CUPERTINO, Calif.—Apple’s popular AirPods Pro in-ear headphones are getting a substantial upgrade. The new model, dubbed AirPods Pro 3, greatly improves active noise cancellation (ANC), performs live translations, and tracks your heart rate like a fitness wearable.
This will have to be subjected to third-party testing, but Apple made some intriguing claims about AirPods Pro 3’s performance during its iPhone and Apple Watch announcement today. Namely, that they’ll have twice the ANC performance as AirPods Pro 2 and four times as much as the original AirPods Pro.
Additionally, Apple claims that voices will sound “more natural” in Transparency, the mode meant to allow nearby sounds to be heard even while you have the earbuds in. Those who’ve used earlier iterations of Transparency will likely note that voices can sound a little bit filtered, so that could be a nice-to-have improvement.
Those upgrades come alongside better promised battery life, too. Apple says AirPods Pro 3 will last up to eight hours while listening to music with ANC, and up to 10 hours in transparency with the hearing aid mode enabled.
That about covers it for upgrades to existing AirPods Pro features, but there are two major new features in AirPods 3.
Apple’s presentation ventured into what was once sci-fi territory with live translation via Apple Intelligence, which is basically Star Trek’s universal translator—just a little bit clunkier. When you turn it on, the AirPods will listen to people around you speaking a different language, and a synthesized voice will translate the phrases they’re saying as they come in.
