Apple's newest AirPods Pro are great. They have excellent sound quality, up to twice the noise cancellation of the previous-generation Pros, and even include a built-in heart rate sensor. Those features don't come cheap, though. Like most brand-new Apple products, they're expensive, and typically fetch $249 at any store you choose to buy them from.

Apple rarely discounts the AirPods Max on its own website and prefers to maintain premium pricing while quietly letting Amazon handle promotional pricing during major sales events. Black Friday brings the AirPods Max down to $479 from the usual $549, and undercuts some competitors and matching this headphone’s all-time low.

You no longer need an iPhone to get the most out of AirPods. Apple’s AirPods provide a basic listening experience when paired to non-Apple devices, but the free LibrePods app, developed by Kavish Devar, unlocks features like ear detection, head gestures, and customizations on Android and Linux devices, as spotted by Android Authority.

The first-party advantage is real. The most obvious example of why first-party products are worth considering is the AirPods lineup, led by the latest AirPods Pro 3. These headphones offer way more features when connected to an Apple device than when connected to other devices.

Discover how iOS 26, AirPods Pro 3, and Apple Watch transform your fitness routine with real-time metrics and customizable goals.

Apple recently released firmware updates for all AirPods 4, AirPods Pro 2, and AirPods 3 models, and it has since shared release notes for the updates. Unfortunately, Apple merely says the firmware updates include unspecified "bug fixes and other improvements,