In the months leading up to Apple announcing the AirPods Pro in October 2019, the company considered changing the name of the wireless headphones to AirPods Extreme, according to internal information obtained by MacRumors.
The name AirPods Extreme was floated by at least one member of Apple's leadership team, but the company ultimately decided to move forward with AirPods Pro branding after many employees objected to the change, we have learned.
Apple has used "Extreme" branding in the past for its discontinued AirPort Extreme router and wireless card for Macs, first released in 2003.
In the end, the name AirPods Pro is more consistent with Apple's branding for several product lines. In addition to AirPods, Apple offers both regular and Pro versions of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and there will likely be a regular version of the Apple Vision Pro headset in the future. Nevertheless, Apple has used a few other suffixes for higher-end products over the years, such as the AirPods Max and the Apple Watch Ultra.
Apple went on to release second-generation AirPods Pro in September 2022, and it updated the headphones with a USB-C charging case and a few other features a year later. Third-generation AirPods Pro are rumored to be released in 2025.
