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AirPods have been a huge success for Apple, since debuting in 2017. In fact, if Apple broke out the AirPods business, it would be a larger business than a majority of the S&P 500 companies. That’s just insane. And now, Apple is looking to break into the $10 billion/year hearing aid market.
According to Mark Gurman’s latest newsletter for Bloomberg, Apple is looking to release a new pair of AirPods in 2025, that would help monitor the user’s hearing. This would measure the body temperature of the person that is wearing the earbuds, and the test would also emit different tones that can help it determine how well a person can hear.
Apple is also looking to enter the hearing aid market, and a ruling from the FDA last year, makes that even easier. The FDA ruled that consumers can now buying hearing aids from retail stores without an exam or prescription.
Apple expected to release a USB-C version of AirPods Pro this year
Quite a bit of news this weekend about AirPods. And now moving over to the AirPods Pro, Apple is planning to release an USB-C model later this year. They will likely release alongside the iPhone 15 series in September.
This is part of the EU’s demands for every piece of tech to use USB-C by 2025. And since Apple just released a new version of AirPods Pro late last year, we don’t expect to see a new model for at least another year or so. That means a mid-cycle upgrade that adds USB-C.
On top of that, Apple is also reportedly considering adding a cheaper version of AirPods to the line. There’s not much known about this cheaper version of the AirPods, but we’d expect it to be like an AirPods SE. Though the AirPods can already be picked up pretty cheap, when they are on sale. It’d be interesting to see how much cheaper this could get for Apple.