How can Apple’s AirPods 3 compete with the Ear 1s?

The competition has caught up and Apple needs to up its AirPods game

Apple’s AirPods remade the wireless earbuds market. The buds that came before them – even those from well-known audio manufacturers – were plagued with issues. Poor connectivity, so-so battery life, clunky usability, uncomfortable design… the list went on. So when the AirPods arrived and just worked, the fact they didn’t actually sound that great proved less of a sticking point than you might expect. They sold and sold.

Arguably, they weren’t supposed to be the icon they have since become. Positioned rather modestly as an accessory for the iphoness 7 and 7 Plus and their lack of headphones jack, they received less than five minutes on stage at the launch in 2016. Now, they hold a place as one of Apple’s most successful products to date, with CEO Tim Cook saying last year that the “demand for AirPods continues to be phenomenal”.

But, five years on from their launch, Apple’s rivals have caught up. Connectivity problems have been resolved, sound quality has improved and prices are tumbling. There’s less and less compromise required and it’s presenting Apple’s most basic buds with a bit of an identity crisis. How does it compete with newcomers – such as Nothing’s Ear 1 buds – which offer more, for less?

The so-called “Apple Tax” – where Apple products cost more than their comparable competitors – is nothing new. Apple fans have been paying it for years, and tend to do so happily for products that work smoothly within the Apple ecosystem. But people are starting to demand more when it comes to sound quality, particularly if they’re paying a premium. That’s clear with the number of streaming services now offering hi-res subscriptions, and Apple’s buds famously don’t cut it.

So with the AirPods 3 release looming, what does Apple need to do to keep them relevant? The rumour mill suggests Apple is aiming to make the AirPods 3 something of an AirPods Pro “Lite” and that they will retail for around £199, just 20 per cent cheaper than the current flagship buds.

If the rumours are to be believed, they’ll take the lead from their more talented siblings in several ways, including a more compact design with shorter stem, the pressure-relieving system that helps the Pros feel more comfortable in your ears and a new wireless chip to improve battery life and range. Noise cancelling is likely to be the big feature reserved for the Pro audience, though the jury is out as to whether the bog-standard AirPods will get the snugger fit offered by the Pro’s silicone tips.

Pushing the AirPods 3 closer to the AirPods Pro in price and performance would be an interesting tactic. Apple has reportedly slashed the production of AirPods by over 25 per cent this year as it struggles to maintain demand against the cheaper competition, so it feels like the lower end of the market would be a more obvious focus.

That said, the next AirPods release really needs to deliver on the performance front and that may be more important for Apple than hitting a price point. There were no audio tweaks in the move from the first gen to second gen AirPods, making it five years with no audio progression whatsoever in Apple’s more basic line. Considering they weren’t the best sounding buds even then, they have really been left behind in the past year or two – and that can’t be sitting well with Apple.

The precise details of the AirPods internal specs are kept under lock and key, so it’s hard to be specific on what could be improved. But it seems likely that taking cues from the AirPods Pro would be a good place to start.

It’s fair to assume the Pros use larger drivers than the standard AirPods. While it isn’t quite as simple as larger drivers equals better sound, it is a good start – particularly when it comes to improving the lower bass frequencies that the current AirPods fall short on.

Fitting larger drivers into the rumoured smaller design would be made possible by the AirPods 3 also inheriting the Pro’s “System-in-Package” tech. This bundles together the hardware needed for things like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Siri into a more compact package, leaving more space for driver tweaks. We could even see some digital signal processing improvements to push the sound on further still, considering it’s been two years since the AirPods Pro launched.

But one of the easiest ways to improve the sound of the AirPods 3 would be to improve their fit. A look at the frequency responses between the AirPods Pro and the second-gen AirPods shows the closer fit of the Pros has a huge impact on creating a more accurate and consistent sound profile, with a particular impact on bass response. By offering silicone tips on the AirPods 3, Apple could ensure a better sound without any internal hardware tweaks at all.

But that still brings us back to the issue of price. If, as predicted, the AirPods 3 launch at £200, it only increases the price gap between the competition Apple is struggling to shrug off. Something needs to fill this gap, and maybe that’s where the AirPods 2 come in. By keeping on the current generation of AirPods at a significant price drop, Apple will have addressed both price and performance concerns – albeit in separate products. But maybe that won’t matter.

With the option of more performance-focused AirPods 3 for those who value that, simply making AirPods more affordable might be enough to push back on the growing confidence of the competition, and put a revived AirPods family back on the front foot again.

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This article was originally published by WIRED UK