Apple executives debuted long-awaited tweaks to AirPods Max at the company’s ‘It’s Glowtime’ event Monday. The changes come four years after the high-end over-ear headphones’ first unveiling and marks the first revision to the product.
The headphones are now available in a new slate of colors, including the black and white-adjacent midnight and starlight colors, along with blue, orange and purple. The new palette replaces the space gray, silver, sky blue, green and pink models to better align with the finishes of the latest Macs and iPads, company officials said.
AirPods Max is also the latest Apple product to ditch the Lightning port for USB-C. This brings the product in compliance with the latest policies requiring devices to have the port to be sold in the European Union by the end of the year. The press release about the refresh highlights the convenience of being able to use the same cable to charge the headphones and other devices, calling it ‘fast and easy.’ The new port does not seem to bring any charging speed increase, however; the spec sheet contains the same claim of 1.5 hours of listening time from five minutes of charging used for its predecessor.
Besides the new colors and USB-C port, there are no other apparent changes to the product from its initial release. This leaves the AirPods Max falling behind the capabilities of other AirPods devices: the headphones are the only product in the lineup without the H2 chip, meaning they do not support Conversation Awareness, Adaptive Audio, Voice Isolation and other recent innovations. Some fans of the company are disappointed by the minimal changes:
no way Apple just added USB-C to the Airpods Max 4 years later and called it a day
”” gaut (@0xgaut) September 9, 2024
Bloomberg’s Apple analyst Mark Gurman updated his predictions at the eleventh hour Sunday night, claiming the new AirPods Max would have more new features. This ran contrary to his long-running predictions more in line with the reality of what Apple unveiled Monday.
I expect Apple to launch new AirPods Max headphones tomorrow with better noise cancellation, adaptive audio & USB-C. They’ll launch with the low-end AirPods 4. This is line with my reporting for months but runs counter to lack of low inventory in stores. https://t.co/KIJQEwywcp
”” Mark Gurman (@markgurman) September 9, 2024
The new AirPods Max are available for pre-order now for $549. The first customers will receive their orders on Friday, September 20.
