AirPods 3 and Apple Music Hi-Fi Could Launch on May 18

BY Rajesh Pandey

Published 14 May 2021

airpods 3 design leak 2

A new rumor indicates that Apple will be launching the third-gen AirPods alongside the Hi-Fi music streaming tier of Apple Music next week on May 18th.

The leak comes from renowned YouTuber Luke Miani, who claims Apple will announce the new AirPods and Apple Music Hi-Fi via a press release. Rumors about Apple Music Hi-Fi streaming tier first made their way to the internet less than a month ago. Since then, though, multiple leaks and the presence of Apple Music Hi-Fi streaming tier strings in iOS 14.6 beta confirm its existence. Another leak also claimed that AirPods 3 and Apple Music Hi-Fi streaming tier would launch in the coming weeks.

Since Apple Music Hi-Fi will be announced alongside the third-gen. AirPods, it is going to be compatible with the latter. It remains to be seen if Apple will also add support for this Hi-Fi streaming tier to the AirPods Pro or not. The company did recently roll out a firmware update for AirPods, though it did not provide any changelog for the update.

Google is scheduled to host its yearly developer conference I/O from May 18. Apple launching the third-gen. AirPods and Apple Music Hi-Fi on the same day could end up stealing a bit of thunder from Google’s event.

The third-gen. AirPods is expected to sport a design similar to the AirPods Pro. It is also expected to deliver improved sound quality and a certain degree of water resistance. It will miss out on Active Noise Cancellation to differentiate between the non-Pro and Pro models.

The third-gen. AirPods were first supposed to launch in March alongside the 2021 iPad Pro lineup, but that did not happen. It was then rumored that Apple had pushed back their launch to the second half of the year, though new rumors suggest otherwise.

[Via AppleTrack]