Oliver Haslam on April 17, 2020, 8:19 pm

Bloomberg: Apple Has Headphones With Changeable Parts Like Apple Watch In The Works

Apple is working on new headphones that will feature parts that can be interchanged, according to a new Bloomberg report.

It’s no secret that Apple is big into audio right now. It spent a small fortune setting up audio labs when it moved to Apple Park, and the HomePod, AirPods, and AirPods Pro have all seen the benefit of that. Not to mention the impressive speakers in recent Apple notebooks. But headphones? They’ve yet to appear.

That will change soon, according to Bloomberg. In its report, Apple’s new headphones will not look like your average headphones. Rather, they’ll look “retro”.

Prototypes of the headphones have a retro look with oval-shaped ear cups that swivel and a headband connected by thin, metal arms. The arms stem from the top of the ear cups rather than the sides, the people added. They asked not to be identified discussing products that haven’t been announced.

That’s not really the interesting thing though. Rather, what sounds really cool is the use of magnets that will allow users to customize their headphones – just like they can with an Apple Watch.

The ear pads and headband padding attach to the frame of the headphones magnetically so they can be replaced by the user. That approach is similar to some headphones from Master & Dynamic and Bowers & Wilkins, though those models only have magnetic ear pads. Apple’s more modular design will allow users to customize their headphones like they do with the Apple Watch. The design may also mean the same set of headphones would be convertible from comfort to fitness use and back again, the people said.

Such headphones would no doubt feature Apple’s H1 chip – or a variant of it – so as to allow similar device connectivity to that offered by AirPods.

We’ve heard talk of some form of Apple headphones for a few months but this is the most concrete information we’ve received yet. Bloomberg says Apple has been working on these things since 2018. Hopefully 2020 is when we will see the wraps finally taken off of them.