Why is Apple sleeping on the AirPods Max?

Apple announced a new acceptable of AirPods Max during its event past week, updating them with USB-C and successful a caller acceptable of colors. The power to USB-C is simply a invited one, to beryllium sure, but Apple changed thing other astir them. And that feels weird, right? What gives?

Apple’s high-end luxury headphones were impressive erstwhile they launched successful 2020. They had each the features of the AirPods Pro and made clever usage of the Apple Watch’s integer crown for measurement control. They besides sounded fantastic — inactive do, successful fact! But the remainder of the marketplace didn’t beryllium still; alternatives from Sony, Bose, and much recently, Sonos, each connection comparable features and dependable — astir notably, they each vie with the AirPods Max erstwhile it comes to sound cancellation (Bose does this the best) and transparency modes (AirPods Max inactive reign, but the Sonos Ace are close).

Despite being among the astir costly headphones you tin bargain without going into ultra-high-end audiophile territory, the AirPods Max look to person caught connected successful caller years. Apple doesn’t interruption the headphones’ numbers retired erstwhile it reports its earnings, but they’re each implicit the spot successful New York City, and I adjacent spot them connected a batch of heads successful my location metropolis of Milwaukee too. You’ll spot them successful airports and planes, metropolis transit, oregon conscionable walking astir the block. There was a full inclination astatine 1 constituent of radical sharing AirPods Max accessories connected TikTok. I’m fond of the crocheted ones:

There’s besides a precise disposable marketplace for “dupes,” oregon knockoffs. They person a hefty beingness successful Reptronics, a 115,000-member-strong subreddit wherever radical stock deals connected cheaper fake versions of fashionable products. (TikTok, again, has tons of videos astir dupes.)

27 minutes into episode 6 of the splashy Netflix play The Accident, a teen is wearing AirPods Max knockoffs that I’m definite are the nonstop brace I bought a mates of years ago. I gave excavation to my child, who rapidly broke them. 

So wherefore didn’t Apple update the AirPods Max? Is it due to the fact that it’s focused connected Beats and doesn’t person clip for the AirPods Max? Did it conscionable request to get thing retired the doorway truthful the EU doesn’t travel down connected it for not switching implicit to USB-C earlier the region’s December deadline requiring it to? Does Apple deliberation that it did a perfect, no-notes occupation for its archetypal over-ear headphones close retired of the gate, adjacent with its several-years-old H1 chip? 

They’re so, truthful expensive, but they’re besides a stellar brace of headphones that I emotion listening to euphony through. The ecosystem benefits similar being capable to brace them to my Apple TV to ticker a movie astatine nighttime oregon rapidly power them from my machine to my telephone to my iPad are great. And they inactive consciousness arsenic coagulated now, 2 years aft I bought mine, arsenic ever.

But successful their archetypal iteration, they’re highly Apple — you request a peculiar cablegram that lone Apple sells for wired listening due to the fact that they don’t person a 3.5mm audio jack. They don’t person a powerfulness button, truthful you person to spot that they’ll spell into low-power mode and volition beryllium acceptable for you adjacent clip you enactment them on. (This has been precise inconsistent for me.) 

Apple didn’t alteration any of that, and present it’s hard to consciousness similar they’re the astir premium headphones of Apple’s lineup, acknowledgment to the glaring omission of the AirPods Pro H2 spot that was introduced 2 years ago. Without it, they won’t get features similar Adaptive Audio oregon Conversational Awareness — oregon those coming to the AirPods Pro later, similar doubling arsenic proceeding aids.

I wouldn’t upgrade for those features, and I don’t needfully deliberation anyone other should either. But the AirPods Pro being much “advanced” definite takes the premium radiance disconnected of the AirPods Max, doesn’t it? It doesn’t assistance that the marketplace has much oregon little caught up, either. All of that truly makes their $549 pricetag a hard pill to swallow successful 2024.