- The AirPods Max lack some features of Apple’s less expensive earphones
- A new report says Apple has “no concrete plans” to change that
- It suggests Apple’s interest in its high-end headphones is waning
Apple updated the AirPods Max headphones in September this year, but the change was as small as it could get – new color options appeared and the Lightning port was replaced with USB-C, but that was it. If you’ve been hoping for a more significant hardware upgrade, there’s some bad news: it looks like the AirPods Max have a potentially long wait for any significant changes.
That idea was reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in the paid-for section of his Power On newsletter. There, Gurman said that Apple has “no concrete plans” to level up the hardware of the AirPods Max, at least in the near future.
The AirPods Max were first introduced in 2020 and have remained largely the same ever since. Beyond the minor color and USB-C changes that we saw in September, the Max are essentially the same device that debuted four years ago.
And Gurman says that sales of the AirPods Max are apparently too low for Apple to consider making substantial changes to the device. But this raises the question: how will Apple stimulate a sales resurgence if it doesn’t add new features?
Analysis: A baffling decision
Apple’s decision to not give the AirPods Max hardware a significant overhaul is a baffling one considering it’s meant to be the pinnacle of Apple’s headphones experience. And it’s made even stranger when you consider some of the features that less expensive Apple earphones come with.
Take the lack of support for Adaptive Audio, for example. This feature automatically adjusts the volume of sounds around you as needed, and it’s a key part of the less expensive AirPods Pro. There’s also no support for wirelessly listening to high-bitrate lossless audio, a flagship feature of Apple Music Classical, meaning the AirPods Max are not compatible with a key element of one of Apple’s own services.
The main reason these features (and more) are not available on the AirPods Max is the fact that it still uses Apple’s H1 chip instead of the newer H2. You would think that adding this to the AirPods Max would be a relatively straightforward – and beneficial – move on Apple’s part, but the company has declined to do it.
Until that changes, the AirPods Max will be missing some important functionality that Apple’s more affordable earphones offer. And with no major hardware changes on the horizon, it could be a while until we see that kind of improvement.
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alexblake.techradar@gmail.com (Alex Blake)
