By Joe Rossignol
According to internal information obtained by MacRumors, the company was considering changing the name of the wireless earbuds to AirPods Extreme in the months leading up to Apple's announcement of the AirPods Pro in October 2019.
The name AirPods Extreme was suggested by at least one member of Apple executives, but the company ultimately decided to move on. with the AirPods Pro branding after many employees objected to the change, we've learned.
Apple has used the “Extreme” branding in the past for its discontinued AirPort Extreme routers and the wireless card for Macs that first launched in 2003.
In the end, the AirPods Pro name is more in line with Apple's branding across several product lines. In addition to AirPods, Apple offers both regular and Pro versions of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and there will likely be a regular version of the Apple Vision Pro headset in the future. However, Apple has used several other suffixes for higher-end products over the years, such as AirPods Max and Apple Watch Ultra.
Apple released the second generation AirPods Pro in September 2022. and a year later, the company updated the headphones with a USB-C charging case and several other features. The third generation AirPods Pro are rumored to release in 2025.
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