AirPods Pro 2 reportedly launching in 2022 with 'innovative experience'

(Paradigm credit: Future)

Update: A newer rumor has narrowed down the release date of the AirPods Pro ii to Q3 2022 .

Bear witness is mounting that the AirPods Pro 2 release date will have to wait until 2022, though it could allegedly feature some exciting changes from the current-gen AirPods Pro.

In a recent research note, in-the-know Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted a 2022 launch for the upcoming wireless earbuds. According to Apple Insider, the note claimed the AirPods Pro 2 will deliver an "innovative experience" — not something y'all'd wait from just some other set of headphones, peculiarly not a successor to one of the all-time wireless earbuds out there.

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What exactly this "innovative experience" entails, Kuo did not elaborate on, though we have an thought. Apple executive Kevin Lynch recently suggested that the AirPods range volition explore sensor fusion, a method of combining sensor data from devices like the iPhone 12 and Apple Watch to provide more accurate fitness tracking information.

As it happens, we'd already heard that the AirPods Pro two could include some sort of built-in fitness tracking capability. And while putting a step counter in the AirPods Pro 2 wouldn't be particularly groundbreaking, it's not impossible that Apple could aggrandize on such health-focused features to create an ear-worn culling to the best fitness trackers.

There have too been quieter, less corroborated whispers that the AirPods Pro 2 could ditch the bud-and-stem design shared past all previous AirPods; except, of course, the over-ear AirPods Max. A more compact, rounded bud shape in the style of the Beats Studio Buds might therefore be another of the AirPods Pro two'south large changes, though it's not clear what Apple would do with its signature Force Sensor control scheme if this were the case.

In any case, this is the latest in a string of occasions when a 2022 release date has come upwardly, so while that could be any time between side by side Jan and December, we wouldn't bet confronting it. In the concurrently, the AirPods iii is expected to launch subsequently in 2021, potentially alongside the iPhone 13.

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James is currently Hardware Editor at Rock Paper Shotgun, simply before that was Sound Editor at Tom'due south Guide, where he covered headphones, speakers, soundbars and annihilation else that intentionally makes racket. A PC enthusiast, he as well wrote computing and gaming news for TG, unremarkably relating to how hard it is to find graphics card stock.