Apple will bring new AirPods in 2019, analyst suggests

Alan Martin
@alan_p_martin
03 December 2018

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THE MOST LUDICROUS-LOOKING Apple accessory has turned out to be its biggest seller. According to well-respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, AirPodsare not only the m ost popular accessory in the company's history, but will go from selling 16 million last year to over 100 million by the year 2021.

These won't be the same AirPods, though, and Kuo - who has a peerless record in predicting Cook & Co's movements - says that there will be at least two revisions in the next couple of years.

The first, due to emerge in early 2019, sounds pretty basic: it's going to introduce the long-awaited wireless charging element, bringing the AirPods in line with recent iPhones and the Apple Watch in phasing out wires. To support this ambition, the case will come with an upgraded hinge, and with a few more expensive internal components.

That means that you can expect the new AirPods to up the price a tad from the current RRP of £159, given the hinge bit alone will be 60 per cent more expensive than its current part.

Doesn't look like you'll be using AirPower to charge them, mind. Kuo's report makes no mention of the mysteriously forgotten accessory.

If the prospect of a more-expensive hinge for some reason doesn't make you the human embodiment of the ‘shut up and take my money' meme, Kuo states that there will be an "all-new design" for the 2020 AirPods, although he leaves it there, the big tease.

It's hard to imagine just how different AirPods could look, but anything that feels less like putting electric toothbrush heads in your ears would be a start. Still, given the sheer number of familiar looking wireless earbuds out there, maybe this kind of dentistry chic is what people bafflingly want. µ