When I reviewed the first-generation AirPods, my review could not have been more positive. I called them a perfect example of Apple at its best. I've been using Apple's new AirPods Pro for about a month. Because they are similar to the original AirPods with a big new feature — noise cancellation — I expected to love the AirPods Pro even more. Indeed, the reviews have been incredibly positive. For example, Parker Hill of Wired calls them "what Apple’s earbuds should always have been," and Brian X. Chen of the New York Times said “I hesitate to recommend older versions because the new model is far superior.” I really like the AirPods Pro, but I don’t consider them what AirPods should always have been or far superior than AirPods — at least, not for everyone — because they can be less comfortable for some ears, although I found a partial workaround by adding memory foam.
Apple's first-generation AirPods, announced on September 7, 2016, first went on sale in December 2016 and were in limited quantities for the first few months. Apple's AirPods Pro were announced on October 28, 2019, and, once again, quantities have been very limited. I ordered mine in November and it took about five weeks to get them. Even today, if you order them on the Apple website, Apple says that you will have to wait about four weeks to get delivery. Suffice it to say that this product is in high demand.
There a few changes in the look of the AirPods Pro versus the original AirPods. The case is a little bigger and is now wide instead of tall.
The stem is shorter, and it works differently. To interact with AirPods, you tap on the side. To interact with AirPods Pro, you squeeze the stem. It took me about two weeks to get used to the change, but after I did, I now prefer this approach. It works more consistently than tapping the side did, and it is a more pleasant gesture.
The shape is also somewhat different, in part because the AirPods Pro needs to go deeper into your ear so that it fills your ear canal.
At $249, they are more expensive than the $159 AirPods (which you can currently get from Amazon for only $129) and the $199 AirPods with wireless charging case (which you can currently get from Amazon for only $169). You get two things for the extra cost. First, you get a case with wireless charging, just like the $199 version of the AirPods. Second, you get noise cancellation.
If you already use a Qi wireless charger for your iPhone or other devices, then you know whether you like wireless chargers. I rarely use them because I find it just as convenient, and much faster, to use a Lightning cord to charge. Thus, the only additional feature that I found intriguing was noise cancellation.
Noise Cancellation
Noise cancellation technology is fascinating, and it works in two ways. Passive noise cancellation is simple and occurs whenever you block your ears. Put your hands over your ears, or put in some earplugs, and that is passive noise cancellation. Active noise cancellation is more sophisticated and works by using a microphone on the outside of the headphones to listen to the outside world and then producing equal but opposite sound waves inside of your ear canal to cancel the outside noise. Bose pioneered this technology, and it released the first consumer active noise cancellation headphones in 2000. I've seen them countless times on airplanes since then, and I’m sure that you have too. Although I've never owned a pair, I have tried them many times. Two things stopped me from buying my own pair: the cost and the fact that most models are rather bulky — taking up valuable space in an airplane carry-on and making it too inconvenient to carry them around every day.
Apple has managed to fit active noise cancellation technology into the tiny AirPods. As a result, you can carry them around with you all the time, and then the noise cancellation technology is there whenever you want it.
Despite what the name implies, noise cancellation doesn't actually cancel all outside noise. But it does drastically reduce that noise. If you are on an airplane or walking around a city, it's like turning down the volume of the outside world to around a 3 on a 1-10 scale. If you are in a noisy environment, this is a major difference.
I've found it very unsatisfying to use regular AirPods on an airplane (for example, when watching a video) because the sound from my iPhone or iPad was often hard to hear over the outside noise. I've instead used corded headphones which can be a little louder, but even that wasn’t perfect. Using AirPods Pro on an airplane is an almost magical experience. The cabin noise doesn't completely go away, but it is reduced so substantially that I no longer have any trouble hearing my iPhone or iPad, and I no longer have to crank up the volume to the maximum. And then when I want to put them away, I just put them in the tiny case and slip them into a shirt or pants pocket.
When using AirPods Pro and walking around on the streets of downtown New Orleans, I've never considered the outside noise too loud to hear regular AirPods, with rare exceptions like walking by a construction project. But with AirPods Pro, the volume on the outside world is turned down enough that my the music or podcast that I'm listening to sounds much better. I can still hear the outside world, so I will still hear traffic noises, and if a car honks at me or a person yells my name, I will still hear them. But the outside world just becomes less obnoxious, which improves the quality of whatever I'm listening to.
I have a treadmill in my house, and it is rather noisy: less than an airplane, but more than walking around downtown. I often use my AirPods Pro to watch an episode of a TV show on my iPad while I am walking on the treadmill, and the experience of watching the show is dramatically improved when the sound from the episode doesn't have to complete with the loud noise coming from the treadmill.
All of this was great, but frankly, it was also what I predicted. I expected the noise cancellation experience to be nice when I was in a loud environment. I was surprised to find that I often enjoy using noise cancellation when I am in a quiet environment.
For example, I'll sometimes have lunch in my office with my door closed and I will listen to part of a podcast while I eat. When I activate noise cancellation, I'll suddenly notice that I can no longer hear the sounds of the air conditioner or heater and other minor sounds in my office, sounds that I previously didn't even realize were there. But then once that minor outside noise goes away, whatever I am listening to sounds much better. And then when I remove AirPods Pro from my ears, I find myself wondering how I previously wasn’t annoyed by that air conditioner. Listening to that podcast in my office would have been perfectly fine with regular AirPods, with the AirPods Pro, I realize that I never knew what I was missing. I will note, however, that with AirPods Pro in my ear canals, the sound of myself chewing seems even louder, which I didn't expect.
I've also used the AirPods Pro without even playing any sound when I am trying to concentrate. I normally work just fine when there is noise around me, and there are times when I will even listen to music without words while I am drafting a brief just because that helps my brain to focus on writing. But there are also times when I find the outside noise distracting, even if it is not loud. Wearing AirPods Pro with noise cancellation turned on but otherwise not listening to anything effectively turns down the volume on the outside world and can help me to concentrate on whatever I'm working on. For example, if I'm working on something in my study at home and my kids are one or two rooms over, making noise with something like an iPhone or iPad, I can activate noise cancellation and then I don't really hear them anymore.
Suffice it to say that the noise cancellation feature of AirPods Pro is very nice. Once you try it, it is something that you want to always have available.
Transparency
Even though I'm a big fan of noise cancellation, sometimes I don’t want that feature. For example, sometimes I want to listen to music but also hear what is going on around me. One solution would be to use a traditional speaker, such as Apple's HomePod, but then everyone else around me would have to listen to whatever I am listening to. AirPods Pro provide a better solution in these circumstances.
Although you can turn off active noise cancellation on the AirPods Pro, because the AirPods Pro go somewhat deep into your ear just like earplugs, they still block some of the outside noise even with noise cancellation turned off. In other words, even with active noise cancellation turned off, there is still some passive noise cancellation because you have something in your ear canal.
Fortunately, AirPods Pro has a mode called Transparency that counteracts this. It uses the microphone on the outside of AirPods Pro to listen to the outside world and then, instead of playing the opposite wavelengths to achieve noise cancellation, it plays the outside noise inside of your ear. As a result, you can hear 100% of the outside world even though there is something in your ear canal.
This feature works really well. I used it this past weekend when there was a massive rainstorm in New Orleans and I decided to relax by watching an episode of a TV show on my iPad. (I finished watching The Man From High Castle on Amazon Prime, a series that I enjoyed.) Normally, I don’t want to hear anything when I’m watching a TV show, but on Saturday, I decided to sit on my back porch because I liked the idea of sitting in a rocking chair and listening to the rain even though I was also listening to my show. Perhaps a little silly, but the Transparency mode gave me exactly what I needed.
I also use this mode frequently when I am doing chores around the house while I am listening to a podcast. Transparency mode is perfect because I can listen to my podcast (often a tech-related one) while I'm working, but I can still hear what is going on around me, especially if someone in my family starts talking to me.
Because regular AirPods do not go deep into your ear and thus don’t have much passive noise cancellation, using AirPods Pro in Transparency mode is somewhat similar to using regular AirPods in terms of what you can hear from the outside world. I can hear a little bit more of the outside world with Transparency world, but it is pretty close.
Switching between modes is fast and easy. If you squeeze the flat side of the stem of either one of the AirPods Pro for about a second or two, you will hear a tone indicating that you have changed modes. By default, you just switch between noise cancellation and Transparency modes, but you can change that in the Settings app if you also want to change to the Off Mode — no noise cancellation but also no Transparency. You can also change modes using the Settings app:
You can also change modes by invoking the Control Center and long-pressing on the volume bar.
I usually use the squeeze-the-stem approach when I want to switch modes, and I do it frequently. Transparency mode is the mode that I didn’t realize I would want until I tried it out.
Fit and comfort
Unlike regular AirPods, which are earphones that fit in the outside of your ear, AirPods pro are canalphones, which push deeper into the hole in your ear. This is a very different feeling, and you might not like it. My wife tried my AirPods Pro and quickly decided that it felt bizarre and wasn’t for her. I also found it strange at first, but I grew used to it over a week or two.
I’ve always found the regular AirPods to be perfectly comfortable. I would sometimes hear reports of folks saying that they disagree, and I would think that I was lucky that they worked with the shape of my ear.
I had the opposite experience with AirPods Pro. Although I got used to the feeling of something in my ear canal, I had trouble getting them to fit correctly, especially in my left ear. This led me to frequently try things like turning them, pushing them in more or pulling them out, etc.
AirPods Pro comes with ear tips in three different sizes, and I’ve read many reviews in which people praised this decision, concluding that it helped to make the AirPods Pro the most comfortable AirPods ever. For me, the largest size feels best in my right ear, but I have gone back and forth between the medium and large size in my left ear. And even for those times when they felt fine when I first put them into my ear, over the next minute or so they would often start to become loose, especially in my left ear. I could reach up and adjust them, but then after a certain amount of time — sometimes an hour, but sometimes only a few minutes — I’d have to adjust them again. This was annoying and tampered my enthusiasm for AirPods Pro.
Fortunately, I found a work-around that has been am improvement: I added memory foam to my AirPods Pro. Doing so is easy and inexpensive, but there are a number of steps involved so I’ve written a separate post on how to all memory foam to AirPods Pro:
With the memory foam added, I still need to adjust the AirPods Pro in my ear more often than I would like. With the regular AirPods, I never had to readjust them. But they are definitely better. Plus, the memory foam provides a little more passive noise cancellation. My hope is that in the future, Apple or a third party will sell replacement tips for AirPods Pro that include memory foam, and that might work even better than my do-it-yourself modification.
While this modification seems to make the AirPods Pro fit in my ear better, the AirPods Pro are still not perfect for my ears. I say this in part because I still find myself adjusting them and in part because I keep failing the test. The AirPods Pro settings on the iPhone and iPad give you the ability to run an Ear Tip Fit Test. Your device plays music for a few seconds — part of the song Awake by the San Francisco musician known as Tycho (Scott Hansen) — and then your device tells you if you have a good fit or if you need to adjust one or both of your AirPods Pro in your ears or try a different size ear tip. My ears fail both tests almost every single time, either with or without my memory foam modification. And yet noise cancellation seems to be working just fine. Either noise cancellation works better for others with a different ear shape, or perhaps just the Apple ear tip test works better for others than it does for me.
Unfortunately, I don't believe that you can determine if AirPods Pro are right for your ears without buying them. Before I purchased my AirPods Pro, I tried out a sample pair in an Apple Store. (Don't worry; they clean the ear tips before you use them.) During the few minutes that I tried them in the store, the experience of having something in my ear canal was so new for me and the feel was so different than what I experienced with normal AirPods that there just wasn’t enough time to determine how they fit. One of my two ears failed the Ear Tip Fit Test in the store, so maybe that should have been some indication that I might have problems, but at the time, I thought it was just because I had not yet learned the right way to insert them.
But fortunately, if you buy a pair of AirPods Pro to try them out, Apple has a generous 14-day return policy on just about any product that it sells, including AirPods Pro. Thus, you could try them out, keep them if you like them, or return them and instead purchase regular AirPods to see if they work better for your ears.
Conclusion
I love AirPods, and I think that everyone who owns an iPhone or iPad and listens to music or watches videos should consider getting them. AirPods Pro have definite advantage over regular AirPods, but for at least some people, they also have drawbacks. The noise cancellation and Transparency modes are fantastic, a big improvement over AirPods. But the way that they go into your ear canal is uncomfortable for some people, and for at least some ear shapes — including mine — it can be difficult to get them in the right place in your ear and then to get them to stay in that place. Given the number of overwhelmingly positive reviews for AirPods Pro, I recognize that I am likely in the minority when it comes to how they fit in my ears.
Even though I'm not gushing over the AirPods Pro like some other reviewers, I still prefer them over regular AirPods, especially now that I have added memory foam so that they do a better job of fitting in my ear. If you are trying to decide between AirPods Pro and regular AirPods and you can justify the additional cost, I recommend that you buy AirPods Pro. Try them for up to two weeks and see what you think. You might even try adding memory foam like I did to see what you think of that. If they are not for you, return them to Apple and get a refund.
AirPods Pro are not perfect for me, but I still really like them, evidenced by the fact that they have been in my pocket virtually all the time since I first received them. I'm glad that Apple has looked for ways to improve the original AirPods, and I hope that Apple continues to improve this amazing product.
