A week with Apple’s new AirPods Pro 3
With built-in translation and health tracking, Apple’s latest AirPods Pro 3 earbuds ($249) can arguably be seen as a legitimate business expense for anyone who travels internationally. If not, they’re still going to be an attractive proposition for any iPhone user. I’ve spent a week with the latest set.
AirPods are an important product family for Apple. Research indicates Apple holds 23.3% of the Bluetooth earbuds market while Consumer Intelligence Research Partners says 42% of iPhone users also have a Bluetooth headset, most of them made by Apple or Beats. The company sells millions of these every year, so any new update is significant.
How do they compare with the AirPods Pro 2?
Sound quality, active noise cancellation, and integration are the watchwords of the AirPods Pro range; where the second generation was good, the third iteration gets better. If you make heavy use of your AirPods and are beginning to experience degraded battery life, these may be a good upgrade. However, many of the new features Apple is introducing alongside these earbuds are also available to older Pro models with iOS 26.
What you do get is comfort, better noise cancellation, better sound — and some useful tools for health-conscious users.
Look and feel
At first glance, nothing much seems to have changed. The box looks exactly the same, with a USB-C slot for power. The earbuds seem to be alike, though you’ll spot some slight differences on closer examination, such as the foam-infused ear tips and the fact that each bud is slightly lighter than the last generation.
There’s more beneath the surface, however. Battery life now reaches up to eight hours on a single charge with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) in use — so you can watch a movie on a long flight without needing to charge your earbuds up.
Find My has also been improved as well, with a new Ultra Wideband chip in the Charging Case; that means you should be able to locate your AirPods Pro from further away if lost.
Sound quality
I was impressed by the sound, which has more clarity and authenticity than before. I found this particularly impressive the first time I played some music, as it was so dramatically clear without feeling processed. (It is being processed, of course, so at low volume you might feel that bass and treble are a bit more prominent than at high volumes, which helps the songs pop in your ears.)
That makes for good, accurate bass at high and low volumes; combine that with the better earbud fit and you’ll find you can hear music much better than before, even in a noisy place.
There’s plenty of technology behind the improved audio. Apple created a new acoustic architecture that expands the soundstage, supports bass and provides vivid vocal clarity. That tech is tweaked by a built-in Adaptive EQ that optimizes the sound to deliver the best possible results for the shape of your own inner ear.
Come on, don’t feel the noise
Apple also improved the ANC in its systems; it’s far better than in AirPods Pro 1 and notably better than the ANC in AirPods Pro 2. (Apple claims it to be twice as effective as the latter). Testing this is hard, but it is nice not to hear barely any noise at all when travelling on London’s underground transit network or walking past noisy road construction. I happen to have both the preceding models and, in my anecdotal tests, I can confirm even better ANC in both those situations.
The noise cancelling is supplemented by Transparency adaptive audio, and conversation awareness, so you can select the appropriate setting for the situation you happen to be in.
Comfort and fit
I like that Apple includes five different ear tips in the box (XXS, XS, S, M, L). The company has also developed an improved Acoustic Seal Test system to help you choose the correct pair — it’s not unusual for one ear to need a larger tip than the other.
The tech is simple to use, and you should have chosen the correct sized buds in under a minute. I found that sound insulation is better than before, as the new foam ear buds seal better, and Transparency Mode feels a lot more natural.
I’ve always found earbuds become a little uncomfortable when worn for long periods. This became less noticeable with v2, and in my experience AirPods Pro 3 are even easier to wear. That’s important to me as I sometimes use self-meditation tapes to get to sleep. The additional comfort helps a lot if you happen to use them to get some sleep.
Apple
What about heart tracking?
A flagship new feature, built-in sensors now track heart rate data during workouts. They gather this information using photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors that shine infrared light into your skin to measure light absorption and blood flow. The system supplements your iPhone, so the pair can provide better insights into your heart health and calorie burn — that’s great for anyone trying to keep tabs on their health, and most useful for fitness folks, who can use these earbuds to track up to 50 different workout types.
There’s also an Apple Intelligence powered Workout Buddy, which tried to pester me to do more fitness activities, but I don’t respond well to pestering, so I ignored it.
What about hearing health?
Apple has further improved the Hearing Test system the AirPods Pro 3 supports so you can successfully take the test in more everyday situations. The real improvement is as a hearing aid, which now offers improved voice clarity, automatic Conversation boost and longer battery life when used in that mode.
Live Translation
Used with one set of AirPods, Live Translation is almost magical. To use it you must first open the Translate app to choose your desired languages and initiate the translation. (Once you have languages selected you can start the session by asking Siri, pressing both AirPods stems, or using the iPhone Action button if customized for the task.)
When in use, you’ll find the words of the person who is speaking to you in their language muted and replaced by near simultaneous translation into your own language generated by your iPhone. This basically means you can fully understand what is being said to you in a number of languages.
To reply, just speak in your own language and a translation will be made available on the iPhone which you can show to your interlocutor. Where it gets really magical is if they also have a set of AirPods 3, in which case you will both be able to have a full and frank conversation in your own languages while understanding each other perfectly.
I love this feature; it’s enabling me to have much better conversations with people who speak a different first language than I, and I think it will be invaluable to travelers. This is a beta feature, still, so be prepared for small errors. But in my experience these mainly extend from mumbled and muttered words. The system seems pretty good at understanding regional dialects.
The integration thing
So much that’s good about the AirPods builds on the earbuds’ integration with the rest of Apple’s ecosystem. One new feature illustrates this: you can use AirPods Pro as a Camera Remote. You’ll want to set this up on an ad hoc basis, in Settings>AirPods>Canera Control. Once enabled you will be able to frame your shot, set up your iPhone camera for that shot, and capture the image – or video — by pressing the stem on your AirPods.
It’s a small integration feature for most, but if you are working on animations, still life or event photography, it should prove useful.
What’s not to like?
I remain convinced that Apple should offer AirPods in a range of colors. That’s not merely because I don’t like white, or other people mislike it, but also because wearing AirPods becomes a flashing light to tell people you have an iPhone in your pocket. Perhaps this feeling reflects Big City living, but I like to disguise things in plain sight; having additional colors would help. Apple, of course, will probably argue that much of the same technology is also built into some of the earbuds and headphones it sells under its Beats brand. But I believe the decision to stick with white is an homage to the trademark white earbuds that became so prevalent with the iPod.
But have times not changed since the iPod years? Is conspicuous consumption quite as socially acceptable as it might have been at that time, or are we in a new consumer sustainability age that benefits from choice and discretion? I imagine Apple’s teams of social psychologists will know the answer to that, but so far AirPods remain available only in easy-to-identify white.
Buying advice
AirPods Pro 3 are so much more than the color, of course. They represent impressive technology marvels in their own right, contraptions that combine Apple’s advanced research in silicon and audio design with its operating systems, services, and Apple Intelligence. The focus on health and inclusion of health sensors, new design, and live translation features may be the big selling points to these devices (and some of those features are also coming to other AirPod models with iOS 26). But for me, the improved fit, enhanced ANC and fantastic audio define AirPods Pro 3.
These things are comfortable to wear, pump out great sound, are very good at getting rid of background sound, and come with an impressive array of tech tools. If you already use AirPods Pro, these are a compelling step up from the AirPods Pro 1, while also being a nice, if not quite so essential, improvement on the last edition.
You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky, LinkedIn, and Mastodon.A week with Apple’s new AirPods Pro 3 – ComputerworldRead More