Earlier this month, we heard a rumor that Apple was preparing the launch of a new high-fidelity music service alongside a new pair of AirPods that could arrive sometime before WWDC. Now a new rumor supplies a possible date: May 18.
After Apple-centric YouTuber Luke Miani tweeted a cryptic “May 18” on Thursday afternoon, Internal Store followed up with the following tweet:
That’s pretty confident. We’re a little skeptical that Apple would announce a new product during the same week that a bunch of new products is shipping, but on the other hand, new AirPods and an enhanced Apple Music+ pair nicely with the new iPad Pro and 24-inch iMac.
As previously rumored, the third-generation AirPods were a last-minute scratch at Apple’s Spring Loaded event. They are expected to look more like the AirPods Pro with shorter stems but probably won’t bring noise-cancelation. The Apple Music+ service will reportedly up the quality from the current bitrate of 256kbps to more than a thousand kilobits per second, which should make a huge difference in streaming quality, especially when using AirPods or a HomePod speaker.
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He’s still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.
