If Apple’s most popular product is the iPhone, its most iconic product is its AirPods wireless earbuds. The instantly recognizable white buds have become ubiquitous since their debut nearly 10 years ago, and the current premium offering remains the AirPods Pro 2 from three years ago – so where are Apple’s AirPods Pro 3?
The second-generation of the high-end earbuds received a mild update in 2023, including the addition of MagSafe charging and USB-C compatibility, but we haven’t seen a real upgrade since this generation was released in 2022.
This leads many, ourselves included, to believe that a true third-gen model is coming soon, and the signs are pointing more aggressively towards a refresh of the hardware in 2025 – and potentially as soon as September.
When will the AirPods Pro 3 be revealed?
The early running from some tipsters suggested that we might see new AirPods at WWDC 2025, potentially alongside an upgraded AirTag, but nothing materialized. If that had happened, then Apple might have been using the occasion to launch a software interface to allow third parties to offer new functionality for the headphones.
However, Apple has historically kept all of the AirPods Pro’s functionality tightly controlled and only managed via settings within its own software. Assuming this trend continues, a September announcement alongside that of the next iPhone seems more likely.
This checks out, as the gap between the first and second generation of the AirPods Pro was three years (first in 2019, then in 2022), although that’s not really enough to be a pattern just yet. Some rumors suggest the new AirPods have been delayed until 2026, according to Jeff Pu, analyst at GF Securities Hong Kong.
However references to the AirPods Pro 3 found in the iPhone’s iOS 26 operating system source code, which suggests Apple’s new earbuds may make their way into our ears this year. It’s feasible that 2026 is still a potential AirPods Pro 3 release date as this is the software that will be used into early 2026, but that seems a little unlikely.
AirPods Pro 3: What the rumors say
Speculation among Apple watchers, including noted journalists and analysts Mark Gurman and Ming Chi-Kuo has centered around one key AirPods Pro 3 area: sensors.
The prevailing belief is that Apple will incorporate a new sensor suite capable of tracking temperature and heart rate, at a minimum. Apple filed a patent for this in 2017 and given that the Apple-owned Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 have heart rate sensors, this seems like a fairly safe bet.
However, one of the wilder rumors suggests that the AirPods Pro 3 could also get some kind of embedded camera. Not so much for taking photos and video (though that would be intriguing) but instead, for real-time hand gesture tracking, perhaps as an alternative to using the earbuds’ onboard controls, or as an alternative to using Siri for controlling functions on an iPhone. This rumor feels less likely – at least for the third-gen AirPods Pro.
Other rumors point to an Apple patent that detailed a design for a charging case with a built-in touchscreen as a sign of what’s to come on the AirPods Pro 3. Could Apple do it? Certainly. JBL has already added this feature to several wireless earbuds models, including the Tour Pro 3. Will Apple do it? It’s hard to see why, given it’s not done something like that before and would come at a cost to battery life – which it needs to improve in the next generation of the earbuds.
The AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with ANC boasted one of the smallest charging cases on the market. Small cases and touchscreens are somewhat mutually exclusive, so if Apple wants to shrink the AirPods Pro 3 case too, a screen is a lot less likely.
It’s also unclear if people actually find JBL’s touchscreen useful, despite the many functions it lets you access – Apple’s unlikely to play with gimmicks here. The biggest reason for a touchscreen charging case is to reduce the need to use your phone. Since there are only a few scenarios where people use earbuds without their phones, Apple may not see the benefit.
Speaking of the charging case, it’s almost a given that the AirPods Pro 3 will ditch the physical Bluetooth pairing button in favor of the capacitive touch version used on the AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with ANC.
Finally, most observers agree that we can expect better sound quality and further improvements to Apple’s already superb active noise canceling and transparency technologies.
What we’re hoping for on the AirPods Pro 3
Additional sensors on the AirPods Pro 3 make sense. Apple is already all-in on health and fitness via the Apple Watch, and having additional health data via the AirPods will make that tracking more accurate and useful.
However, I’m looking for improvements to the AirPods Pro’s original wireless music mission.
My wishlist starts with longer battery life. I say this every time because while the current six hours is adequate, we know from other companies that it can be much longer. And who ever said, “no thanks” when offered longer battery life?
I want to see Apple adopt true Bluetooth multipoint. At the moment, you can switch quite easily between your Apple products thanks to iCloud, but if you happen to use a Windows laptop for work, there is no way to keep the AirPods Pro connected to your iPhone and your computer simultaneously. It’s high time Apple joined the Multipoint world — at this point, the AirPods family is one of the only product lines that doesn’t support this handy technology.
In a similar vein, I want Apple to provide the AirPods Pro 3 with access to Bluetooth Auracast broadcasts. It could choose to do this within iOS and/or on the earbuds themselves. Either would be fine with me.
Apple teased us when it said the AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C could do wireless lossless audio. It wasn’t a lie, but it came with a monster caveat: It only works with Apple’s Vision Pro AR headset. I want Apple to move forward with this feature so that (at least) it works with iPhones. If there’s a sound quality benefit to lossless audio (which many music fans would agree with), it shouldn’t be reserved for the Vision Pro.
It feels almost certain that Apple will launch the AirPods Pro 3, when they do arrive, with a new chipset – likely the H3, given the first AirPods debuted the H1, and the Pro 2 launched the H2. This upgraded chip would give Apple the chance to improve the quality of the audio, bring enhanced features and extend battery life too.
Apple could give us the option of plugging the AirPods Pro 3 charging case into a 3.5mm analog audio source, and use the charging case as a wireless transmitter. This wouldn’t be an innovation. Bowers & Wilkins, LG, JBL, and Jabra have all provided this feature on current and previous wireless earbuds. The AirPods Pro 2 charging case already contains an ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless transmitter for the Find My feature, and UWB would make an excellent choice for wireless transmission to the AirPods.
When will AirPods Pro 3 be available, and how much will they cost?
Assuming that Apple indeed announces the AirPods Pro 3 in the fall along with the next iPhone, we can expect them to be available for preorder within hours of the announcement, and they’ll likely start shipping 10-14 days after that.
Apple has announced all three previous AirPods Pro versions at a regular price of $249. There are, of course, no guarantees in life — especially in the current economic climate of tit-for-tat tariffs — but it’s a reasonable guess that the company will maintain this price for the AirPods Pro 3.
