Apple held its “Awe Dropping” event at Apple Park today, and during the event it announced its new AirPods Pro 3 earbuds, which offer improved Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), upgraded audio, a new custom-built heart rate sensor and integrated workout experience. The new earbuds also offer support for Live Translation, a better fit, as well as IP57 sweat and water resistance.
Apple says AirPods Pro 3 feature 2x better ANC than AirPods Pro 2, and 4x better ANC than the original AirPods Pro. The new earbuds provide up to ten hours of music playback in Transparency mode, a 67% increase over the AirPods Pro 2. When ANC is enabled, AirPods Pro 3 provide up to eight hours of playback.
“With AirPods Pro 3, the most popular headphones take a massive leap forward, providing fantastic sound quality and the world’s best ANC of any in-ear wireless headphones,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. “Combined with an improved fit that provides greater stability for even more people, heart rate sensing, extended battery life, and Live Translation enabled by Apple Intelligence, AirPods Pro 3 take personal audio to the next level.”
AirPods Pro 3 to measure heart rate and track over 50 workout types with the new experience in the Fitness app on iPhone. Using just AirPods Pro 3 and and iPhone, users can track their heart rate and the calories burned during a workout.
The new AirPods Pro 3 are slightly smaller than AirPods Pro 2, and have an adjusted external geometry of its ear tip which Apple says is aligned to the center of the body for increased stability. The new earbuds will include foam-infused ear tips in five different sizes to ensure a better fit for all ear sizes.
AirPods Pro 3 support Live Translation, which automatically helps users understand another language and communicate with others by speaking naturally with AirPods. When interacting with someone who doesn’t have this hands-free capability, there’s an option to use iPhone as a horizontal display, showing the live transcription of what the user is saying in the other person’s preferred language. When the other person responds, their speech is translated into the user’s preferred language with AirPods. This feature is available in English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, with more languages to be available by the end of the year.
AirPods Pro 3 is priced at $249 and can be pre-ordered today, with availability beginning Friday, September 19.
