Apple TV+ has the highest 4K streaming quality offered by a streaming service that supports 4K, according to testing conducted by FlatpanelsHD founder Rasmus Larsen.
Larsen says that the Apple TV+ offers higher quality 4K streaming than most iTunes movies, based on averages of the variable bitrate employed by the service.
“See” had the highest bitrate of an Apple TV+ show tested, averaging a 29Mb/s video bitrate and a 41Mb/s peak.
“The Elephant Queen” averaged right around 26Mb/s for video bitrate, and other content, such as “Snoopy in Space” also performed well.
According to Larsen, the Apple TV+ offers 1.5 to 2x the video bitrate of a typical HD Blu-ray disc and around half of a typical UHD Blu-ray disc.
Comparatively, Netflix’s 4K bitrate appears to max out at right around 16Mb/s, though Netflix requires a 25Mb/s connection to stream 4K content.
Apple in late October 2019 surprised us with an upgraded version of the AirPods called the AirPods Pro, which feature Active Noise Cancellation, superior sound quality, and an all-new design.
Apple’s AirPods Pro are its second set of headphones to feature the “Pro” moniker, following the Beats-branded Powerbeats Pro earbuds that Apple released back in April 2019. In this guide, we’ll go over all of the differences between the AirPods Pro and the Powerbeats Pro.
The AirPods Pro are designed for casual use, while the Powerbeats Pro are aimed specifically at those who are using them for workouts like running, biking, and trips to the gym.
Design wise, the AirPods Pro look similar to the AirPods 2 but with a much shorter stem and a tweaked body design that incorporates flexible silicone ear tips, a first for the AirPods line. The silicone ear tips snap right onto the base of the AirPods Pro, allowing for a comfortable fit and Active Noise Cancellation technology.
Apple designed the silicone tips of the AirPods Pro to ensure a comfortable fit in most ears, with the design aimed at conforming to the contours of each individual ear for a superior seal.
AirPods Pro have also been designed with what Apple is calling an “innovative vent system” that’s meant to equalize pressure within the ear to minimize discomfort that’s common in other in-ear designs.
Apple says that AirPods Pro will make you feel like there’s nothing in your ears, and in testing, we have found the AirPods Pro to be more comfortable than the Powerbeats Pro, especially over long periods of use.
The Powerbeats Pro also use silicone ear tips much like the AirPods Pro, but they’re designed for fitness, also incorporating earhooks that fit over the ears to secure them in place.
Powerbeats Pro come with four tip sizes, rather than three, also offering a customized fit for each user. Powerbeats Pro are meant to stay in the ears during vigorous activity, and Apple says that it tested over 20 designs before settling on the current design that fits most people.
AirPods Pro and Powerbeats Pro both come in charging cases. The AirPods Pro charging case is larger than the charging case for the AirPods 2, but it’s still quite a lot smaller than the case for the Powerbeats Pro, which is huge.
The Powerbeats Pro clamshell-style case is much larger because it has to incorporate the earhooks, which makes it almost unpocketable. The AirPods Pro case fits comfortably in a pocket.
Active Noise Cancellation
One of the key features of the AirPods Pro is Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), and this marks the first time that Apple has built ANC technology into earbuds. The feature has been previously used in over-ear Beats headphones, but not earbuds, including the Powerbeats Pro.
The Powerbeats Pro have silicone ear tips and offer noise isolation properties, but noise isolation is nowhere near as powerful as Active Noise Cancellation.
ANC uses two microphones and Apple’s software algorithms to adapt sound to each user’s ears. One microphone is outward-facing and designed to detect external sound to let the AirPods Pro analyze and cancel out environmental noise, while a second inward-facing microphone listens to sounds towards the ear to fine tune the noise cancellation.
AirPods Pro with Active Noise Cancellation can drown out a lot more sound than the Powerbeats Pro with simple noise isolation.
AirPods Pro also have a Transparency mode that’s designed to tweak the Active Noise Cancellation algorithms so that you can continue to hear what’s going on around you, useful for situations like commuting, listening for traffic, and more.
There is no Powerbeats Pro feature for filtering in ambient noises, which is something to be aware of as the Powerbeats Pro can drown out exterior sound with the volume turned up high enough.
Sound Differences
When announcing the Powerbeats Pro, Apple said that sound was a focus. The Powerbeats Pro are designed to offer powerful, balanced audio with pure sound reproduction, enhanced clarity, and improved dynamic range.
Superior sound is also a selling point of the AirPods Pro, and the AirPods Pro have an Adaptive EQ feature.
Adaptive EQ tunes the low- and mid-frequencies of music that’s playing to the shape of each person’s ear for what Apple says is a rich and immersive listening experience.
The AirPods Pro feature a custom high dynamic range amplifier to produce pure, clear sound, along with a custom high-excursion low-distortion speaker driver that optimizes audio quality and removes background noise.
In our testing, we didn’t find a significant difference in sound quality between the Powerbeats Pro and the AirPods Pro, as both offer sound that’s quite good. The Powerbeats Pro are a bit warmer and slightly more bass heavy whereas the AirPods Pro sound more neutral to our ears.
AirPods Pro have less bass, but the sound profile allows all of the instruments to be heard clearly and distinctly.
Physical Buttons
The AirPods Pro feature a Force Sensor on the stem, a control method that’s unique compared to the Powerbeats Pro and the AirPods 2.
The Force Sensor supports press-based gestures, so you can press once to play or pause music, press twice to skip forward on a track, press three times to skip backwards, or press and hold to switch between Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency mode.
The Powerbeats Pro are quite a bit larger than the AirPods Pro and thus have the space for physical buttons. There are buttons for adjusting volume, changing the song track, and accepting or declining an incoming call.
The AirPods Pro have no on-device option for adjusting the volume, and that’s something that needs to be done using a connected device.
Water Resistance
AirPods Pro and Powerbeats Pro both feature IPX4 water resistance, which means they can hold up to water splashing against the enclosure from any direction, but can still fail when immersed in water.
With an IPX4 water resistance rating, the AirPods Pro and the Powerbeats Pro can survive sweat exposure, but rain, swimming pools, and other excessive moisture should be avoided.
Apple’s warranties do not cover water or sweat damage, which is something to be aware of.
Powerbeats Pro Colors vs. AirPods Pro Colors
Despite rumors suggesting the AirPods Pro would come in multiple colors, Apple only released them in white.
Powerbeats Pro come in Black, Ivory (an off white shade), Navy, and Moss (an olive green). AirPods Pro also feature a white charging case while all Powerbeats Pro models ship with a black charging case.
Price Difference
Powerbeats Pro are priced at $249, as are AirPods Pro, but you can often find deals that drop the price of the Powerbeats Pro by $50.
AirPods Pro and Powerbeats Pro both use Apple’s H1 chip, offering simple setup, fast switching between devices, low latency, and hands-free “Hey Siri” support.
Powerbeats Pro and AirPods Pro have all of the same sensors and features that come with the H1 chip, including ear detection that plays/pauses music appropriately based on position.
The H1 chip in the AirPods Pro has a unique design because it was engineered to be in the shape of the AirPods Pro earbud, with the design dictating the internal component arrangement instead of the other way around.
Phone Calls
AirPods Pro feature a speech-detecting accelerometer and beamforming microphones designed to filter out noise when you’re making a phone call or a Siri request, and Powerbeats Pro also have a similar feature.
Both earbuds have dual beamforming microphones, with the microphones in the Powerbeats Pro positioned on each side to make up for the lack of a stem like the AirPods Pro have.
Calls on both the AirPods Pro and Powerbeats Pro are crisp, clear, and sound great with little difference between them.
Battery Life
Battery life is the main area where the Powerbeats Pro have a significant edge over the AirPods Pro.
Each Powerbeats Pro earbud offers nine hours of listening time, a full four and a half hours longer than the AirPods Pro promise.
AirPods Pro offer 4.5 hours of battery life when Active Noise Cancellation is turned on, or five hours of battery life when it’s turned off.
Both the AirPods Pro and the Powerbeats Pro have battery cases that extend battery life to over 24 hours, but you can get much longer listening time with the Powerbeats Pro.
Live Listen
Powerbeats Pro and AirPods Pro both support the Live Listen feature for using the earbuds as a directional microphone.
Charging
The AirPods Pro and the AirPods Pro Wireless Charging Case can be charged using the included USB-C to Lightning cable or a Qi-based wireless charger.
The Powerbeats Pro case does not support Qi-based wireless charging and must be charged with a Lightning cable.
The Powerbeats Pro have a Fast Fuel feature that adds 1.5 hours of music playback after five minutes of charging and 4.5 hours of playback after 15 minutes of charging.
The AirPods Pro also have a fast charging feature that offers around an hour of listening or talk time after charging for five minutes.
Comparison Chart
Here’s an at-a-glance comparison chart that gives a quick overview of the differences between the AirPods Pro and the Powerbeats Pro.
Bottom Line
With the same $249 price point, the AirPods Pro are superior to the Powerbeats Pro because of the Active Noise Cancellation feature.
For casual, everyday use, the AirPods Pro edge out the Powerbeats Pro, but for athletes and those who need the secure fit of earhooks and the much longer battery life, the Powerbeats Pro win out.
Fit is subjective, so some people may prefer the fit of the Powerbeats Pro over the AirPods Pro or may not care about Active Noise Cancellation.
The AirPods Pro are smaller and more convenient to carry and offer wireless charging, while the Powerbeats Pro come in more colors.
Choosing between AirPods Pro and Powerbeats Pro will ultimately come down to the fit that you prefer and the set of features that you want.
More Info
For more details on the Powerbeats Pro, make sure to check out our full Powerbeats Pro guide, and for more info on the AirPods Pro, make sure to check out our AirPods Pro roundup.
British audio company Naim Audio today announced plans to add AirPlay 2 support to its high-end network streamers through a free update that will be coming in the future.
The update will bring AirPlay 2 to the ND 555 ($24,698), NDX 2 ($5,999), and the ND5 XS 2 ($2,700). Naim has previously updated its Mu-so and Uniti ranges with AirPlay 2 support, so with the upcoming software, Naim’s entire family of music streaming products will support AirPlay 2.
AirPlay 2 is designed to allow iPhones, iPads, Macs, and more to stream audio to multiple AirPlay 2-enabled speakers throughout the home at one time for a whole home audio experience.
There’s no word on when Naim plans to provide the new firmware, but once it is available, the Naim app will prompt customers to perform an over-the-air update to get the AirPlay 2 functionality.
There are a number of AirPlay 2-enabled speakers on the market now, including those from Bose, Libratone, Sonos, and more, along with the HomePod. Apple maintains a list of all third-party AirPlay 2 speakers on its website.
Apple today sent out a notice to developers urging those that continue to send push notifications with the legacy binary protocol to update to the HTTP/2-based APNs (Apple Push Notification service) Provider API as soon as possible.
Apple says that developers will be able to take advantage of features like authentication with a JSON Web Token, improved error messaging, and per-notification feedback.
More information on the Apple Push Notification service Provider API can be found on Apple’s website.
Apple’s Push Notification service will no longer support the legacy binary protocol starting in November 2020, so developers that continue to use the older protocol will need to update before that date.
B&H Photo today introduced numerous discounts on the new 10.2-inch iPad that Apple updated in September 2019. Across the board these are the lowest prices we’ve tracked for the new iPad.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
Below you can find each iPad and its corresponding sale, all of which are seeing $30 discounts this week. B&H Photo has every color and storage capacity marked down, offering a wide range of discount opportunities for shoppers as we head into the holiday season.
Additionally, Amazon has a few of these iPads on sale as well. You can get the cellular 128GB iPad, priced at $529.00, down from $559.00 ($30 off). This is only for the Gold model, and Amazon isn’t currently marking down other colors in this configuration.
If you’re shopping for Wi-Fi only, you can get the Silver 128GB iPad for $399.98 or the Space Gray 128GB iPad for $399.00, both down from an original price of $429.00 (about $30 off).
Apple’s new iPad includes a larger 10.2-inch display and support for the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard. Our full Deals Roundup has more details on the latest discounts on Apple-related products and accessories.
Apple today released a trailer for its upcoming film “The Banker,” starring Anthony Mackie, Samuel L. Jackson, Nia Long, and Nicholas Hoult.
The film is based on a true story about Bernard Garrett (Mackie) and Joe Morris (Jackson), who devise a plan to help African Americans get access to real estate deals and bank loans during the 1960s.
The film will debut in theaters on December 6, a few weeks before it is available to stream on Apple TV+ sometime in January. It will be the third Apple Original movie to follow this theatrical release schedule, following “The Elephant Queen” in October and “Hala” in November.
Apple TV+ launched three days ago on Friday, November 1, with a focus on TV shows like “Dickinson,” “The Morning Show,” “See,” and “For All Mankind.” The only film available to stream as of now is “The Elephant Queen.”
Alongside a slate of announcements made this morning, Microsoft has launched a new text-to-speech feature for Cortana in the Outlook app for iOS devices. With this feature, called “Play My Emails,” the Outlook app uses Cortana’s natural language interactions and AI to read out your latest emails.
Microsoft is aiming this feature at users who want to catch up on their inboxes while doing something else, like driving or working at their desks. Cortana starts by summarizing how many emails are new in the user’s Focused Inbox in the last 24 hours, and if there have been any changes to their upcoming daily schedule, thanks to integration with Outlook’s calendar.
Cortana also uses Microsoft Graph to identity the sender of each email in relationship to the user, so it’s easier to know the context of the message without looking at the screen. Because of these abilities and more, Microsoft said that Play My Emails is more than just a text-to-speech update, but a way to have a natural conversation with Cortana.
Cortana synthesizes the information in the message header and meta data and marries it with the insights about you and information from apps and services that power Office 365. This provides a more meaningful and contextual readout.
The Play My Emails experience is like having a conversation with your personal assistant.
Play My Emails is launching today to customers in the United States for the Outlook app on iOS devices, and later it will launch on Android.
Microsoft today announced a new Office for app for iOS and Android that brings together the functionality of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in a single app. The new app, currently available as a preview, simplifies working with different types of documents while also bringing in some new features to enhance productivity.
The Office app provides a simple, integrated experience that puts the tools you need for working on a mobile device at the forefront of the experience. We started by combining the existing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint mobile apps into a single app. Doing so brings all of your Office documents together in one place, reduces the need to switch between multiple apps, and significantly reduces the amount of space used on your phone compared to multiple installed apps. We then added new capabilities that harness the strengths of mobile devices, such as the camera, to enable you to create content in uniquely mobile ways. Finally, we added a new Actions Pane that helps you accomplish many of the common mobile tasks you need to do all from one place.
Camera integration lets you easily convert photos of documents and tables into Word and Excel files, while PowerPoint presentations can easily import photos from your camera roll. The new Actions pane supports a number of common tasks like creating PDFs from documents or photos, signing PDFs with your finger, scanning QR codes, and file transfers.
Office for mobile is available in public preview today, with the iOS preview running through Apple’s TestFlight program and limited to the first 10,000 users. Users can gets basic access to the preview with no sign-in required, but if you log in with a work, school, or personal Microsoft account you’ll get access to all of your cloud-based documents. The new Office app is currently only avaliable for phones, but it will be extended to tablets in the future, and Microsoft says it will continue to support and improve its existing standalone Office mobile apps.
Adobe is today launching its long-awaited Photoshop for iPad app, one year after first announcing plans to bring the desktop version of Photoshop CC to Apple’s tablets.
The Photoshop on iPad app is designed to let Photoshop desktop users open and edit PSDs right on their tablet devices, with the ability to see and edit layered documents and access key Adobe tools with touch gestures.
The app will be familiar to Photoshop users thanks to the standard Photoshop toolbar on the left and a layers interface on the right, both of which are optimized for a touch interface. Adobe has built-in tours and video tutorials to get users started with the app.
Photoshop for iPad was designed with touch and mobility in mind, but it was built using the same code base as Photoshop on the desktop so users don’t need to worry about conversions, compressions, or importing or exporting when swapping between the iPad and the desktop. All edits will produce the same results across devices.
Alongside the launch of Photoshop for iPad, Adobe is overhauling cloud documents to support the PSD format, which is what will allow PSDs to be worked on cross platform. Work on Photoshop for iPad is automatically saved to the cloud as a PSD file via the new cloud documents feature.
According to Adobe, today’s launch of Photoshop for iPad is just the beginning of a more extensive plan to expand the capabilities of Photoshop on tablets.
The first version of Photoshop for iPad focuses on top workflows, compositing, and masking and retouching, with additional functionality to be introduced in the future as Adobe better learns how customers use Photoshop on a mobile device.
The company says it is “deeply committed” to rethinking every Photoshop experience for the Apple Pencil and the touch screen to provide the best Photoshop experience regardless of device.
Adobe says that new capabilities will be added “as quickly as possible” with a regular cadence of releases after Adobe MAX 2019. “We know we have more work to do,” reads Adobe’s blog post announcing the launch of Photoshop for iPad. Adobe is encouraging Photoshop for iPad users to join its community forums to discuss potential new features.
Photoshop for iPad is available starting now for all Creative Cloud customers who have a subscription to Photoshop. It can be downloaded from the App Store. More information on the new Photoshop for iPad app can be found on Adobe’s website.
Adobe is today also introducing Adobe Photoshop Camera, an AI-powered camera app that “brings incredible Photoshop magic” to capturing photos. Photoshop Camera lets you capture, edit, and share photos using Photoshop tools right from the viewfinder.
The app can recognize the subject of a photo, provide recommendations, and automatically apply complex adjustments to produce the best possible photo. The app will also include a “curated feed of lenses” created by artists and influencers like Billie Eilish.
Photoshop Camera is available in a preview capacity on iOS devices, and interested users can sign up for info on Adobe’s website.
At its annual MAX conference, Adobe today announced that it is planning to bring its popular Illustrator CC app for the desktop to the iPad in 2020.
Adobe Illustrator will follow Photoshop for iPad, which is launching today.
According to Adobe, development for Illustrator on iPad is in the early stages of development, but the Illustrator experience is being reimagined from the ground up to take advantage of the “unique capabilities” offered by the iPad, like Apple Pencil support.
Adobe is focusing on several core concepts, such as a seamless connection across devices and file interoperability, allowing files created on the iPad to be opened on the desktop and vice versa.
Adobe says that Illustrator on the iPad will let users work with Illustrator with “no loss of the detail and precision” expected from Adobe. For many designs, projects will be able to be started and finished on the iPad.
The app will feature an interface that’s “natural” and easy to use, and iPad features like the camera and the Apple Pencil will be leveraged. As an example, Adobe says that Illustrator users will be able to take a photo of a hand-drawn sketch and transform it into vector shapes using Illustrator for iPad.
Those who are interested in Adobe Illustrator for iPad can sign up to get early access and stay informed on upcoming Illustrator news.
