The 6 AirPods 3 features we wanted from Apple – but didn’t get
After months of rumors, Apple finally announced new airpods 3 during the event released, where we were also treated to new colors for the Apple Homepod Mini, Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max, MacBook Pro 16, and MacBook Pro 16.
Sporting new features such as spatial audio with dynamic head tracking, adaptive EQ, and longer battery life than its predecessor, they certainly look like an increase in the original earbud … but it doesn’t feel like Apple pulls all stops.
Potentially because in the rumors mentioned above, we have heard Apple brings great new features to the third iteration of the earbuds such as the cancellation and fitness feature, as well as security features that will help you stay safe. Unfortunately, nothing is realized in the final product.
However, instead of venting it, we decided to gather something constructive – a guide for all the features we wanted to see. Maybe we will not get it in this generation, but with quite a lot of luck, we will get it at AirPods 4.
Features # 1: Hi-res audio
While Apple added spatial audio support to the actual wireless earbuds, it did not plan to add hi-res audio support … which was rather disappointing. Like other wireless earbuds, Apple has absolutely not found a way to send Hi-res audio over Bluetooth on airpods 3.
In fairness, the bit-rate needed to provide truly lossless audio over Bluetooth is not available until recently. In September, Qualcomm announced a lossless APTX, a new feature of Snapdragon Sound technology, which was able to claim the company was able to provide 16-bit / 44.1KHz audio through a Bluetooth connection. Without something like that in airpods, it is impossible for us to get a true Hi-res audio in this generation airpod.
Features # 2: Fitness Support
With Apple touting its newest fitness features on Apple Watch and iPhone, we thought it would be a definite thing that the same features would appear on airpods 3.
Among the fitness features we thought we saw in AirPods 3 was the surrounding light sensor that could make it much more useful as a health monitoring device. With a light sensor installed, you might be able to monitor more health aspects such as heartbeat, which has so far been limited to Apple Watch.
A few months back Apple even filed a patent for something similar – but unfortunately the upgrade did not come to airpods 3.
Features # 3: noise cancellation
When we heard rumors that airpods 3 might resemble pro airpods, we were almost sure that we would finally get the cancellation of active noise at the AirApr.
Unfortunately, it’s not the problem. In some ways it makes a total sense that Apple wants to maintain noise, the airpods feature is more expensive, it’s rather limped – other earbud makers like Sony have included at least some basic noise cancellation performance in the Earbud Entry-Level and Apple doesn’t do it here can help here Competition by giving them a clear advantage.