At Apple’s ‘Awe Dropping’ launch event on September 9 2025, the AirPods Pro 3 shared the stage spotlight with the iPhone 17 lineup and a trio of new Apple Watch 11, ushering in the company’s third generation of top-tier wireless earbuds since the Pro line debuted in 2019.
Available to pre-order now, the new Pro 3 see the official discontinuation of the Pro 2 and bring several upgrades over their predecessors when it comes to ANC and audio performance, battery life and fit, while introducing brand-new exercise-related and conversational features.
What’s new: AirPods Pro 3 upgrades at a glance
- Active noise cancellation is twice that of the AirPods Pro 2
- Tweaked audio architecture for better bass and a wider soundfield
- Earbud battery life is extended to eight hours
- Smaller size and an enhanced shape improve fit
- Foam-infused eartips and an additional, fifth size (XXS)
- Heart-rate sensor and Workout Buddy feature for exercise
- IP57 water and dust resistance
- Live Translation (also coming to Pro 2 and AirPods 4 With ANC)
When do the AirPods Pro 3 launch?
The AirPods Pro 3 were announced on September 10 2025, which is also the date pre-orders opened. Shipping begins on September 19.
How much do the AirPods Pro 3 cost?
The AirPods Pro 3 cost $249, the same price the original AirPods Pro and the AirPods Pro 2 launched at in October 2019 and September 2022 respectively.
That $249 RRP keeps them firmly at the top of the AirPods line, above the $179 AirPods 4 with ANC and the $129 AirPods 4. The AirPods Pro 2 have been discontinued and can no longer be purchased from Apple’s online store, however they will likely remain on sale at other retailers for the rest of the year. The only pricier AirPods model is the over-ear AirPods Max at $549.
For Apple to keep its launch pricing stagnant for six years is nothing short of impressive, not least as rivals from other tech giants have had to bump up their RRPs in that period.
It makes the AirPods Pro 3 super competitive alongside the best wireless earbuds competition, which includes the Sony WF-1000XM5 ($328) and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds 2nd Gen ($300).
AirPods Pro 3: Improved performance
Active noise cancellation (ANC)
Apple boldly claims that the AirPods Pro 3 deliver the world’s best ANC of any in-ear wireless headphones (what do you think of that then, eh Bose?), putting in a performance twice as effective as the Pro 2 and four times better than the original Pro.
It claims this is possible due to the use of ‘ultra-low-noise microphones’ and ‘advanced computational audio’, while the change from silicone to ‘foam-infused’ eartips also do their bit to physically improve noise isolation.
Considering our AirPods Pro 2 review hails those earbuds’ ANC abilities as a runaway success – “all you get is silence,” it reads – I’m intrigued to see how much more isolating the Pro 3 really are. As silent as the Bose QC Ultra Earbuds 2? That’s the benchmark to meet or beat.
Sound quality
Again, the Pro 2 didn’t suffer in the audio quality department, with our review praising their “detailed performance, with plenty of punchy bass, and very clear high frequencies… the soundstage is pleasingly wide”. But time waits for no man, or indeed pair of earbuds, and the very best wireless earbuds that have arrived since, like the Bose QC Ultra 2 and Sony XM5, do edge them.
The Pro 3 are, therefore, opportunities for Apple to gain a lead, and whether it can will depend on how effective the upgrades the company has made to the audio architecture are. Specifically, Apple has created a custom, multiport acoustic architecture responsible for controlling the airflow that carries sound into the ear.
This enhanced design, says Apple, “transforms the bass response” and “widens the soundstage”.
AirPods Pro 3: New features
Design and fit
Apple claims that its Pro 3 are ‘the most secure and best-fitting AirPods ever’, having carried out 10,000 ear scans and more than 100,000 hours of research to redesign the internal architecture. This involved reducing the size of each bud and enhancing its geometry to make the eartip more aligned with the center of the body.
You now get five (not four) eartips in the box to choose from, too, with the Pro 3 including an additional XXS size for those with smaller lugs.
Workout-ready features
The most headline-grabbing feature of the Pro 3 is their heart-rate sensor, which, like the Powerbeats Pro 2, allows the earbuds to read the wearer’s heart rate, trackable in the Apple Fitness app. (How, you ask? By shining an invisible infrared light 256 times per song to measure light absorption in blood flow. Like a running watch does essentially.)
AirPods Pro 3 and iPhone users will also be able to use the new Workout Buddy feature, which collects the devices’ read data to generate personalized, motivational insights during exercise.
Considering the Pro 3’s fitness focus, it makes sense that Apple has made them sweat- and dust-resistant to IP57 standards, which means they are ‘dust-protected’ and ‘ can withstand immersion in water up to 3 feet in depth for a duration of 30 minutes’.
Live Translation
Last but certainly not least for globetrotters is Live Translation, the much-anticipated real-time language translation feature. So, for example, if you are abroad and want to converse with someone who speaks a different language from you, their words will come through to your AirPods, translated in your language, while your spoken response will be displayed as text on your iPhone for you to show them.
If both parties are wearing compatible AirPods (the Pro 2 and 4 with ANC will also get this feature via firmware update), the conversation is all translated and presented in the earbuds and can therefore be more natural… as natural as a conversation can be with awkward pauses anyway!
AirPods Pro 3 vs AirPods Pro 2: Should you upgrade?
So long as the on-paper improvements in audio and ANC also play out in practice, the new AirPods Pro 3 give Pro 2 owners good reason to upgrade, particularly if they will make use of the new workout functionality and/or benefit from the new smaller eartip size. Travel on planes a lot or work in a noisy environment? Perhaps that double-strength ANC would alone have you reaching for your credit card.
I can’t see many Pro 2 owners upgrading solely for an extra two hours of earbud battery life, nor can I imagine most being unhappy with the excellent noise-canceling and audio quality their earbuds already offer. But I can equally see the suite of upgrades as a whole being attractive enough to justify an upgrade.
Of course, the two AirPods Pro models still share a lot in common, including spatial audio with head-tracking, an eartip and stem design, Apple’s H2 chip, support for Bluetooth 5.3 and AAC and SBC Bluetooth codecs, Hearing Aid mode, and Live Translation (which is coming to the Pro 2 via a firmware update).
It’s worth noting, too, that the Pro 3 is actually a downgrade on the Pro 2 in one area – total battery life. With the earbud and USB-C MagSafe case charges, it is now 24 hours, down from 30.
The case to upgrade from the original Pro model is naturally stronger, considering the two-generational leap in performance and features the Pro 3 delivers, although Pro 1 owners then have a decision to make: go for the Pro 3, or save money on the Pro 2 while they are still on sale in third-party stores. That choice will therefore come down to budget as well as feature priorities.
What’s next?
Considering the typical three-year gap between each generation of AirPods Pro (save for the Pro 2’s 2023 update that simply moved from a Lightning case to a USB-C one), we can likely expect the AirPods Pro 4 to arrive in – what? – 2028.
That said, speculation of a more advanced AirPods arriving as soon as next year has circulated in recent months. They would supposedly embed IR cameras — not so much for taking photos and video (though that would be intriguing) but instead for real-time hand-gesture tracking, perhaps as an alternative to using the earbuds’ onboard controls, or as an alternative to using Siri for controlling functions on an iPhone.
Making a camera so tiny that it can fit into an earbud brings issues with it, of course – power consumption, heat dissipation, minuscule and costly components, not to mention privacy. So it’s probably best to take this rumor with a pinch of salt for now.
What’s more, considering the clear progression Apple has made with the Pro 3 over the Pro 2, I would highly doubt that any 2026 AirPods Pro arrival would replace and discontinue the Pro 3 merely a year into their life. Perhaps Apple would introduce another model entirely. Might I throw ‘Pro 3+’ into the ring?
