Apple seriously considered the name “AirPods Extreme” for AirPods Pro during the run-up to its announcement in 2019, according to new information obtained by MacRumors’ Joe Rossignol.
According to the report, AirPods Extreme was in serious contention as the eventual name of the company’s high-end wireless earphones. Multiple senior Apple executives reportedly pushed for the now-scrapped branding, but the company instead settled on the AirPods Pro name after many employees protested the idea.
Apple is no stranger to using “Extreme” to market some of its products. The company’s discontinued AirPort lineup of wireless routers featured one Extreme model, one that was first introduced in 2003. Apple discontinued the AirPort Extreme alongside the rest of the AirPort lineup in 2018 after reportedly dismantling its wireless router engineering team in 2016.
The use of the “Pro” moniker for AirPods Pro is more consistent with Apple’s recent product lineups. The company has used the branding for almost all of its products including the iPhone, iPad, AirPods, MacBook, iMac, Mac, and Vision. Some products like the iPod, Apple TV, HomePod, and Apple Watch never had a “Pro” variant, though Apple uses other brandings to denote higher-end versions like in the case of the Apple Watch Ultra.
AirPods Pro is probably the most popular AirPods model that Apple currently sells. Priced at $249 and first introduced in October 2019, the wireless earphones feature active noise cancelation in a water and sweat-resistant design. Apple released the second-generation AirPods Pro in September 2022 with improved audio performance thanks to the H2 chip and a longer battery life.
Apple updated the second-generation AirPods Pro in September 2023 with a new MagSafe Charging Case with a USB-C port and support for low-latency Lossless Audio with Vision Pro. Customers can buy the USB-C MagSafe Charging Case on its own for $99 to use with their second-generation AirPods Pro that originally shipped with a Lightning Charging Case.
Apple is preparing a shakeup of its AirPods lineup as soon as this year which could introduce as many as three new products. The company is developing two new low-end and high-end fourth-generation AirPods models and an update to the AirPods Max, whereas an all-new third-generation AirPods Pro is not expected till 2025 at the earliest.
