Hey, what's up, I'm busy here. Ok, so I'm in the last stages of my MacBook Pro review. Have you been asking where it is? I'm not rushing it. It is not early. So sorry about that. But my final bits of testing include editing a full HD video shot and red code raw on the 16 inch M1 Macs MacBook Pro. That's this Blog. So if you're seeing this, then that means at some point I got through that whole process, so hopefully, that one will if it didn't go well, then check my Twitter because that's probably where I was complaining about how things went either way. That's next up. Until then, these are the most popular headphones on Earth. These are AirPods. So the newest update you're looking at here is AirPods three. They were a quieter announcement at last month's Apple event, but they're one seventy-nine. And honestly, the story with these is, well, there's quite a bit of new stuff, but also the competitive landscape for earbuds has been heating up for years, and there have never been more high-quality alternatives to AirPods than there are right now. So the new AirPods three design looks just like a set of AirPods Pro, but without the silicone tips like someone chopped them off. It's the one-size-fits-all hard tip from the AirPods of the past, and this is simultaneously its biggest advantage and its biggest downside for people like me. See, the shape is just slightly adjusted from previous hard-tipped AirPods.
You can see it's more of a wedge shape where it goes into your ear. It's a slightly bigger opening at the end, and it's a bit more of a larger bulb. But basically, the idea is that it's pretty close to the common ear and it just pops in and sits there. No problem. At least it's supposed to for most people, but me again, it's not the best fit. The left one happens to stay in pretty well, but then the right ones constantly feel like it's slowly sliding out of my ear and eventually it just falls out if I'm not constantly adjusting it. So it's pretty annoying. Not for me. And for that reason, I still prefer silicone tips instead of hard plastic. I am super jealous of all the people who just grab AirPods and just put them in your ears and they just stay forever and just run around. I'm not one of those people. Oh, well, but I did test these for a little bit, and there are some other new things aside from just the new design. So there are the controls on the STEM now on both sides like AirPods Pro, you pretty quickly get used to squeezing it to play and pause. You can double-tap to go to the next song, et cetera. There's no noise cancellation in these, but you can see the mesh cutout on the back and around all the mikes all around this thing for adaptive EQ. It passes through some of the sounds from the outside, mainly to feel a bit more open than some other earbuds.
They are sweat and water-resistant now, so if you want to work out on them, you might have already done it, but they'll officially be fine now. And also if you walk around in the rain, no problem. And there's also a new horizontal case that looks just like the AirPods Pro case, but it's a little bit smaller. And for the first time, the case is also officially IPC's for water-resistant. So like, they might have survived water in the past, but it's officially official now. Still, lightning at the bottom, unfortunately, but this new case is now improved. It'll still do wireless charging, but it's also now MagSafe compatible, which just means it'll snap onto the iPhone's MagSafe charging puck and it holds pretty well there, too. This MagSafe wireless charging case isn't unique to AirPods three, though, by the way, they quietly also updated the AirPods Pro case to snap onto the magnets, but they didn't also update it for water resistance. So small difference. What would have been even cooler is if you could trickle charge them via the charging on the back of the iPhone. Since they're both charging, it would have been the sickest little ecosystem plug. They could have called it reverse MagSafe charging, but there they don't talk to each other like that. It needs some extra hardware to reverse wireless charging. Iphones don't have that, so that's not a real feature in this product like it is with some other phones and their earbuds.
Now, if you decide to grab the sexiest case on Earth, the brand icon's case or pretty much any other AirPods case, no magnetic snapping. But yes, wireless charging does still work. If you're wondering, I'll have a link below to this case. If you want to protect your headphones and make sure you get an AirPods three case specifically because, as I said, AirPods Pro cases are slightly different dimensions. They won't quite fit. But, the most interesting change to AirPods, honestly, is the sound they have a. And I can't believe I'm saying this a perfectly respectable sound now, so it's legitimately very improved. I've trashed on AirPods in the past, as you guys have probably remembered for how weak they sound, how tinny they've been. These AirPods, when they're set right in your ears, have much more body and bass frequencies now, and they get plenty loud, as always, and they do sound pretty solid now. The caveat is one there is no EQ built-in like a lot of other headphones have, and these were meant to still be good. Basic every. Day headphones, and so Apple has tuned them as such, meaning they've got to be usable for phone calls and podcasts, which have a lot of high focus on vocal frequencies, but also music, listening in a variety of genres and then also movie watching and everything in between. But one feature that sort of gets highlighted at least every time Apple talks about these headphones is spatial audio.
Now, I don't typically use spatial audio very much, but every time I try these, I give another shot. And basically, there are two types of spatial audio experiences. So one is if you're just listening to music or watching a video and you can just force it on with the iOS settings and the head tracking turns on. And for most mixes, it sounds like you're suddenly in a small room with a set of speakers in front of you. And as you turn your head from left to right, those speakers will sound like they continue to stay in front of you. But then, too, there's a very small number of really well-done mixes in Dolby Atmos, and you can find some on Apple Music that does a great job of separating the instruments and the channels and sort of spreading them out around you and this whole symphony with a decent soundstage. And the AirPods do a good job of letting you kind of place the instruments and vocals around you in space around your head. But I find that to be a pretty rare experience. If you get to listen to these, listen to blessings by Big Sean. That's one really good example. But again, these types of tracks are few and far between. But ultimately the sound for me comes down to the hard-tipped plastic. They do sound much, much better. But unfortunately, I have one of the cursed ears that don't work with hard-tipped earbuds, so I would take silicon-tipped earbuds every single time.
Some people are the total another way around, so there's a lot of people comparing AirPods Pro with AirPods three. I would personally pay the extra money for AirPods Pro. Also right now, if you check on Amazon, AirPods Pro has been like one hundred and ninety bucks for a while, and this is the new version too, with the updated case. So it's like ten extra dollars to get the noise cancellation and the silicone tips. I'm picking that every single time, but for some people who don't care about that type of thing, this is what they'll pick. But that's the summary for these headphones. They don't do any one thing amazingly, meaning they'll get beat in certain single categories, but they do everything you'd want headphones to do daily very well. They have a slightly longer but reasonable six-hour battery life. They have around good tune that's not adjustable. They have a small case that wireless charges and they fit great in the iPhone's ecosystem. They instantly pair with the rest of your iCloud devices and seamlessly switch between them, and they have better find my ability now. So if you lose the case, which I don't know how many people lose just the case, but if you do, you can use find my to track that down. It's not nearly as super precise as airbags, but it's very convenient to get a notification on your iPhone. If you start to leave somewhere and you realize you left your AirPods behind.
But look at the whole rest of the landscape, it's way more diverse and interesting now. Beats Fit Pro just came out today. These have the best in-ear fit of any earbud. I've ever worn wingtip for the win. They're amazing for working out. They have noise cancellation, but they have a kind of a still clunky case that also doesn't have wireless charging or check these. These are the Sony WF one thousand X for these also blow the AirPods out of the water in terms of sound quality. But if you've ever worn these, I mean, they're much bigger and don't sit in the ear as comfortably, and you wouldn't work out in these and there are two hundred and fifty dollars, so they're at a different price category. There's also the Nothing. earbuds that I reviewed, which have a better battery life, but also a pretty big case that does wireless charging. And it's a more interesting, distinctive design, especially with the buds that I like, but they don't fit as well in the iOS ecosystem. And then there are Samsung's buds, too, which have a lot of the same stuff and wireless charging. But you get the idea there's a lot out there. So AirPods are meant to sit right in the middle of the road like that's they don't do any of the things amazingly in any one category, but they do everything pretty well, and that's what makes them so easy to recommend.
It's also they came out right before the holiday season. Like they know I'm probably going to end up getting these as a gift for some people. They're incredibly popular for that exact reason. But here's a fun fact. Airpods If you just cut off AirPods from Apple and just made it its own separate company, AirPods Inc, that company would be worth about one hundred and seventy-five billion dollars. That's from an estimate from back in twenty nineteen, just looking at how many they're selling, approaching one hundred million units. Tons of revenue. But can you imagine just a headphone company by itself, with only like three models being worth one hundred seventy-five? Billion dollars, like just for some context, Logitech, which makes lots of headphones, but also plenty of other accessories, is worth 14 billion dollars. Sony, which makes headphones but a ton of other stuff, they make movies, they make the PlayStation, they make phones and cameras. Sony is worth like one hundred and fifty billion dollars tops right now. So that's not to say these headphones are amazing, but that's to say they are probably the best lure to bring people into the iPhone ecosystem. And they're all around extremely convenient. They're the easy choice, so they have it. Thanks for watching. Hopefully, the MacBook Pro isn't exploding by exporting this blog. Catch you guys soon with that review, but until the next one, it's Tech members that don't roll off the tongue as well. See you guys in the next blog.