Apple’s New AirPods Pro 3 to Launch in Late September: Faster Pairing, Smaller Charging Case, Heart Rate Monitoring

September 6 News — According to a blog post by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman on September 5, Apple is unlikely to unveil the AirPods Pro 3 during its September 10 event. Instead, the new earbuds are expected to debut at the end of September.

In terms of design, the AirPods Pro 3 charging case may remove the traditional physical pairing button on the back and instead introduce a touch-sensitive area on the front. The case is also expected to be slightly smaller than the current model. Users will be able to swipe on the case to quickly skip tracks, pause music, or adjust volume, making the experience more consistent with Apple’s family-wide “gesture interaction logic.”

Accessory maker @dbrand shared protective case designs, with one notable detail: the black grille section at the top of the earbuds appears to be significantly elongated.

On the pairing side, the AirPods Pro 3 will adopt improvements from the AirPods 4 series, enhancing the pairing mechanism for faster and more convenient connections.

For health features, the AirPods Pro 3 is expected to introduce two new capabilities:

1. Heart rate monitoring, a function already available on Beats Powerbeats Pro 2, which can now be seamlessly integrated into AirPods Pro 3.
2. Body temperature monitoring, making its first appearance in the AirPods lineup.

Gurman also noted that the highly anticipated real-time translation feature will likely not be available at launch. The feature is reportedly “not ready yet” and is expected to roll out later through a software update.