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AirPods Max were originally launched in December 2020 and immediately confirmed their place as one of the best and most frustrating pair of headphones on the market.
A long-awaited updated version arrived in September 2024. Apple made just two changes: the Lightning charging port was swapped for USB-C and the colour options were tweaked.
That was it. No H2 chip. No case redesign. No meaningful change beyond charging convenience and aesthetics. There have been suggestions that the noise cancelling has been tweaked and that the sound is slightly different but in truth, I haven’t been able to identify anything along those lines. You can read my original AirPods Max (USB-C) review here.
These are, basically, the same pair of headphones.
So, why have I kept the pair I bought for review? More importantly, why am I still using them every single day?
Why I bought USB-C AirPods Max
A quick piece of buying guidance: if you have the original AirPods Max, or wondering if you should buy the original AirPods Max, there is no reason to upgrade to the new pair. Unless your existing headphones have disintegrated and need replacing, save yourself some money.
This leaves one very important question unanswered: why did I buy – and keep – a pair of £499 headphones that are the same as the previous version? The answer is simple, but I feel I must confirm it, given some of the comments I’ve received on my recent AirPods Max videos.
This is my job. I’m a full-time tech reviewer who focuses predominantly on Apple stuff. As a business, we create content to generate as much attention as possible, and AirPods Max is one of the most visceral examples of a product that does just that.
Our guide to the
To illustrate this, I need to quickly mention Vision Pro. Apple’s newest of new products (it is their take on the future of computing, remember) has generated 47,000 views on my YouTube channel – across three videos. That’s still quite a big number, but I’m afraid it pales in comparison to Apple’s headphones. The three videos I’ve made about the latest iteration of AirPods Max have generated over 230,000 views.
I genuinely wish that wasn’t the case. I want to talk about the newest tech – and will continue to do so, of course – but I can’t ignore what makes people tick. And what ticks people off.
However, I didn’t expect what happened next.
I kept using the new AirPods Max. In fact, I’m wearing them now – for the second time today.
What I LOVE about AirPods Max
The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e are a great example of a stellar pair of headphones I have immediate access to in my studio. They’re sitting right next to my Studio Display within instant grabbing distance. They’re beautifully designed, sound great, are incredibly comfortable, and I have no interest in using them at the moment.
Because of AirPods Max.
This has fascinated me enough to write this blog post and shoot a video about it, at the last minute, this morning.
Read Mark’s
I’ve made a few notes about why I think I can’t stop using my new AirPods Max – and, no, none of them are the need to justify that £499 outlay.
It’s the ease with which they slot into the Apple ecosystem. I’m back in iPhone Land now, and my AirPods Max connect effortlessly to my phone, computer(s), iPad(s), and Apple TV. Switching between devices is so seamless and uninvolved that I genuinely don’t think about it anymore.
Transportability is also playing a big role. I cannot believe I’m about to type these words, but this is because of the AirPods Max case. It still isn’t a case and it’s still made from a horrible material that smudges horrendously and nearly irretrievably on the Starlight version, but it does make slotting them into your backpack super easy.
I can’t believe I’m about to type this, either: the absence of a power button on AirPods Max adds to the usability. The battery life is pretty good these days, following numerous firmware updates, but it’s the fact I don’t have to switch them on (or forget to turn them off) which makes AirPods Max so easy to live with.
The fit is also great for someone who is folically-challenged. Unlike every other pair of headphones I’ve tested, AirPods Max sit neatly on my head and don’t bulge out in a way that presents problems for narrow doorways.
Noise cancelling is great – not industry-leading (that’s still the Sony XM5s) but still superb, and bolstered by the industry-leading transparency mode which no other brand has managed to match since 2020. The sound of AirPods Max is also just fine for what I’m using them for, which is mainly productivity-focused ambient listening and Brain.fm.
AirPods Max are a great pair of headphones. They’re just crippled by one big problem, which might not be the one you’re thinking of.
The problem(s) with AirPods Max
The greatest issue with AirPods Max is their image problem – and, no, I’m not referring to the case.
The new M4 Mac mini demonstrates that Apple can still make big, sweeping changes to its products. Despite the deficit in interest, Vision Pro and visionOS reveal that Apple can still innovate. (If you are wondering here’s how to buy Apple Vision Pro in the UK).
Tim Cook and co. can still do wonderful and impressive things. Not doing either of those things with AirPods Max is a bad look – it creates an image problem.
It’s not an image problem that my mum is going to catch wind of, but in the tech bubble, and among hardened Apple fans, it’s something else to moan about. It’s something else to criticise. It’s another missed opportunity.
You may now be thinking of the new iPad mini. That too has received what many believe to be a tepid update this year. But ‘many’ is making quite an assumption; I’ve thought long and hard about this over the last couple of weeks, and I think Apple’s strategy with the new seventh-generation iPad mini was to simply satisfy the biggest userbase of that device – the corporate market.
That’s not the case with AirPods Max. This is so much harder to defend. It feels unfair, and, at worst – mean.
This has manifested itself most clearly in the presence of the H1 chip in the new AirPods Max. Apple deemed it fit not to swap it out for the newer H2 chip, which can be found in the £129 AirPods 4, making Apple’s entry-level earbuds significantly more capable than their flagship headphones.
What was the strategy there?
What’s next for Apple’s headphones?
The thoughts above have been written by a long-term Apple fanboy. I want Apple to make the best pair of noise-cancelling headphones on the market. I know they can.
And that’s what makes this situation so frustrating.
The question is, does Apple want to make the best pair of noise-cancelling headphones on the market? Possibly not. Maybe Beats remains their focus for that market. You can read my Beats Studio Pro review here.
Perhaps this revised version of the AirPods Max was nothing more than a box-ticking exercise for european legislation.
I’m fifty-fifty on this. I think there’s a chance Apple is waiting until next year to do something more radical with its headphones. I’m just not sure how realistic that assumption is when I put my Logical Hat on.
Damn, I hate that Logical Hat.
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