Apple’s second generation of AirPods Pro is coming soon – the rumor mill believes it will be available later this year after the ANC plugs have been on the market unchanged for almost three years. A look at the product database of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) standardization group now shows that Apple is preparing for the use of Bluetooth 5.2. A corresponding entry was made in August.

Some technical advantages

The declaration ID with the number D060993 speaks of “Bluetooth 5.3”, but this probably means the previous version 5.2, since the group usually likes to register a version number higher (why specifically remains unclear). The AirPods Pro currently only support Bluetooth 5.0, just like the current iPhones and iPads. With its daughter Beats, Apple is a bit further, here the Studio Buds have already landed on Bluetooth 5.2, even if the new functions associated with it cannot yet be used on Apple devices.

The central new element of Bluetooth 5.2 is the support for LE Audio or LC3. The advantages of the new technology are higher audio quality and improved handling of packet losses, which leads to the impression of better connection quality. With suitable hardware, energy consumption can also be reduced. A beta firmware for the AirPods Max should already contain references to LC3. However, full functionality requires new hardware components – both on the part of the headphones and on the part of the end device. For example, Apple could work on its H-Audio chip.

Hope for Lossless

Apple likes to combine standard Bluetooth functions with its own technology. The H-chips in AirPods and Beats devices ensure that the initial setup of Mac, iPhone, iPad and branded audio devices is as easy as possible – there is no need to go into the system settings because iOS, macOS and iPadOS recognize the devices themselves and the connection offered.

In addition to LE Audio, Apple is also said to be working on implementing Lossless Audio via Bluetooth. LC3 could help here, but it doesn’t have to. If you currently want to achieve this level of quality, you can only do so with the AirPods Max – and only if you use a Lightning to jack adapter cable. However, Apple itself warns that the A/D converter included in the cable ensures that playback is “not completely lossless”.

(bsc)