Oliver Haslam on October 19, 2021, 1:08 am

AirPods 3 Announced With Spatial Audio, MagSafe; HomePod mini Gets New Colors

Apple today announced new HomePod mini colors and a refreshed AirPods experience during its Unleashed special event.

While the new AirPods were heavily rumored for months, colored HomePod minis was a bolt from the blue.

Starting with Apple’s speaker, everything is essentially the same compared to the old model. The difference is the addition of three new bold colors with blue, orange, and yellow joining white and space gray.

The new models will go on sale in November for the same $99 price, “with color-matched details throughout, including the tinted touch surface, mesh fabric, volume icons, and woven power cable.”

The new AirPods are essentially what we’d seen leaked months ago, with shorter stems than the previous model making for a more modern look. Apple has also added IPX4 ratings, too.

The new design of AirPods is lightweight and contoured, sitting at just the right angle for comfort and to direct audio into the ear. For a more subtle appearance, the stem is shorter than the previous generation and features the same intuitive force sensor as AirPods Pro for media control. The new AirPods are resistant to both sweat and water, with an IPX4 rating for both the earbuds and the charging case.

Battery performance sits at 30 hours per charge, while the Wireless Charging Case now supports MagSafe for the first time, too. The refreshed AirPods benefit from Adaptive EQ and spatial audio with dynamic head tracking, making for an impressive offering for those not into AirPods Pro.

None of this comes cheap, though $179 is the asking price when they go on sale on October 26, while the existing AirPods will now sell for just $129. Apple also confirmed that the MagSafe case is also being added to all future AirPods Pro packs, too.