- I'm Andru Edwards and you're watching Gear Live.
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Over the last few years, it's undeniable
that Apple's airpods have become a cultural phenomenon.
Not only are they the best selling wireless headphones
in the world, they're also the best selling headphones
in the world, period, wired, or wireless.
So what do you do when you wanna improve upon a product
that's already dominating the market,
if you're Apple, you go Pro.
What's going on tech squad, Andru Edwards here,
editor-in-chief of GearLive.com
and as I mentioned in this video,
we are talking about the brand new Apple AirPods Pro.
You've seen a lot of people on social media,
you've seen a lot of articles, you've seen a lot of videos
talking about the new AirPods Pro,
and how the new thing that they bring to the table
is noise cancellation.
But the problem of that narrative is that
if that's all you know about the new AirPods Pro,
then you're wrong.
Now before you get too mad
and start hitting up the comments,
allow me to explain.
In this video, I'll share five of the main key difference
between the new AirPods Pro, and the old school AirPods,
starting with the design.
Now when Apple originally developed the EarPods,
which are the wired version of the original AirPods,
they did a massive study of thousands of people's ears.
And basically scanned people's ears,
looked at the different shapes, different sizes,
all the variations that you might find in an ear
in order to determine the best fit
if you were making a one size fits all earbud.
Now obviously one size doesn't fit all,
they wanted to fit the masses.
But it's impossible to fit one size,
especially when most people have
two distinctly different shaped ears.
You may not be able to tell that
but your two ears likely do not match each other a 100%.
Now that did not stop the AirPods from becoming
the most popular headphone in the world,
however, with the AirPods Pro,
Apple went back to the drawing board.
They pulled out that old study and scanned
thousands of more ears to determine
what would be the best way to make an ear bud
with a silicone tip and the end result
is what we're seeing here with the AirPods Pro.
Unlike the original AirPods, the AirPods Pro use
silicone tips which are almost flush so there's nothing hard
protruding into your ear.
And because the tips snap on
at the end with nothing inside of them,
they fit better into many ear holes
than conventional silicone tips.
Now using these silicone tips gives you something
called passive noise cancellation,
different than Active Noise Cancellation
which we'll get to in just a couple minutes.
But passive noise cancellation is basically the use
of an in ear ear bud that has a silicone tip
that creates a seal inside your ear
from the noise of the outside environment.
Now one thing about the fit, as I said,
one size doesn't fit all.
And that leads me into a second point here,
in the box, apple includes
three different sizes of silicone tip.
They've got a small, they've got a medium,
which is what on the AirPods when you take 'em
out of the box, and they have a large one as well.
Now I've owned other earbuds with multiple tips
and I've never changed them because I just wasn't sure
which was best.
But Apple has solved that with a built in Ear Fit Tip Test.
All you need to do is go into the Bluetooth settings
and tap on the AirPods Pro.
And in there, there's an Ear Tip Fit Test
which will play some music while you're wearing
the AirPods Pro, and let you know
if you're wearing the wrong size ear tip.
Now the way this works is pretty neat
and is very Apple.
One of the microphones in the AirPods Pro
faces outward so it can hear what you're hearing.
And then compares what you're hearing
to what the speaker driver is playing.
If the levels aren't matching up, it'll recommend
changing the tip.
Apple's also constructed the AirPods Pro in such a way
that the pressure equalizes on either side
of an AirPods Pro, so using the noise cancellation feature
is not uncomfortable on your ears.
Okay up next, I just mentioned
the passive noise cancellation, let's talk about
one of the main features of the AirPods Pro,
not the only mean feature, but one of the main features,
Active Noise Cancellation.
The Active Noise Cancellation on the AirPods Pro
continuously adapts to the geometry of your ear
and the fit of the ear tips.
I mentioned that outward facing microphone
that detects external sound, which the AirPods Pro
that uses to counter with equal
anti-noise before you hear it.
Now there's also an inward facing microphone
that listens inside of your ear for unwanted sound as well
and any unwanted sound that's detected in your ear
is also canceled out with anti-noise too.
So this isn't noise cancellation that's just
turned on or turned off, it's actively working
and listening to the noise outside of your ear
and inside of your ear, and the noise cancellation
is adjusted 200 times per second, based on those inputs.
The end result here is being able
to be in a loud environment, whether it's on an airplane,
on the subway, walking around town,
and have the ability to use a pair of earbuds
that are convenient enough to fit right in your pocket.
These will fit right in that fifth pocket
on your jeans, by the way,
and have all of the distractions
melt away and disappear.
But what if you don't want them to disappear?
What if you want to hear the sounds around you,
maybe for safety reasons, maybe you wanna pay attention
to an announcements, maybe you're expecting a package
for someone to knock at your door,
or for the doorbell to ring.
In those scenarios, you can use the next major feature
of the AirPods Pro, Transparency Mode.
Now Transparency Mode does two things.
It allows outside noises to get into your ear,
so for example, an announcement on a plane,
the doorbell, et cetera.
But it also allows what you hear around you
to sound natural.
If you've used noise canceling headphones before,
you know that when you talk to someone,
even if they have a pass through mode,
things sound a little muffled.
Sometimes they sound a little tin-ny or robotic,
so what Apple's been able to do here
is actually pretty incredible.
When you talk and you hear the sound of your own voice,
it sounds normal.
And when people talk to you, it sounds normal.
And when you're in Transparency Mode,
you're still in Active Noise Cancellation mode.
So Apple's basically taking the sound around you
and blending it in with your music, sort of
almost sounds like your standing in a room
with music playing out of a speaker, while having
a discussion with someone.
You can hear the music perfectly.
You can hear the other person perfectly,
nothing's distorted, everything sounds great.
And that's all thanks to the 10 audio cores
that you find inside of the AirPods Pro.
At this point, these are miniature computers
that you're wearing rather than typical earbuds.
The way it blends outside sound
with the sound of playing is like augmented reality
for your ears.
It's like you're wearing tiny Home Pods and walking around
with little Home Pods in your ear,
when you wear the AirPods Pro.
Now the next major feature of the AirPods Pro,
which the original AirPods didn't have is Adaptive EQ.
Now why is Adaptive EQ important?
Because now Apple is touting better music fidelity,
better music sound quality, on a pair of AirPods.
Apple says that Adaptive EQ automatically tunes music
to the shape of your ear for a richer,
more consistent experience.
That inner facing mic that I mentioned earlier
hears the sounds the same way that you hear them
which lets the AirPods Pro fine tune the audio
by adjusting the mid and low frequencies, again,
up to 200 times per second.
Base is handled by a custom-built, high excursion,
low distortion speaker driver and the amplifier
works with a built-in H1 chip to control
listening levels and remove background noise.
H1 chip also powers Siri on the AirPods Pro
and manages the wireless connection to your device.
Now those 10 audio cores on the processor that I mentioned
a minute ago is why all of this happens so quickly.
When you hear about a computer that has eight cores
or a phone that has six cores, we all understand
that this adds additional power when compared
to a single core device.
The AirPods Pro have 10 audio cores in them,
and all 10 of these cores are working to provide
the best possible sound for your specific ears
when you're wearing them.
Alright next up, we talked about Active Noise Cancellation.
We talked about Transparency Mode.
You're gonna wanna switch between them from time to time.
You're also gonna wanna pause your music,
go forward in music, go back a track.
Now with the original AirPods, you need
to physically tap on them in order to access
those controls, but that wouldn't feel to good
when using a pair of earbuds that have a silicone tip
inside your ear canal.
So instead of needing to tap, Apple has added
something called the Force Sensor.
The Force Sensor is located on the stem of the AirPods Pro
and you can physically see the divot for the Force Sensor
on the outside of the stem.
Now what's cool about here, again another thing
that's very Apple, these are not buttons.
They don't move, they don't click, there's nothing.
But when the AirPods Pro is in your ear
and you squeeze it, you will hear something
that sounds like a click and that almost tricks you
into believing that you are squeezing an actual button.
Squeeze and hold to switch between
Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode,
squeeze once to play or pause.
Squeeze twice to go to the next track
and squeeze three times to go back a track.
Now there is also an additional mode
which is called off.
So you can have Active Noise Cancellation.
You can have Transparency Mode, or you could just
turn those modes off and just use these
to just listen to music, podcasts, et cetera.
Turning off Active Noise Cancellation
will give you an extra 30 minutes of playback time.
So speaking of play back time, you have 24 hours
of listening time with the charging case.
You have four and a 1/2 hours of playback time
on the AirPods Pro when using Active Noise Cancellation
or Transparency Mode and up to five hours
of playback time when you're using Off Mode.
If your AirPods Pro do die, putting them
into the charger case for five minutes
will give you one hour of playback time.
Unlike the standard AirPods, the AirPods Pro
are only available in a configuration
that comes with a wireless charging case.
So there is no version that has just a wired charging case
only all AirPods Pro come with a case
that you can plug in and charge or put onto
a wireless-G compatible charger.
Oh and one neat little trick about wireless charging
with the AirPods Pro versus the standard AirPods,
with the AirPods Pro, if they're on a wireless charger,
all you need to do is tap on them
in order to get the status light to glow
to tell you whether they finished charging or not.
Now this definitely isn't my full review.
That'll be coming later, but initial impressions
after using these for a couple of days
is that they are very impressive.
These are fantastic.
I've carried around the original AirPods in my pocket
since the day that they launched.
They're the most convenient pair of headphones.
They're always on me.
They're always in my pocket, but I'm someone
who didn't find the original AirPods
to be the most comfortable pair of earbuds
I've ever used.
They were fine but after a couple of hours,
my ears would certainly feel a little fatigue,
a little achy from wearing them
and I have to take 'em off and take a break.
Additionally, I travel a lot and on airplanes,
I'd have to crank up the volume a little bit
and eventually realize I was listening
at higher volumes than I should have
just to compensate for the noise around me.
And that when traveling in loud environments,
I should probably use a different pair of headphones
and potentially damage my ears.
So I have high hopes for the AirPods Pro
and Apple absolutely delivered.
The noise cancellation I find to be better
than my Bose QC30s.
They are way more comfortable than the original AirPods,
at least in my ears.
Transparency mode sounds great.
And the Ear Tip Fit Test was able to help me
dial in which tips I should be using for my particular ears.
If you wanna pick up the AirPods Pro, they do cost $249.
They are available now from Apple.
You can find them at your local Apple store
or order them online.
But needless to say, the AirPods Pro are going to be
my default headphone going forward,
whether I'm at home, or traveling on the road.
Now as I mentioned my full AirPods Pro review
will be coming soon.
Any questions you have about the AirPods Pro,
leave them down in the comments below.
I will meet you there for further discussion.
Additionally, let me know,
have you picked up the AirPods Pro?
Do you use the original AirPods?
And if you don't, let me know what you use for your music,
for your podcasts, for your video watching, et cetera.
If you wanna hear even more on the AirPods Pro,
be sure to subscribe to the Geared Up Podcast.
That's me and Jon Rettinger from the Techno Buffalo Channel.
Geared up is our weekly look at the world
of consumer electronics and gadgets.
If you wanna check it out, I will leave the link
down in the description
as well as a card here at the end of this video.
Until next time, thanks so much for watching guys.
As always, I appreciate your support.
I'm Andru Edwards and I'll catch you in the next video.
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