Despite being mocked again, most AirPods Pro comments were quite positive.
The AirPods Pro follows the pattern of any other Apple product in recent years: plenty of leaks before release and the being criticized for not being innovative. But in the end, people just were willing to pay for it.
On Monday, Apple unveiled the long-waited AirPods Pro which features noise cancellation and water-proof.
The launch of the AirPods Pro was a surprise to many, but in many ways it has just met expectations.
(Photo: Apple)
Why it is a surprise
Before the launch of the AirPods Pro, people were expecting Apple to hold an event on October 30 to release upgrades of its current product lines, with rumors circulating there would be a 16-inch MacBook Pro.
But until October 25, there were still no press invitation from Apple, prompting people to recalculate the odds of such an event.
However, the speculation on the AirPods Pro has never ended. The only thing is the timing for the new earphones were vaguely descripted as “recently”.
Only till Monday were there rumors saying Apple will release the AirPods Pro this week.
And Apple was swift in action. A few hours after the latest speculation was out, the AirPods Pro were officially announced.
(Photo: Apple)
Also to many people’s surprise, the same latest rumor on Monday said the AirPods Pro will have eight colors to match that of the iPhone 11 series.
And there are even concept images:
(Photo: EverythingApplePro)
But as you can see, the AirPods Pro comes only in white.
Mocked again, yet AirPods Pro comments were positive
The AirPods Pro faced the same situation as other Apple products. Before its release, almost everything was known.
Design was always the most important feature and the easiest to judge on. So right after the AirPods Pro was released, people started to their wild imagination to compare the earphones with other objects.
Here are some of the examples:
But what's interesting is most of the AirPods Pro comments were positive.
Does it worth the price?
A $249 price tag makes the AirPods Pro the most expensive AirPods from Apple, which would stop a lot of from buying it.
As with the differences between the new earphones with the existing AirPods, noise cancellation is indeed a compelling feature that should attract potential users’ interests.
Speaking of noise cancellation, literally it means reducing unwanted ambient sounds using active noise control.
This is distinct from passive headphones which, if they reduce ambient sounds at all, use techniques such as soundproofing.
To cancel the lower-frequency portions of the noise, noise-cancelling headphones use active noise control.
They incorporate a microphone that measures ambient sound generate a waveform that is the exact negative of the ambient sound, and mix it with any audio signal the listener desires.
Earphones with noise cancellation feature all do it this way, so does Apple. But what is unique in the AirPods Pro is its internal design.
An inward-facing microphone hears sound as you do. AirPods Pro then fine-tune the audio by adjusting the mid and low frequencies.
It is this inward-facing microphone that make things different. The microphone is right before the speaker driver, which could make it vulnerable to being affected by the speaker.
But the benefit is also obvious: the inward-facing microphone is closer to the users’ ears, making it positioned for providing a better noise cancellation performance.
Besides, Apple has done very with the Power Beats Pro’s Harman Target response curve. The company should have utilizing the existing technology to easily stay at the top. But it didn’t stop here.
The new headphones will include an additional feature called "Adaptive EQ," which will tune low and mid frequencies to match the shape of the user’s ear.
But this is far from a simple “additional feature”. To match the shape of the user’s ear the "Adaptive EQ" need to a huge amount of work to realize that.
The technology behind this can not be explained with simple words, but Apple did show us it is the old Apple which is willing and be able to push its boundary to bring more to its fans.
