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Beats Studio Buds Release Date Leaked: July 21st

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Beats Studio Buds and their cases in red, black, and white.

Photo via MacRumors

Yet another celebrity has shared a photo of them wearing Apple’s upcoming Beats headphones. This comes after LeBron James posted a photo of himself with the unreleased truly wireless earbuds, and Roddy Ricch wore them in a music video. Now U.S. soccer player Alex Morgan posted a photo on Instagram, also showing off her new Beats Studio Buds. It seems like Apple has given Beats out to many celebrities, telling them to use them as they like or perhaps to share photos of them in use.

This viral marketing campaign likely means the earbuds are close to launch. According to a leaker who spoke with Front Page Tech, the tech blog of notorious leaker Jon Prosser, Apple is preparing to launch the Beats Studio Buds next month.

Beats Everywhere

 

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A post shared by Alex Morgan (@alexmorgan13)

Beats are iconic. The brand itself sprung out of the idea of making great looking headphones with thumping bass. Since Apple took over the brand, they feature a more balanced, uniform sound with a flatter frequency curve. Still, one thing that has remained is Beats’ star power. Celebrities, musicians, and athletes frequently use Beats headphones. Or, at the very least, they’re frequently seen using Beats headphones. Word of mouth and hype are key parts of Beats marketing.

Beats are cool. They look cool and cool people use them. That’s the whole brand.

So it’s with that in mind that we’re seeing the least Apple-like rollout of an Apple product. Instead of hiding them away, as Apple does for their own products, they’re instead giving them to celebrities to show off. They’re building up hype for a product consumers haven’t been able to buy yet.

Release Coming?

In some ways, it seems like the release should be immanent. After all, we normally don’t get so much lead up time for any Apple product. According to Jon Prosser, a “trusted source” told him that Apple would release the Beats Studio Buds on Wednesday, July 21st. The release will be a simple one, with no fanfare for the actual release. These won’t come out with a big reveal or anything like that. Instead, they’ll be like the AirPods Pro, Beats Solo Pro, and other audio products that they release via simple press release. Apple will likely share a story in their newsroom, then make the Beats Studio Buds available on Apple.com.

Expect this around 9 or 10am on July 21st. The AirPods Pro released around that time, which I remember because I completed my order for them as I got to my 10am meeting.

What Are the Beats Studio Buds?

Just what are the Beats Studio Buds? Why has there been so much buzz about these tiny headphones? Well, besides the obvious marketing campaign specifically to generate buzz before their release, it’s the fact that these are the first of the next generation of Apple headphones. These will likely replace the Powerbeats Pro in Apple’s lineup, athletic-focused headphones, or they’ll simply live alongside them. The real surprise is that they’ll be smaller than the AirPods Pro, but have the features of the AirPods Pro 2. Apparently, these are the same general shape of the AirPods Pro 2, with the same feature set as well. No one has much information on the AirPods Pro 2 headphones. Apple may not release them until 2022, at the earliest. If they were going to release this fall, we likely would have seen leaks of them, as we have for the AirPods 3. Therefore, these are a sneak preview of technology Apple won’t release under their own brand name until next year.

Furthermore, they come in a few different colors, something the AirPods Pro may never do.

These could be Apple’s most interesting headphones for some time. An incredibly compact form factor with active noise cancellation. They represent the end of the stem as well, replacing the stem on the AirPods Pro with a stem-shaped grip area on the outside of the bud. This also allows them to still feature directional microphones, so you should still sound great over them.

Expect the Beats Studio Buds headphones in July, or perhaps earlier.

Anyone have money on which celebrity will be seen with them next?

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