Apple does its best to keep upcoming product launches a secret, but this isn’t always easy. Supply chains have to be briefed, regulatory database entries have to be filed, software for other products has to be updated to work with the new ones. There are lots of clues for eagle-eyed analysts to spot.
The latest example of this concerns an unreleased Apple audio product which appears to be on the verge of launch. We don’t yet know what it is, but there’s a decent chance it’s the long-awaited AirPods Pro 3.
According to MacRumors, Apple this week updated its codebase “with a numerical reference to an unreleased audio product.” This numerical reference is a Bluetooth identifier used to enable wireless headphones to sync with other devices.
Apple’s list of such identifiers includes all of its current audio devices and, as of this week, one mysterious extra entry. The new ID, 8239, applies to no known AirPods or Beats devices, so it almost certainly means Apple is about to launch something new.
Apple sells three types of AirPods: the standard models, the AirPods Pro, and the AirPods Max. The standard AirPods were updated relatively recently, in September 2024, so it’s unlikely we’re about to get another set of those. It could be a new set of AirPods Max, since they came out back in 2020 and we’re still waiting for the second generation, but again, Apple did technically update them last September to add USB-C and little else. Which leaves the AirPods Pro, whose second-gen model came out in September 2022 and is therefore ripe for an update.
(You can read about the upcoming versions of Apple’s wireless headphones in our new AirPods guide.)
But that’s not the only possibility. Apple also owns the Beats brand, and we might be about to get a new product from that line. It might even launch a new set of AirPods that we’ve never seen before. In other words, watch this space, because something interesting is about to happen.
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