AirPods Max Miss Out on Adaptive Audio, New ‘Siri’ Command, and More

Chance Miller, writing last week at 9to5Mac, notes how Apple’s most expensive AirPods model are going to miss out on two key features announced at WWDC: Adaptive Audio (which blends Active Noise Cancelation and Transparency mode) and the new ‘Siri’ command that does not require saying ‘Hey’.

As my colleague Filipe Espósito also pointed out yesterday, the new “Siri” command is also exclusive to second-generation AirPods Pro. The same also applies to the new Faster Automatic Switching upgrade.

For context, AirPods Max are powered by two H1 chips, with one located in either ear cup. AirPods Pro 2 feature a next-generation H2 chip inside. Unsurprisingly, H1 + H1 does not equal H2.

I like my AirPods Max, but they’re over two years old at this point, and the gap between them and the second-generation AirPods Pro continues to grow.

The performance of noise cancelation is vastly superior on the AirPods Pro. I just had to travel 14+ hours back and forth between Italy and California for WWDC, so I was able to test AirPods Max on a plane for the first time since I bought them. They were fine, but I ultimately preferred using AirPods Pro because they removed more noise.

I hope Apple is working on an AirPods Max revision with support for H2, a foldable design, a new case, and support for the latest software features they just announced.