If these are the AirPods Pro 2, Apple can take my money already

We know Apple is working on AirPods Pro 2 wireless earbuds for launch later this year, and for Apple fans they're likely to be the best wireless earbuds around. The AirPods 3rd Gen closed the gap between Apple's cheapest and Apple's best true wireless earbuds so I've been hoping for some significant upgrades to the more expensive AirPods this year, and if the rumour factory can believed it looks like I'm going to get my wish.

The latest AirPods Pro 2 rumours come from 52Audio via MacRumors, and while most of the features have already been reported there are some interesting new details. 52Audio has a hit and miss record when it comes to Apple leaks, but while you should always take rumors with a big pinch of salt nothing here seems particularly unlikely to me.

Here's what I hope we'll get later this year.

AirPods Pro 2: what new features to expect

The latest reports indicate that the design won't change as dramatically as we previously thought: those iconic stems are still present, albeit shorter. Inside there's going to be an updated H1 chip with much better adaptive noise cancellation, lower power consumption and better performance, and there'll be support for locating your AirPods in the Find My app. One older rumour suggests they'll have a little built-in speaker so you can locate them by hearing them. The charging case will move to USB-C.

We've heard rumours of health sensors for some time now, and this latest report suggests there will be body temperature detection and heart rate detection to feed data to Apple's Health app.

The two biggest upgrades as far as I'm concerned are the audio ones. The AirPods Pro 2 will apparently share some acoustic characteristics with the excellent-sounding AirPods 3rd Gen, with a "combination of customized high-amplitude drive units and high-dynamic-range amplifiers." And most interestingly of all, you'll be able to use your AirPods Pro 2 as hearing aids. As someone who's blown out half their hearing over decades of standing too close to amplifiers, that's something I find really interesting: it's difficult for me to hear speech in busy environments so if the AirPods Pro 2 can help with that Apple might as well take my money now.