Air pods pro

. headphones on earth. These are Air Pods. So the new stuff that you're looking at here is Air Pods 3. They were a quieter announcement at last month's Apple event, but they're $179 honestly, the story with these is, well, there's quite a bit of new stuff, but also the competitive landscape for earbuds has been heating up for years. And there have never been more high-quality alternatives to Air Pods than there are right now. So, the new Air Pods 3 design looks like a set ofAir Pods Pro, but without the silicon tips, like someone chopped them off. It's the one size fits all, the hard tip from the Air Pods of the past. And this is simultaneously its biggest advantage and its biggest downside for people like me. See shape is just slightly adjusted from the previous hardtop Air Pods. You can see it's more of a wedge shape where it goes into your ear. It's a slightly bigger opening at the end and, it's a bit more of a larger bulb. But the idea is that it's pretty close to the common ear and, it just pops in and sits there. No problem. At least it's supposed to for most people, but for me, again, it's not the best fit. The left one happens to stay in pretty well, but then the right one's constantly feeling like it's slowly sliding out of my ear, and eventually, it just falls out if I'm not constantly adjusting it. So it's pretty not for me. And for that reason, I still prefer silicon tips instead of hard plastic. I am super jealous of all you people who grab. Air Pods and just put them in your ears and, they stay forever. And just run around. I'm not one of those people. Oh well. But, I did test these for a little bit, and there are some other new things aside from just the new design. So there are the controls on the stem now on both sides like Air Pods pro. You pretty quickly get used to squeezing it, to play and pause. You can double-tap to go to the next song, et cetera. There's no noise cancellation in these, but you can see the mesh cut out on the back and around all the mikes. all around this thing for adaptive EQ. it passes through some of the sounds from the outside. mainly to feel a bit more open than some other earbuds. They are sweat and water-resistant now. So if you want to work out in them, you might've already done it, but they'll officially be fine now. And also if you walk around in the rain, no problem. And there's also a new horizontal case.Look's like the Air Pods Pro case, but it's a little bit smaller. And for the first time, the case is also officially IPX4 water-resistant. So like they might've survived water in the past, but it's officially official now. Still lightning at the bottom, unfortunately. But this new case is now improved. It'll still do wireless charging, but it's also now MagSafe compatible, which means it'll snap onto the iPhone's MagSafe charging puck. And it holds pretty well there, too. This MagSafe wireless charging case isn't unique to Air Pods 3, by the way. They quietly also updated the Air Pods Pro case to snap onto the magnets. but they didn't also update it for water resistance. So, small difference. What would have been even cooler is if you could trickle charge them via the T-charging on the back of the iPhone since they're both T-charging, it would have been the sickest, like a little ecosystem plug. They could've called it reverse MagSafe charging, but there, they don't talk to each other like that. It needs some extra hardware to reverse the wireless charge. iPhones don't have that. So that's not a real feature of this product. Like it is with some other phones and their earbuds. Now, if you decide to grab the sexiest case on earth, the case of the brand icon, or pretty much any other Air Pods case, no magnetic snapping, but yes, wireless charging does still work if you're wondering. I'll have a link below to this case if you want to protect your headphones. And make sure you get an Air Pods 3K specifically, Because like I said, Air Pods Pro cases are slightly different dimensions. They won't quite fit. But, the most interesting change to Air Pods, honestly, is the sound. They have a, and I can't believe I'm saying this, a perfectly sound now. So it's legitimately very improved. I've trashed on Air Pods in the past, as you guys have probably remembered, for how weak they sound, how tinny they've been. These Air Pods. when they're set right in your ears, much more body and bass frequencies now. And they get plenty loud as always. And they do sound pretty solid. Now the caveat is one. there is no EQ built-in like a lot of other headphones have. And two, these were meant to be good, basic everyday headphones. And so Apple has tuned them as such meaning. they've got to be usable for phone calls and podcasts, which have a lot of high focus on vocal frequencies. But also music listening in a variety of genres and then also movie watching and everything in between. But one feature that sort of gets highlighted at least every time Apple talks about these headphones is spatial audio. Now, I don't typically use spatial audio very much. but every time I try these, I give another shot. And basically, there are two types of spatial audio experiences. So one is if you're listening to music or watching a video, and you can force it on with the iOS settings, and the head tracking turns on. And for most mixes, it sounds like you're suddenly in a small room with a set of speakers in front of you. And as you turn your head from left to right, those speakers will sound like they continue to stay in front of you. But then two, there's a small number of really well-done mixes in Dolby Atmos. And you can find some on Apple Music that does a great job of separating the instruments and the channels and spreading them out around you in this whole symphony with a decent soundstage. And the Air Pods do a good job of letting you kind of place the instruments and vocals around you in space around your head. But I find that to be a pretty rare experience. If you get to listen to these, listen to "Blessings" by Big Sean, that's one good example, but again, these types of tracks are few and far between, but ultimately the sound for me comes down to the hard tipped plastic. They do sound much better. but unfortunately, I have one of the cursed ears that don't work with hard tip earbuds. So I would take silicon tipped earbuds every single time. Some people are the total another way around. So there's a lot of people comparing Air Pods Pro with Air Pods 3. I would personally pay the extra money for Air Pods Pro. Also, right now. if you check on Amazon, Air Pods Pro have been like 190 bucks for a while, and this is the new version. too, with the updated case. So it's like ten extra dollars to get the noise cancellation and the silicon tips. I'm picking that every single time. But, for some people who don't care about that type of thing, this is what they'll pick. But that's the summary for these headphones. They don't do any one thing amazingly. Meaning they'll get beat in certain single categories, but they do everything you'd want headphones to do daily very well. They have a slightly longer and six-hour battery life. They have an all-around good tune that's not adjustable. They have a small case that wireless charges. they fit great in the iPhones ecosystem. They instantly pair with the rest of your iCloud devices and seamlessly switch between them. And they have better Find My ability now. So if you lose the case, I don't know how many people lose the case, but if you do, you can use Find My to track that down. It's not nearly as super precise as airbags, but it's very convenient to get a notification on your iPhone if you start to leave somewhere and you realize you left your Air Pods behind. But look at the whole rest of the landscape.it's way more diverse and interesting now. Beats Fit Pro just came out today. These have the best in-ear fit of any earbud I've ever worn. Wingtip for the wind. They're amazing for working out. They have noise cancellation, but they have a kind of a still clunky case that also doesn't have wireless charging. Or check these. These are the Sony WF-1000XM4, also blow the Air Pods out of the water in terms of sound quality. But if you've ever worn these, I mean, they're much bigger and don't sit in the ear as comfortably. you wouldn't work out in these. they're $250. So they're in a different price category. There's also the Nothing earbuds that I reviewed, which have a better battery life, but also a pretty big case that does wireless charge. And it's a more interesting distinctive design, especially with the buzz that I like, but they don't fit as well in the iOS ecosystem. And then there's Samsung's buds too, which have a lot of the same stuff and wireless charging, but you get the idea. There's a lot out there. So Air Pods are meant to sit right in the middle of the road. Like that's, they don't do any of the things amazingly in any one category, but they do everything pretty well. And that's what makes them so easy to recommend. It's also they came out right before the holiday season. Like they know I'm going end up getting these as a gift for some people. They're popular for that exact reason. But, there's a fun fact, Air Pods, if you just cut off Air Pods from Apple and just made it its own separate company, Air Pods, Inc, that company will be worth about $175 billion. That's from an estimate from back in 2019, just looking at how many they're selling, approaching a hundred million units, tons of revenue. But can you imagine just a headphone company by itself with only three models being worth $175 billion? Like just for some context, Logitech, which makes lots of headphones. But also plenty of other accessories, is worth $14 billion. Sony, which makes headphones, but a ton of other stuff. They make movies, they make the PlayStation, they make phones and cameras. Sony is worth like $150 billion tops right now. So that's not to say these headphones are amazing, but that's to say they are probably the best lure to bring people into the iPhone ecosystem and, they're all around extremely convenient. They're the easy choice. So there you have it.