I placed Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 into my ears in an overcrowded demo room filled with hundreds of chatting voices, hit the control to activate active noise cancellation, and the room turned eerily silent. Not quieter—quiet. The low-end rumble disappeared and the midband babble thinned out to nothing. It was the most dramatic real-world ANC demo I’ve heard from in-ear earbuds.
But beyond the hush, Apple’s new Pro earbuds make a more aggressive forey into health and AI with heart rate tracking, on-the-fly language translation, comfort-orientated eartips, and some serious bumps in battery life and durability. Here’s what to listen for in the early rounds.
Noise Cancellation Gets Much, Much Better
Apple says its new algorithms are faster and more adaptable, and they are. And in a second demo, de Xivry was placed in a simulated passenger aircraft cabin — and the thrum of the engine disappeared, replaced with what sounded like a distant hum. This is the kind of low-frequency attenuation noise-cancellation is designed to handle, and the Pro 3 manage it authoritatively.
Two things help: redesigned eartips and improved signal processing. And now the tips hide a foam liner beneath the silicone & come in five sizes, which enhanced the passive seal long before those microphones and processors get to work. Industry tests from outlets like Rtings and SoundGuys have found that the best earbuds can slice tens of decibels of low-frequency noise when passive isolation and active noise cancellation are combined; the Pro 3 sound like they play in that league.
Transparency mode has been cleaned up too; the barely perceptible hiss of earlier generations is gone. Voices sound more like the room, and less like a recording of the room.
Fit, Eartips, and Comfort
The buds themselves are slightly recontoured, and the tips feel more structured. The result is a comfortable, lighter-feeling seal and no pressure buildup from pure foam plugs. They were softer than the old Pro model right out of the box, after a few rides virtually all the micro-adjustments needed in first couple of rides were put the to floor with a lock-tight fit l.
That better seal isn’t just for the sake of comfort—it’s a prerequisite for stronger bass, more consistent active noise cancellation, and less processing strain. Apple’s strategy is in line with what acoustics engineers have been preaching: the fit is everything.
Audio Upgrades and Spatial Audio
New drivers, updated nozzles and fresh electronics all open up the soundstage. On tracks mixed in Spatial Audio, placement was tight — guitars and percussion snapped to believable points with a central image smeared across no more than the middle of my brain. Stereophonic recordings fared well, too, with clearer separation and air around instruments.
Tonally, the Pro 3 is lean clean and lively. There is more reach in the sub-bass and a touch of added brilliance up top, but no harshness that can sometimes creep in when brands go after excitement. Great detail retrieval on acoustic and vocal tracks suggested less distortion and tighter driver control.
Live Translation in Your Ear
Hit the Action control and the conversation translation whirs into action. I tried a demo with a native Spanish speaker, and the buds listened, scrubbed the signal, dispatched it to the iPhone for on-device language modeling and then handed back an English readout through my ear. It emphasizes context at the level of phrases, rather than the word-by-word literalism to which the translations were forcing their understanding to adhere.
Not at all like the live translation in Google that can mirror the speaker’s inflection on supported phones, the response here comes in the Siri voice you’ve selected. At launch, English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish are available with Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean in the pipeline. The speed and precision seemed adequate for travel, customer service or cross-team meetings.
Ear Heart Rate Tracking
The Pro 3 bring optical heart rate sensors worn at the ear that use photoplethysmography (PPG) – the same basic technique used in heart rate-monitoring watches – optimised for the ear canal. In a fast walking trial, they locked right onto heartbeat within a few seconds and smoothly followed the rises and returns of them. Connected to an iPhone, they can track steps, distance and calories, as well as heart rate.
Accuracy requires formal testing against chest straps, the workouts’ gold standard. With that said, peer-reviewed work published in IEEE journals and elsewhere has demonstrated that ear-based PPG can provide robust signals, sometimes more stable than the wrist thanks to better perfusion and fewer bone-driven motion artifacts. If true, that would be a victory for people who never got into fitness watches.
Battery, Durability and Find My
Battery life jumps to a claimed eight hours per charge with ANC on, which is a big improvement. The buds are now rated IP57 in accordance with IEC 60529, which means they are dust-resistant and have improved protection against sweat and rain. Apple also says Find My location precision increases by approximately 1.5x and the case is a little smaller for pockets and gym bags.
Price and Early Verdict
Apple is still standing fast at $249. Considering that Bose and Sony’s top competitors frequently begin at around the $299 to $329 price point, those price tags are going to be quite competitive considering the quality of the ANC and audio, not to mention the leading feature set that includes translation and heart rate.
First take: The AirPods Pro 3 are anything but a day-two refresh. They silence riotous rooms with a surprising grace, sound better, feel better, and make principled stabs at problems — the language barrier and workout tracking — that earbuds generally don’t solve well. We won’t know the whole story until the lab results come in, but the early indications are fantastic.
