AirPods Max – the first over-ear headphones designed by Apple – launched to critical acclaim in December 2020. As such, rumours that the Californian company is working on a second iteration of the popular noise-cancelling headphones should come as no surprise. According to a new patent application filed by Apple, the second-generation AirPods Max will drop the Digital Crown (the small dial used to adjust the volume and skip tracks) in favour of touchpad swipes and gesture on the ear cups themselves.
Spotted by the eagle-eyed team at Patently Apple, the US technology firm has patented a touch-sensitive layer on the outside of the aluminium headphones, which can be swiped and tapped to adjust volume levels, skip tracks, pause playback, and more. On the current generation of AirPods Max, holding down the Digital Crown summons voice assistant Siri, so it’s possible there will be a gesture added to launch the chatty AI helper.
However, it’s already possible for AirPods Max owners to set-up hands-free Siri, which summons the assistant with the wake phrase “Hey, Siri”. It’s possible that future versions will eschew a physical button command in favour of this voice-activated method.
Provided that Apple follows through with the plan seemingly outlined in this patent, it won’t be launching anything we haven’t seen before. A number of high-end headphones already include gesture controls on the ear cups. For example, the Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones allow users to cover the right ear cup to lower audio volume and allow ambient sound to flood-in, so you can quickly listen-out for a tannoy announcement in a train station.
The Bose 700 series headphones boast a touch-sensitive area on the right ear cup, which can be used to control playback. There’s even a feature that will instantly load-up your last Spotify session when you tap and hold on the ear cup.
Whispers from inside Apple suggest that the company had looked into adding a touch-sensitive area to its first-generation AirPods Max. That would explain why the industrial design includes such an expansive (and relatively flat) surface on each ear cup. Despite trialling the technology on a number of prototypes, Apple ultimately deduced against including touchpad controls.
It’s unclear what caused the decision, however, if the latest patent is anything to go by, the debate inside the company might not be over.
The current AirPods Max rely on the Digital Crown, a small dial that originated as part of the Apple Watch design. On the smartwatch line-up, this small control is used to scroll through lists, adjust the volume, summon Siri, and switch between the most-recently-used apps. Many of these features are replicated like-for-like on the AirPods Max.
Unfortunately, the patent unearthed by Patently Apple doesn’t reveal any more information about what to expect by the up-and-coming headphones. So, there’s no confirmation whether Apple will introduce a hard travel case to protect its refreshed AirPods Max (instead of the widely ridiculed sleeve that requires owners to use the mesh headband as a handle to carry their headphones) or a physical Off button (as it stands, owners need to pop their headphones in the case to switch them off).
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However, the most hotly anticipated new arrival is support for high-resolution audio. At the end of last year, Apple finished upgrading its entire Apple Music catalogue to CD-quality audio (at no extra cost for subscribers). The only problem? Apple doesn’t currently sell a pair of AirPods capable of wirelessly streaming this boosted audio. Some tipsters have suggested that Apple could move away from Bluetooth to a local Wi-Fi network between the iPhone or iPad and the AirPods to stream the upgraded songs in a lossless format.
As always, it’s worth taking all of the above with a healthy pinch of salt. After all, nothing is confirmed until Apple CEO Tim Cook makes an announcement on stage. Companies like Apple file patents all of the time – and only a small fraction ever leave the Research & Department inside the headquarters and make it into a finalised product on store shelves.
In the meantime, the current-generation AirPods Max are available with an impressive £100 discount from Amazon UK.
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