Apple's AirPods Max launched five years ago today, marking the company's first push into the high-end over-ear headphones market under its own brand name.
Rumors about Apple's work on a pair of high-end headphones, at the time believed to be called the "AirPods Studio," heated up throughout 2020. They were announced abruptly via a somewhat unexpected press release on December 8, 2020 and went on sale the same day. Orders started arriving to customers one week later on Tuesday, December 15.
The AirPods Max offer many popular AirPods features such as the H1 chip, easy pairing, Active Noise Cancellation, Transparency mode, automatic switching, and Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking, but in a premium over-ear design for the first time. They also offer a headband made of a flexible mesh canopy, replaceable magnetic earcups, a Digital Crown for physical volume controls, a button for switching between ANC and Transparency, and a Smart Case for storage and to put the headphones into a low power state.
Demand for the AirPods Max was high immediately after launch, with shipping estimates that stretched out several months. Initial reviews of AirPods Max were favorable, applauding the headphones for being "more than enough to compete with other high-end headphones" in terms of design and sound quality. While the recommended retail price remains at $549, the AirPods Max are often available with discounts of over $100.
The AirPods Max have also been subject to criticism since their launch, including for their price relative to rival sets of high-end over-ear headphones, the design of the Smart Case, condensation inside the earcups, poor battery life (something that was later fixed via a software update), ANC strength seemingly being reduced over time, the over-head canopy's poor durability, and the long period in which the device has been left without meaningful hardware update.
Last year, Apple refreshed the AirPods Max's selection of color options and swapped the Lightning port for USB-C, but there were no other changes. Since the changes were so minor, Apple does not seem to consider the "new" model a second-generation.
