Apple wasn't ready to show off the AirPods Studio headphones on stage at its event yesterday alongside the Apple Watch Series 6 and iPad Air 4. But Apple leakers had other ideas in mind.
Today, multiple Apple leakers, including Fudge (@choco_bit) and Jioriku (@Jioriku), have posted photos and videos of what they claim to be Apple's over-ear headphones. One of the most reliable leakers, Jon Prosser, did not post any of these photos or videos, he confirmed having the headphones as well.
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The first image to pop up was from Fudge. It was a pair of black headphones with a couple of black bars to presumably block identifying marks on the prototype or test headphones that would give away the source.
As he mentions in his tweet, they do indeed match the description from this spring that indicated they had a "retro" design with swiveling oval earcups and thin metal arms connecting to the top of the earcups.
Probably Sport variant of Apples headphonesPersonally not impressed, looks too much like 2 Palm Pre's attached to 2 tuning forks :/ hard to unseeLooks a lot like what @markgurman described in April, but with homepod mesh pic.twitter.com/dzAufRRl7mSeptember 16, 2020
Again, as noted in the tweet, these are likely the sports variant as they appear to be pretty lightweight for over-ear headphones. Rumors say the traditional model matches up more closely in design to something like the Bose 700.
A subsequent tweet from Jioriku showed the white models but it has since been taken down. However, the video was later posted by Fudge showing a silver-and-white version of the same headphones being placed into a custom case.
Watermark-less white. I did say they looked a bit worse IMO pic.twitter.com/AiYNMyfktRSeptember 16, 2020
The design is not getting a lot of love based on the responses to these tweets, but to say that the photo and video quality aren't doing them any favors is an understatement. It's difficult to tell what the actual textures of the headphones would look like in person and, while the band design shows a bit of flair, the earcups are much less convincing.
Clearly, this isn't the best first showing for the AirPods Studio, but we wouldn't count them out based on these images and videos. It's entirely possible these are an earlier prototype. After all, Apple certainly knows how to put some polish on a product before its official release.
