- AirPods Max 2 not expected until at least 2027
- AirPods Pro 3 predicted again for late 2025
- AirPods Max reportedly don't sell enough to justify investment
If you're hoping for an AirPods Max 2 announcement at the big Apple event on September 9th 2025, prepare to be disappointed: the next generation of Apple‘s over-ears isn't expected to arrive until at least 2027.
That's an eternity in tech terms: the original AirPods Max launched in 2020. But it seems that Apple is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
According to Bloomberg, the problem is simple: AirPods Max are “too popular for Apple to stop selling them, and not popular enough for the company to invest a ton of time and money into creating a new version” – after all, there's the AirPods Pro 3 to work on instead.
What are Apple's AirPods Max 2 and AirPods Pro 3 plans?
As ever with unannounced Apple products we're dealing with leaks, rumors and predictions here. But it looks like AirPods Pro 3 are coming soon and AirPods Max 2 are coming later than hoped.
Bloomberg says that the AirPods Pro 3 are due to launch before the end of 2025 – let's hope we hear about them at the iPhone 17 event – with similar heart rate monitoring to the Powerbeats Pro 2.
As for the current AirPods Max, their most recent update was a damp squib: they got USB-C to comply with EU legislation, and that was as far as new hardware features went – though this did enable lossless wired audio support, and we think it works pretty great, actually.
The hoped-for H2 chip upgrade, which would have put them on a par with AirPods Pro 2, didn't feature. AirPods Max, unlike many premium headphones, still don't do wireless lossless audio, and having an older chip means they're missing many of the features of AirPods Pro 2.
After five years of daily wear, my OG AirPods Max are prime candidates for replacement: the headband's getting baggy, the tight fit – I have a huge head – is mildly annoying now, having to find a Lightning cable or adapter when everything else in my life is USB-C is a pain.
But I'm not interested in paying a premium price for tech that's half a decade old now, especially when the best headphones from other firms are improving significantly with each new release. I wonder how many other AirPods Max owners are likely to switch to rival brands before the second generation arrives…
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