The ‘New’ AirPods Max Are Another Lazy Apple Update That Nobody Wants

Every fall, like clockwork, Apple announces a new generation of iPhones. But other products get refreshed on a more casual basis: The AirPods Max, for example, launched in December 2020 and didn’t get an update until earlier this month. Still, Apple made up for lost time and gave them a really thorough update, bringing them up to date with the latest audio advancements, right?

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Well. Look at it this way: a good hardware update fixes the problems of the previous model. (A revolutionary (A hardware update rethinks the entire product from the ground up, but we’re not going to set the bar that high just yet.) My example of a good hardware update is the powerful Apple Watch Series 2, which addressed the speed, battery life, and water resistance issues, as well as the lack of GPS, that reviewers noted with the original model. It didn’t reinvent the wheel, but it made the ride much smoother.

Are the AirPods Max 2024, available today for $549, on par with the Apple Watch Series 2? Do they include fixes for the issues we pointed out in our review earlier in 2021? After all, Apple has had more than three and a half years to find a better way. Let’s look at the evidence, starting with the issues that were apparent at launch.

Issue: AirPods Max, while comfortable, are notoriously heavy: They are 40 to 50 percent heavier than competing wireless noise-cancelling headphones.
To fix: None. It’s the same project.

Issue: Not sweat or water resistant.
To fix: Nothing again.

Issue: There is no 3.5mm headphone jack.
To fix: We still don’t have 3.5mm. The USB-C port is more versatile than Lightning, but based on Apple’s announcement, it seems to be for charging only, not music playback.

Issue: They still have the Lightning port.
To fix: AirPods Max now have a USB-C connector.

Issue: The Smart Case is very poorly designed and provides virtually no protection.
To fix: None. Same thing!

Issue: AirPods Max are too expensive for what they offer.
To fix: The US price remains the same. Is In the UK, however, there was a price drop: from £549 to £499.

What about the areas where Apple has moved forward since 2020, leaving the AirPods Max in the dust? For example:

Issue: AirPods Max, despite being Apple’s flagship headphones, do not support Apple’s own lossless audio format, launched in 2021.
To fix: Even if the new models will support the lossless codec, Apple does not want to talk about it.

Issue: The latest AirPods Pro (and even the $129 AirPods 4) have a more advanced H2 chip, which improves battery life and ANC performance and is essential for Apple’s adaptive Transparency mode, but the AirPods Max are stuck with the older H1 without any of the new features.
To fix: None. Still has H1, which is a farce.

Basically, nothing has been fixed. The AirPods Max are as outdated as ever, becoming more outdated by the day.

Minimal effort

Perhaps I’m being unfair to the “new” AirPods Max. After all, Apple doesn’t label them as 2nd generation, nor does it separate the 2024 edition from the 2020 edition in the “Compare Models” section of its website. As far as Apple is concerned, it’s the same product, just with USB-C and a few new colors.

But that’s the problem. Of all Apple’s products, this one was in dire need of a complete refresh. It needed to do what it did with the Apple Watch Series 2: admit its flaws and issues and find a way to fix them, rather than blow us off with this disappointment. And the worst part is that now that Apple has “updated” it, the chances of a true 2nd-generation model in the near or medium term are slim.

The thing is, this isn’t new behavior for Apple. They’ve been making “will it be enough?” calls for years without any updates. The third-generation iPhone SE, for example, was a similar disappointment that, as our reviewer noted, updated the part that didn’t need it, ignored all the issues, and didn’t change the physical design.

Meanwhile, the Mac Pro is supposed to be at the top of its lineup, like the AirPods Max, but it actually has one of the most outdated spec lists in the Mac lineup because Apple doesn’t update its ultra-premium products often enough. The Mac Pro languished on four-year-old hardware (sound familiar?), and when Apple finally updated it, it didn’t change the design and installed chips that would quickly fall behind the company’s other machines. As my colleague notes, it seems symbolic that the lab shown in Apple’s Scary Fast video last year was running on Mac Studios, not the Mac Pro.

Ultimately, it comes down to the age-old problem with Apple, which is that in many areas the company is so dominant that it doesn’t really compete with other companies, but with its own legacy products. When Apple launches a new Mac, or a phone, or a set of headphones, you just know that someone in marketing has snuck a line in the engineers’ ears: make sure you’re not over-engineering this thing, because next time we’ll have to top it. Sure, you can release an amazing product and everyone will be happy at first. But you’re just setting yourself up for problems down the road.

After all, customers aren’t going to ignore the new AirPods Max and buy on-ear headphones from someone else, right?

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