Many products are updated almost every year. But some gadgets can bypass updates for years, while remaining on store windows. One of these products is premium headphones from Apple — AirPods Max. They appeared in 2020, and the update of the first model had been almost unheard of. Till this moment.
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— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) January 12, 2023
The next-generation AirPods will likely begin mass shipments in 2H24 or 1H25, including more affordable AirPods (with Apple targeting a price of $99) and new AirPods Max, which will be assembled by Luxshare ICT and Hon Teng.
Along with this, AirPods Lite will appear in the line of wireless headphones of the company. Kuo is not the first to mention such recently. This will be a simpler and more affordable version of Apple's TWS headset.
Currently, AirPods 2 are still available for $129, while AirPods 3 are priced at $169/179 (depending on whether the case supports inductive charging). In turn, the second generation of AirPods Pro costs $249. And AirPods Lite will be the cheapest option, costing only $99.
Apple plans to update the line of headphones in the second half of 2024, but it is possible that these releases will be delayed until the first half of 2025.
As already noted by Mark Gurman, the company is currently putting a lot of effort into the release of AR/VR headsets, which accordingly affects the timing of the release of other products. That's probably why a lot of future releases date back to the next two years.