Apple put on quite the new device spread at its recent launch event as it revealed not only a bunch of iPhone 17 handsets, including the headline-stealing iPhone Air, but also the Apple Watch 11, Watch SE 3 and Watch Ultra 3, and the AirPods Pro 3.
Contrary to rumors, the next-gen wireless earbuds turned out to be a pleasant surprise, appearing to be a much bigger upgrade on the AirPods Pro 2 than was anticipated.
Indeed, while the all-things-Apple rumor mill churned determinedly away in the hours and days leading up to the ‘Awe Dropping’ event, and suggested that Apple’s next top-tier buds wouldn’t deliver quite the performance overhaul one might’ve reasonably expected after three years of minimal progression, setting me somewhat up for disappointment, that didn’t exactly turn out to be the case.
The AirPods Pro 3 bring seemingly significant improvements to fit and comfort, active noise cancelation and battery life, while adding appealing new features such as a heart-rate monitor-led workout experience and real-time language translation.
The best fitting AirPods…ever
Apple isn’t shy to throw around ‘best ever’ and ‘world’s best’ claims (often with good reason, in fairness), so it wasn’t surprising to hear Hardware Engineering VP Kate Bergeron call the AirPods Pro 3 “the most stable and best-fitting AirPods ever” (due to bud size reduction, a tweaked shape and the introduction of a fifth – XXS – eartip size), and claim too that they have “the world’s best ANC of any in-ear wireless headphones” (twice as good as the Pro 2’s ANC performance).
Earbud battery life has been extended to eight hours from a single charge (up from the Pro 2’s six hours), putting them on par with class leaders like the Sony WF-1000XM5.
And that new heart-rate sensor, combined with a new IP57-rated water resistance and a personalized, data-collecting, motivating feature called Workout Buddy, opens the doors to a pretty sophisticated exercise offering through the Apple Fitness app.
Throw in the highly anticipated Live Translation feature, which does what it says on the tin and helps people speaking in different languages to converse with one another, and a price that hasn’t been hiked over the Pro 2 ($249) and which undercuts much of the premium competition, and you have a pretty comprehensive upgrade suite worthy of the next-gen Pro 3 name.
But what about sound quality?
One of the leaks leading up to the Pro 3’s announcement was a lack of meaningful audio and ANC upgrades. Apple’s claim that the Pro 3 offer twice the ANC performance of the Pro 2 and four times that of the original Pros somewhat quashes one of those rumors, but Apple’s claims where sound quality is concerned weren’t nearly as resolved.
Apple says it created a custom, multi-port acoustic architecture for the Pro 3 that precisely controls the airflow that carries sound into the ear, with Bergeron saying that this “transforms the bass response” and “widens the soundstage”.
In the grand scheme of audio hardware upgrades, that sounds like a relatively modest hardware change, although admittedly a new driver itself, or other new driver components, aren’t always necessary to bring notable sonic improvements in headphones and speakers.
Only time testing the Pro 3 against the Pro 2 and their closest rivals will really bring to light how much Apple’s airflow port change has moved on sound quality. With the probable Sony WF-1000XM6 release date looming, and those earbuds naturally threatening to set a new sonic bar, as previous generations have done before, the AirPods Pro 3 will need to notably up the Pro 2’s game in the sound department to stay in the conversation.
As for the Bluetooth transmission between the Pro 3 and iPhones or other source devices, which naturally affects the quality of music you hear through the earbuds, that unfortunately (but not surprisingly) remains limited to the rather low-quality ‘vanilla’ SBC and AAC Bluetooth codecs, which aren’t as capable as codecs such as aptX Adaptive or LDAC.
And will more premium AirPods arrive in 2026?
The other question that remains for those eyeing up a Pro 3 purchase is whether another premium AirPods model will transpire next year, as has been recently rumored. According to such word on the street, Apple is developing teeny-tiny infrared (i.e, thermal imaging) cameras to embed into its iconic earbuds, to perhaps facilitate gesture control, capture one’s surroundings to aid daily tasks, or integrate the AirPods into the Vision Pro headset experience. Or all three. Or something else entirely.
Considering the upgrades Apple has furnished the Pro 3 with, I wouldn’t expect any camera-toting next-gen AirPod to be a Pro 3 replacement, but instead a higher-end model to sit above them. It sounds like a future future feature, and presumably it would be accompanied by other brand-new advanced features not found in the AirPods Pro 3 – a touch-screen charging case, temperature sensor, or lossless audio, anyone?
But as a theoretical AirPods Pro 3 buyer who doesn’t have the cash to upgrade their earbuds every year, I would want to know now if such a model is on the 2026 horizon. Sadly, though, that question is unlikely to be answered until next year, or beyond.
