Why is Apple sleeping on the AirPods Max?

Apple introduced a brand new set of AirPods Max throughout its occasion final week, updating them with USB-C and in a brand new set of colours. The swap to USB-C is a welcome one, to make sure, however Apple modified nothing else about them. And that feels bizarre, proper? What provides?

Apple’s high-end luxurious headphones have been spectacular after they launched in 2020. That they had all of the options of the AirPods Professional and made intelligent use of the Apple Watch’s digital crown for quantity management. Additionally they sounded unbelievable — nonetheless do, the truth is! However the remainder of the market didn’t sit nonetheless; options from Sony, Bose, and extra not too long ago, Sonos, all supply comparable options and sound — most notably, they every compete with the AirPods Max in terms of noise cancellation (Bose does this one of the best) and transparency modes (AirPods Max nonetheless reign, however the Sonos Ace are shut).

Regardless of being among the many costliest headphones you should buy with out going into ultra-high-end audiophile territory, the AirPods Max appear to have caught on lately. Apple doesn’t break the headphones’ numbers out when it studies its earnings, however they’re everywhere in New York Metropolis, and I even see them on plenty of heads in my residence metropolis of Milwaukee too. You’ll see them in airports and planes, metropolis transit, or simply strolling across the block. There was an entire development at one level of individuals sharing AirPods Max equipment on TikTok. I’m keen on the crocheted ones:

There’s additionally a really seen marketplace for “dupes,” or knockoffs. They’ve a hefty presence in Reptronics, a 115,000-member-strong subreddit the place folks share offers on cheaper faux variations of well-liked merchandise. (TikTok, once more, has tons of movies about dupes.)

27 minutes into episode 6 of the splashy Netflix drama The Accident, a youngster is sporting AirPods Max knockoffs that I’m sure are the precise pair I purchased a few years in the past. I gave mine to my baby, who rapidly broke them. 

So why didn’t Apple replace the AirPods Max? Is it as a result of it’s centered on Beats and doesn’t have time for the AirPods Max? Did it simply must get one thing out the door so the EU doesn’t come down on it for not switching over to USB-C earlier than the area’s December deadline requiring it to? Does Apple assume that it did an ideal, no-notes job for its first over-ear headphones proper out of the gate, even with its several-years-old H1 chip? 

They’re so, so costly, however they’re additionally a stellar pair of headphones that I like listening to music by way of. The ecosystem advantages like with the ability to pair them to my Apple TV to observe a film at night time or rapidly swap them from my pc to my telephone to my iPad are nice. They usually nonetheless really feel as strong now, two years after I purchased mine, as ever.

However of their authentic iteration, they’re extraordinarily Apple — you want a particular cable that solely Apple sells for wired listening as a result of they don’t have a 3.5mm audio jack. They don’t have an influence button, so you need to belief that they’ll go into low-power mode and will likely be prepared for you subsequent time you set them on. (This has been very inconsistent for me.) 

Apple didn’t change any of that, and now it’s laborious to really feel like they’re essentially the most premium headphones of Apple’s lineup, because of the obtrusive omission of the AirPods Professional H2 chip that was launched two years in the past. With out it, they received’t get options like Adaptive Audio or Conversational Consciousness — or these coming to the AirPods Professional later, like doubling as listening to aids.

I wouldn’t improve for these options, and I don’t essentially assume anybody else ought to both. However the AirPods Professional being extra “superior” positive takes the premium shine off of the AirPods Max, doesn’t it? It doesn’t assist that the market has roughly caught up, both. All of that actually makes their $549 pricetag a tough capsule to swallow in 2024.