Why Apple may ditch Bluetooth in its ‘next AirPods’

Apple recently launched the 3rd generation AirPods that look like redesigned AirPods Pro without the silicon tips. The new earbuds from the tech giant come with intuitive force sensor, spatial audio, shorter stem, Adaptive EQ, and several other upgrades. Now, in an Interview to What HiFi, Apple’s vice president of acoustics Gary Geaves has revealed that the company is currently squeezing the most out of the Bluetooth technology but it is keen to get more bandwidth for its earbuds.

“Obviously the wireless technology is critical for the content delivery that you talk about”, he says, “but also things like the amount of latency you get when you move your head, and if that’s too long, between you moving your head and the sound changing or remaining static, it will make you feel quite ill, so we have to concentrate very hard on squeezing the most that we can out of the Bluetooth technology, and there’s a number of tricks we can play to maximise or get around some of the limits of Bluetooth. But it’s fair to say that we would like more bandwidth and… I’ll stop right there. We would like more bandwidth”, Geaves said to What HiFi when asked if Bluetooth is holding back Apple’s hardware and stifling sound quality.

The executive also said that the AirPods 3 are built entirely with custom-made components which includes a “very low distortion” loudspeaker that is integrated into “quite a complicated acoustic system”. The new earbuds feature Adaptive EQ that tunes sound in real time based on how AirPods fit in user’s ear. An inward-facing microphone monitors for sound, and then Adaptive EQ tunes the low and mid frequencies to account for what may be lost due to variances in fit. The earbuds also get a custom driver and a high dynamic range amplifier that together are claimed to produce powerful bass with crisp, clean high frequencies.

Powered by the H1 chip, the AirPods come with Spatial Audio support. The earbuds use computational audio to deliver sound with Adaptive EQ and it allows users to enjoy spatial audio featuring Dolby Atmos in Apple Music, movies, and TV shows, along with dynamic head tracking, across Apple devices.

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