Three years after Apple released the AirPods Pro, the company is at long last ready to talk about the second incarnation of the earbuds at its big September hardware event. Previous reports indicated that AirPods Pro 2 wouldn’t have significant design changes, with most of the changes reserved for the interior. But there’s one big update to the exterior: touch controls. You’ll be able to control audio playback with swipe gestures on the AirPods Pro’s stems.
The earbuds are powered by a new chip, the H2. Apple claims this will help AirPods Pro cancel out up to twice as much noise. There’s a new driver that could help to improve the audio quality, and there’s spatial audio support. You’ll be able to use your iPhone’s camera to set up a custom spatial audio profile.
As for listening time, Apple says you’ll get up to six hours of use from a single charge. With active noise cancellation on, Apple claimed the original AirPods Pro would offer 4.5 hours of playback, so that’s a 33 percent improvement. The charging case offers 30 hours of listening time. Speaking of which, you’ll be able to juice up the new charging case with an Apple Watch charger, as well as a Lightning cable, MagSafe or a Qi charger (no USB-C yet, sadly).
This time around, each earbud can play a sound. So if you happen to lose one, it will hopefully be easier to find.Â
Developing…
Follow all of the news from Apple’s iPhone event right here.
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices are correct at the time of publishing.