Travelling, working and drowning out the chaos of the city, for many, wireless earbuds aren’t just a gadget; they have to be a lifeline. The question is, can you live with Apple’s new AirPods Pro 3 in your ears a few hours every day?
Apple says we’re up from about six to about eight hours of listening with active noise cancellation on at about a 50 per cent volume. And that’s no small deal. That means I might actually be able to make it from Calcutta to Barcelona on a single charge. But there’s also a quick charge. Five minutes in the case buys you about an hour of use.
The case looks familiar, but if you know the AirPods Pro 2, you’ll sense the difference in the AirPods Pro 3 right off the bat. The earbuds now come with five different sizes of tips, including a new extra extra small. And these aren’t the same old silicone tips. They’re foam-infused, so they expand a bit better in your ear for a better seal. They also block out more noise. Unfortunately, you cannot use these new tips with the AirPods Pro 2. The good news about the redesign is that they’re more stable for hardcore workouts.
The new buds and tips are more angled, so they slot more naturally into your ear canal
Meaningful updates
We’ve got improved active noise cancelling, upgraded transparency mode with automatic conversation boost, an IP57 rating for water and dust resistance, and even a new heart rate sensor that can track your workouts. And there’s a live translation feature now, too.
With IP57, they are protected against dust and it’s better for heavy rain, better for spills, especially, and even better for a ton of sweat. If you somehow sweat so much that AirPods couldn’t handle it before, they can now handle it.
The case is also IP57 rated, which is nice, but that does actually mean it’s a new case. The more you look at this new case, the more you’ll notice there are a bunch of other small differences here as well. It’s a tiny bit thicker and taller because of the new shape of the buds. And then the cut-out for the pairing/battery indicator light is now gone, but the light’s still there. It’s just behind the plastic now and quite a bit brighter. There’s also a next-generation Ultra Wideband chip in the case, which means you can do extreme precision finding.
Your new microphone
Try recording a video on the iPhone while capturing the audio through the AirPods 3. I looked at what we did for the AirPods Pro 2 review some years back and realised that the recording technology was quite different. Now you can shoot video with your AirPods Pro 3 acting as the microphone. And this is great because it gives us access to a few of the AirPods’s advanced audio processing features.
Get into a noisy environment to appreciate the feature. You can isolate the voice so that you hear mostly the voice and not the noisy environment. Conversely, though, if you decide that you want to shoot a video interview with somebody, you can put it in ambient mode and you’ll be able to hear both people. Or maybe you are at a concert and you want to capture that concert audio.
Apple now includes five ear tip sizes, adding an XXS size so you have a better chance of finding a comfy fit
The recording quality is far superior to many standalone microphones on the market. If you are a content creator, this can well become your new microphone.
Best Active Noise Cancellation
When Apple presented the device in September, there was a mention of “world’s best in-ear Active Noise Cancellation”. No asterisk, no fine print, no weird comparisons or anything.
The way they’re quantifying it is they’re saying it cancels twice as much noise as the last gen, which were already really good. As a matter of fact, if you go and watch that 2022 keynote when they introduced the AirPods Pro 2, they said that those were twice as powerful as the first-gen AirPods Pro.
You can also start a live translation session from the phone
Now, these do have the same H2 chip as the previous generation, so it’s not the chip, but the new ear tips with foam, the new angle that they go into your ears, and the bigger vents and probably some more improved software tuning all combine to give you much better noise cancellation than the previous generation.
To understand Active Noise Cancellation, get into a coffee shop. I do a lot of work at noisy places — shops, restaurants, public spaces, public parks... whatever. And something that is a personal problem of mine is that I am completely incapable of tuning out other people’s conversations. In order for me to be able to focus, I need to be able to completely block out all noise. Whether I’m listening to music or other kinds of content, I rely on the AirPods Pro to block out my surroundings.
Put them into your ears and they will isolate you from what’s going on around you. The trick to really effective noise cancellation isn’t being able to filter out just the droning, predictable noise. It’s being able to react in real time to the surprise noises around you. Whether that’s the steam wand from the barista’s machine, the gap of a boisterous patron, or a blender, for example. See, aeroplane noise, fan noise, even vacuum cleaner noise in some cases is kind of easy to filter out because it’s a predictable waveform. Active noise cancelling needs to do more and that’s what the device does. And it knows exactly what that is because it’s consistent and it keeps going and going. It’s these sudden sounds that happen around you that you can’t predict. Knocking those down is much more challenging. And that’s something that the AirPods Pro 3 do especially well.
The advantage the big over-ears have is space. They can fit a lot more battery in there, some bigger chips, and really good ANC tends to drain battery and require powerful chips. So, the fact that Apple has simultaneously improved battery life and ANC performance is kind of interesting. I am not sure how they made it possible — perhaps the new venting for less resistance of air, the optimised internal microphone operation, the more efficient processing, maybe. I bet you the new ear tips are doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
Don’t sleep on the ear tip improvements here. Not only are they notably more comfortable and apparently meant to fit a wide array of ear shapes and sizes, especially now with the new extra small tips, but there is foam inside this silicone, so you get a lot more noise reduction. But you don’t have to worry about disintegrating foam in a year or two.
I put the AirPods Pro 3 right up against Sony’s 1000XM5 in-ears. The new AirPods Pro 3 can climb to the top of the mountain and stay there.
The AirPods Pro 3’s noise cancelling translates well into daily life, too. I don’t just need the ANC for planes, trains, and stinky public automobiles; I need it for hotel and home as well. Downtowns tend to be noisy and I can’t get to sleep if there’s a bunch of chaos outside. The AirPods Pro 3 block it all pretty well on their own. You might even be tempted to sleep with these in. I have no problem sleeping with the Pro 3 in my ears. And for sure, you’re getting better rest on a plane with these versus full-size cans on your head.
Conversational awareness still works brilliantly. It kicks in when it should and it goes away quickly enough. The transparency mode is still the best in the business. It’s the closest thing that you can get to not wearing earbuds at all. It sounds just supernatural, like they’re not even there. Voice clarity and loud environments — still the best out there. Then there’s very Apple stuff, like auto-switching among Apple devices, which has been totally hassle-free.
Sound advice
The most notable change to the sound is that the bass goes a bit deeper and is a little more prominent. You can always scale that back if you don’t care for it. Will they satisfy audio nerds? Yeah. And that these do so much more than the best-sounding earbuds you can buy from Sennheiser. Sure. They offer a surprising amount of detail and instrumental separation in the mids and the highs. They avoid nasty distortion and they have just the right amount of sparkle. They also seem to get even louder, too.
You can choose to track workouts with the Apple Watch or with just the AirPods Pro 3
Heart rate monitoring
There’s a new heart rate monitor that’s built into the Apple AirPods Pro 3. I already have a heart monitor in my Apple Watch. I’m curious to know what happens if I wear all of them. Turns out Apple will sample all three and get the most accurate reading that way.
But you could leave the Watch at home, just use the AirPods, and it will help track your heart rate in general and also add data for your workouts. That’s great.
AirPods Pro 3 can measure your heart rate while working out. I consider this a nice-to-have, the same way it was in the Powerbeats Pro.
What’s good is that it’s well integrated into the Apple Fitness app. It’s great for people who don’t have Apple Watches. Combined with sensor fusion from the AirPods Pro accelerometers, gyroscope, GPS, and a new on-device AI model on iPhone, users can start up to 50 different workout types, track heart rate and calories burned, close their Move ring, and earn awards in the Fitness app.
Why is in-ear heart monitoring important? Let’s pick a couple of sports, like boxing and weightlifting. While training, a boxer wouldn’t wear a smartwatch under the glove. Weightlifting puts strain on the arms and muscles. These are people who can easily shift the heart-rate sensing action to the ears. There are more workouts where in-ear monitoring helps. For example, dumbbell workouts, indoor rowing, and some HIIT bodyweight work. So far, many have used something like a Polar H10 chest strap connected to the Apple Watch as a more reliable signal. But chest straps can be uncomfortable. AirPods can be a good alternative.
Live Translation mode
Apple has introduced live translation alongside AirPods Pro 3. It is powered by Apple Intelligence and it does require you to download each individual language offline before using it. So, everything works offline without an Internet connection. It is fun to hear the translation in your ears and not from your phone. And I can see this helping me out all the time. There is plenty to unpack about this particular feature, so more details in a future article.
When using Apple Music, try the lyrics translation feature (left) and AutoMix. To get the best out of the music streaming service, use AirPods Pro 3
Make the call
If you are after Apple’s best pair of headphones, you need look no further: the AirPods Pro 3 offer the brand’s finest mix of features, fit, and usability. If you’ve had a pair of AirPods Pro 2 for a while, you’d be tempted to pass them on to a friend or relative and buy the Pro 3.
For Apple users, they’re about as close as you get to being complete earbuds with top-notch noise cancelling and voice calling performance, along with excellent sound quality and improved battery life. It’s difficult to find buds that are really strong in all three departments with a bunch of extra features to boot.
The device is packed with features. For example, you can also use your AirPods Pro to control your iPhone camera. Go to camera control, then tap camera remote and set your preferred gesture. With at least one AirPod paired, open the camera app, select photo or video, frame your shot, and use the gesture to capture an image or start recording remotely.
In short, AirPods Pro 3 certainly wows users and will keep you going for years. This is perfection redefined.