The best AirPods won't get a USB-C upgrade until next year, report says

(Image credit: Gerald Lynch / Future)

Apple's continued efforts to move more devices to USB-C will of course include the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro next week, but there are other products that need to follow suit. Now, we think we know which will do that first and which will have to wait.

With the iPhones ditching Lightning at the behest of the European Union's common charger laws, Apple's AirPods range will also have to do the same. Now, a new report suggests that only one of the trio of AirPods products sold today will move to Lightning during Apple's September 12 event.

As for the other two? They're going to have to wait, with a 2024 refresh now thought to be in the cards.

One from three

Writing in a wider piece discussing the expectations for the September 12 event, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that Apple will update the AirPods Pro to add USB-C support out the gate, with the AirPods coming later. The same can also be said of the best AirPods money can buy — the over-ear AirPods Pro Max.

"As part of the switch to USB-C charging on the iPhone, Apple is working to move all of its Lightning-based accessories over to the new standard," Gurman writes. "One of the first products on that list is the AirPods Pro, a top-selling item for Apple. The company also plans to bring USB-C charging to its low-end AirPods and AirPods Max as early as next year."

Gurman also confirmed that we shouldn't expect there to be any new features other than the addition of a USB-C port, although new software features are already in the works to help all AirPods users. Improved device switching and the previously-announced Conversation Awareness are two such features.

Apple's big iPhone event is now just around the corner and with USB-C very much the order of the day, when can we expect Apple's other accessories to also get their new port?

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.