AirPods 4: All the News and Rumours So Far

As we enter another season of new Apple products, questions are circulating about what the tech giant will reveal next. It’s highly likely that the September event will be the iPhone 15 and Apple Watch show, but what about the audio department? It’s been a couple of years since Apple released new AirPods and rumours suggest a fourth generation could be on the way in the next 12 months.

Everything we know about AirPods 4 so far

Design

The AirPods 3 saw a slight redesign for Apple’s basic earphones, so it’s possible the AirPods 4 will stick to this new look.

Although, like the rest of the Apple device range, it’s likely that the next AirPods will swap the charging case to include a USB-C port, rather than lightning. This is part of a new directive put in place by the European Parliament that forces manufacturers to offer USB-C as the charging port on devices in Europe – and it’s expected to impact all upcoming Apple devices.

New features

Apple saves a lot of its features for its flagship products, which in this case would be the AirPods Pro. But as the generations go by, some of these clever features do eventually trickle down to the more affordable products, and that could be the same for the new AirPods.

It’s possible that the next hardware update the AirPods receive is the H2 chip, which is included in the latest Pro models. The H2 chip brings added Active Noise Cancelling features and adaptive transparency mode, plus a longer battery life, all of which could benefit the next AirPods.

An interesting new health feature that is rumoured to come to future AirPods, as per Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, is hearing testing. The test would play different sounds that can help determine how well a person can hear and potentially help turn the AirPods into hearing aids later down the line.

Gurman also suggests that Apple is developing sensors that can detect a user’s temperature via their ear, which would be more accurate than the wrist temperature taken by the Apple Watch.

Release date

There haven’t been any significant rumours pointing to the release date of the AirPods 4. The pattern of release so far has been this:

• AirPods 1st Gen = December 2016
• AirPods 2nd Gen = March 2019
• AirPods 3rd Gen = October 2021

Judging by that pattern, we could see the AirPods 4 to drop any time in the next 12 months.

That’s not a lot of information to go off, but we’ll be sure to keep you posted as more comes to light about the AirPods 4 in the coming months.