There have been rumours swirling for a while now that Apple will soon introduce its own over-ear headphones as part of the AirPod line. Today in a surprise announcement, the company made it official – unveiling the Apple AirPods Max noise-cancelling headphones. 

At this point, the AirPod line-up now spans three products, the AirPods, AirPods Pro and the AirPods Max. With the AirPods Max, Apple is jumping to over-ear headphones as opposed to in-ear designs. As you may anticipate, these are not cheap headphones, coming in at $549.

Apple has developed these with a “custom acoustic design”, powered by 40mm drivers. A number of AirPods and AirPods Pro features will return, including Adaptive EQ, spatial audio and transparency mode. As The Verge points out, Apple has also borrowed the ‘Digital Crown' from the Apple Watch to provide more granular volume adjustment for the AirPods Max.

Of course, Siri is also built in, so you can use voice commands to check your phone, answer calls, or control media playback.

Unfortunately, instead of using USB-C, Apple is opting for its own Lightning port to charge these. The headphones are rated for up to 20 hours of wireless battery life. The Apple AirPods Max will be available starting on the 15th of December.

KitGuru Says: At $549, Apple will face tough competition from audiophile headphone makers like Sennheiser, Sony, AKG, B&W, Bose and more. It will be interesting to see how the AirPods Max stacks up against all of that. 

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