Daring Fireball: AirPods Pro 2, Now With USB-C Charging Case
The Vision Pro is Apple’s initial foray into spatial computing. But Vision Pro is not Apple’s first product in the world of augmented reality: AirPods Pro (and to a lesser degree, at the moment, AirPods Max) are. We humans are visual creatures and we naturally tend to think of augmented reality as a primarily visual experience, but AirPods Pro offer profoundly enjoyable and useful augmentation of the aural world around you. Starting today, Adaptive Audio takes that to another level.
Adaptive Audio is only available for the AirPods Pro 2, which means I’m only going to be more irritated if I ever again find myself wearing my old first-generation AirPods Pro out of necessity. At this point AirPods Pro 2 are as much better than the original AirPods Pro as the original AirPods Pro seemed from the original non-pro AirPods. They’re far more than wireless earbuds — they’re clever, powerful, delightful computers you put in your ears.
He’s right. I’ve used the AirPods Pro 2 for the last year and they are incredible little computers. For years, I only used regular AirPods, insisting that for my lifestyle, I don’t want anything that slides into my ears and seals — I need to be able to hear what’s around me.
But these second-gen AirPods do exactly that, but they make it optional. I can hear what’s around me when I want to, but I can also enable noise canceling and tune it all out. Most often, I find myself in a noisy place and just sliding them in. I don’t listen to anything, I just enable noise canceling. It’s helped my focus tremendously.
The new Adaptive Audio feature in iOS 17 is scary good. Though it’s only been a day, I no longer find myself toggling between transparency and noise cancellation — the AirPods do it themselves.
Computers, when designed thoughtfully, are magic.