A purportedly leaked version of Apple’s iOS 14 code is spilling some major beans about its forthcoming products.
After a number of revelations pertaining to watchOS 7 and the Apple Watch Series 6, we’ve now got a choice nugget about the forthcoming over-ear headphones coming from the company.
Again it’s 9to5Mac with the skinny, having spied two icons within the code that give us our first idea of the potential design for the headphones, which are expected to carry a high-end price tag.
Granted, it’s not the biggest leak in the world, but it is significant on two fronts: a) it pretty much confirms these are real and are coming soon; and b) they’re probably going to be available in both black/or space grey and white.
That would be somewhat of a surprise given Apple has only offered AirPods in white. This leak could be a sign of things to come on that front too, perhaps.
What else can we learn from the leak? Well, it does give us an idea of the proportions the headphones will provide in terms of the size of the cans and ear pads in comparison to the headband.
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First rumoured a couple of years back and then reported as on-the-horizon by Bloomberg, the Apple-branded over-ear headphones are expected to bring AirPods-like functionality to a much more traditional form-factor.
Motion sensors are expected to pause and play music when you remove or put the headphones back on, while they’re almost certain to feature the Apple H1 chip, providing easy connectivity and hands-free Hey Siri functionality. Given the expected price it’s highly likely that Apple would include active noise cancelling, as it did with the AirPods Pro.
Whether Apple could include a wireless charging case for the as-yet-unofficial headphones remains to be seen, but it’s definitely something to watch. It’s not clear when Apple plans to launch these headphones, but they could arrive at an expected event to announce the iPhone 9 in the near future.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
