A few years ago I wrote an article discussing the issues surrounding Bluetooth audio latency, and I feel like now is a good time to re-evaluate things, after a couple of generations of AirPods, and the new AirPods Pro… he gist is that for a whole host of use cases, the delay between when a sound is triggered and when you hear it over a Bluetooth device can be a serious downer in terms of user experience (and accessibility)…
Looking to the AirPods first, there’s a very encouraging trend occurring. They drop from 274ms to 178ms going from the first to second generation, and the AirPods Pro take it down even further, to 144ms. While a 130ms reduction may not seem like a lot, the perceptual difference from this makes the AirPods Pro tantalisingly close to seamless.
MacDailyNews Take: Can Apple keep the trend line going in subsequent generations? We wouldn’t bet against it!