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AirPods Pro 3 vs AirPods Pro 2 — 5 biggest rumored upgrades
It’s been nearly three years since Apple launched the AirPods Pro 2, and barring a refresh to introduce USB-C charging and other minor improvements, there have been no changes in the intervening months.
That’s all set to change very soon. Apple is widely tipped to be planning to launch AirPods Pro 3 alongside the iPhone 17 in an event in Cupertino on September 9.
So what does three years’ worth of improvements look like? Here are the 5 biggest rumored upgrades to look forward to.
1. A refreshed design
As with the move from AirPods Pro to AirPods Pro 2, it seems that Apple won’t be throwing out the familiar design completely, but rather slightly tweaking it.
On X, Asher Dipprey writes that the charging case will be a little smaller, but also abandon the pairing button for a touch-sensitive area.
New info on AirPods Pro 3…The case size will decrease slightly, and the pairing button will be removed. Instead, you can tap on the case itself. pic.twitter.com/vA7dY2Pa4jAugust 26, 2025
However, in a post on his website, the leaker Majin Bu claims that there will be “no significant changes in the dimensions” of the charging case.
But he does agree that the pairing button will be removed, and goes a step further, indicating that users will be able to use the case for “basic functions like music playback and volume control”.
2. Improved audio quality
It should come as no surprise that after three years away, the AirPods Pro 3 will improve on sound quality. Indeed, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman stated that audio quality would be a focus area in a newsletter last year.
How big an improvement this will be remains to be seen. Hopefully, we’ll see something that will give our current favorites — the Sony WF-1000XM5 — a run for their money.
3. A boost to noise cancellation
If, like me, you regularly travel on noisy public transport, then you’ll know that effective Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) is invaluable.
As with the improved audio quality, you’d expect ANC to improve over three years, but the leaker Kosutami wrote on X last year that it will be “much better than [the] previous version”.
How much better is “much better”? We won’t know for sure until we’ve listened, but it’s worth remembering that Apple claimed the second generation offered “up to 2x” the performance, so hopefully we’ll see something similar again here.
4. Added health sensors
Perhaps the biggest change is set to be the arrival of health sensors. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman believes that AirPods Pro 3 will feature a heart-rate sensor, a temperature sensor and “technology that tracks a slew of physiological measures.”
How this will all be implemented remains to be seen, but one has already arrived in another set of Apple earbuds: PowerBeats Pro 2. When the sporty earbuds arrived earlier this year, they included built-in heart-rate monitoring alongside a slew of other upgrades (though notably heart-rate data is only taken by Apple Health if it can’t be collected from an Apple Watch).
5. A new chipset
AirPods Pro 1 used the H1 chipset, while AirPods Pro 2 used the H2. So it stands to reason that AirPods Pro 3 will adopt H3.
This may not sound that important, but the H2 chipset is what keeps everything running smoothly from ANC and Adaptive EQ to Hey Siri and fast switching. With added health features for the H3 to track as well, performance could be key.
Energy efficiency could be important here too. The AirPods Pro 2 buds’ six-hour battery life is good, but could be better. PowerBeats Pro 2 offers ten hours with ANC enabled (albeit with a larger physical footprint) so hopefully Apple will close the gap with its next earbuds.
AirPods Pro 3 outlook
While all of this sounds promising, whether this will be a worthy upgrade for AirPods Pro 2 owners is still up in the air.
How much better will the sound quality and ANC be? We won’t know until we’ve had time to test the new buds ourselves, and compare them to the best wireless earbuds available today.
Likewise, the health sensors may be game changing or a gimmick, depending on implementation. We’ve already seen Apple introduce heart-rate sensing on its PowerBeats Pro 2 earphones, where it’s more of a nice extra rather than a serious selling point (especially as Apple ignores it if you’re wearing an Apple Watch).
We’ll know soon enough. Here’s how to watch the September 9 Apple event live, if you want to watch along in real time.
