC. It seems like the same solution they put in beats. If so it’ll be a god awful excuse for ANC.quorm - Monday, October 28, 2019 - link
Are any of these "true wireless" earbuds good? Someone gave me a set of galaxy buds and they're terrible. Sound quality isn't so great, as expected, but there's also a delay that makes them pretty unusable for watching video. And this is with a Samsung phone.wr3zzz - Tuesday, October 29, 2019 - link
In TWS the source device needs to deal with two destinations instead of one (non-TWS BT headphones only need one receiver). Apple has a patent on how the signals are coordinated. Android needs to work around the patent and first gen has a terrible lag. Next gen Android chips are just rolling out now.ZolaIII - Tuesday, October 29, 2019 - link
Video deley for audio sync which Apple used simply won't work on most things & won't work good on any long video. AAC is actually a high latency codec, APTx LL makes latency much better on other hand quality ain't all that great. Solution would be implementing a Opus decoder on TWS (mostly BT chips already in use are more than capable in handling that in flight without any problems on their general purpose core's, DSP implementation would need a lot of work) it would be a better quality of AAC or APTx HD & better latency than APTx LL. Since Android 10 Opus is core supported while by using Foobar or FFmpeg it's supposed on pretty much every platform. It's Open Source, royalty & DRM free so nothing there that's stopping manufacturers, OEM's or others to make that step.edzieba - Tuesday, October 29, 2019 - link
This is false: not only are there plenty of dual-receiver BT implementations that not only work on Android, the concept itself pre-dates the airpods. It's part of the BT audio standard.wr3zzz - Tuesday, October 29, 2019 - link
Those are not for TWS form factors.imaheadcase - Tuesday, October 29, 2019 - link
Sony wireless ones are great, i use that at work all the time. Charge lasts 4-6 hours, but charging it is super fast.