As I write this, I’m listening to tunes on my 2020-vintage AirPods Max. Yes, that makes me a bit of an Apple fanboy, and we currently recommend at least six pairs of headphones instead of them. But for me, they still sound great, have fantastic active noise cancellation and work well with my most-used devices.
They’re also missing a few features compared to the second-generation AirPods Pro coming in 2022. That doesn’t bother me, given that they’re nearly four years old — but the idea of spending the $550 Apple’s asking for a refreshed version of these headphones announced yesterday is ridiculous, even if it’s a relief that they finally have USB-C.
For reference, Apple wasn’t even expected to introduce an AirPods Max update at the iPhone 16 event — but a day earlier, Apple forecaster Mark Gurman at Bloomberg surprisingly said the headphones would receive their first significant update.
The update, however, included replacing the Lightning charging port with USB-C and a few new colors. That’s it. Nothing to motivate Apple junkies like me to upgrade (though I do wish my headphones had USB-C, now that I’ve mostly moved away from Lightning devices). I’m a fan of the new colors and would love to switch to USB-C, but not enough to spend $550 — or even half of that, to be honest.
Sony, on the other hand, has updated its flagship headphones regularly, with the WH-1000XM3 expected to arrive in 2018, the XM4 in 2020, the XM5 in 2022, and the XM6 in 2025.
Most Sony users aren’t going to upgrade from the XM4 to the XM5 or the future XM6, because high-end headphones should last for years.
But when you’re buying a company’s flagship headphones, you’re getting the best product they can possibly make. Sony has made sure that’s the case by improving the design, offering better battery life, or improving ANC.
The most disappointing thing about the AirPods Max update is that they had to do at least a small part of the internal redesign to include USB-C, so why not just upgrade the chips to the H2 processor?
The H1 variant inside the AirPods Max was first released in early 2019 as part of the second-generation AirPods. And now, all AirPods, including the recently announced $129 fourth-generation model, use that H2 processor.
This enables useful improvements like adaptive audio, which essentially blurs the lines between traditional transparency and noise-cancelling modes based on the ambient sound around you. It also lets you nod or shake your head to prompt Siri to respond instead of speaking out loud.
These features would certainly be welcome by potential AirPods Max buyers, but instead the incredibly expensive headphones are stuck with a five-year-old chip for the foreseeable future.
I can’t overstate how silly this is, considering the fact that the entry-level AirPods are getting some of the benefits of the H2 processor.
Of course, the AirPods Max have speaker quality and tuning that far surpasses the $129 earbuds. But as Apple’s top-tier headphones (in price, if not features), they’re a tough sell because they don’t have the features you can get on the AirPods 4 with ANC at a third of the price.