This AirPods charging case isn't made by Apple but should be

We're seeing more and more cases for wireless earbuds appearing on the market with touchscreens built into them right now.

The latest is a third-party case for the AirPods Pro, filling a gap that Apple hasn't yet addressed itself, despite a patent from a few years ago.

That patent showed Apple was looking into the possibility of adding a small touchscreen to its AirPods cases, but nothing has come of it yet.

So, it's fallen to "knock-offs" (a harsh name for unofficial replacement cases) to fill the void, and one being showcased on X at the moment (by @lipilipsi) looks pretty impressive. 

It looks like the case has the exact same dimensions as Apple's own version, including the lanyard holes that were added recently, so it's a one-to-one recreation, with some added utility.

There's a small OLED display embedded in the charging case that displays a bunch of useful information, including the charge status of each individual earbud.

It has touchscreen controls too, so it looks like it can stay connected to your phone and be used as a control hub for your audio playback, skipping or pausing tracks as you like.

With EQ controls also seemingly housed on the case, it's a neat little shortcut, and there are clearly people who want this on their cases, as demonstrated by the work JBL has been doing to add screens to its own earbud cases in the last year or so. 

So, we can only hope that Apple is watching on and wondering whether it's missing a trick by leapfrogging these imitators and doing a screen case for itself.

After all, while the version being showcased here is solid enough for an unofficial case, it's still somewhat grainy and doesn't look like the fanciest display (even if it's OLED). 

You can easily imagine how premium Apple would go if it was looking to overtake this sort of offering with an in-house version.

Plus, with its own chips now present in most bits of the AirPods ecosystem, it might have the ability to keep your case connected when it's in use without draining its battery life too noticeably, one of the possible downsides of adding both a screen and controls. 

Still, don't hold your breath for this to arrive on an AirPods Pro model immediately, but it'll be interesting to see if Apple could be pressured into doing so by the knock-off industry.