Gurman: Many of Apple's Latest Products Are 'as Incremental as Ever'

In his Power On newsletter over the weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman opined that most of Apple's product announcements this month "were as incremental as ever." For example, he said the latest AirPods Max being named "AirPods Max 2" is a "massive stretch" given the headphones received the H2 chip and little else. AirPods Max 2 did gain many new features overall, including increased active noise cancellation, improved sound quality, Adaptive Audio, Personalized Volume, Conversation Awareness, Voice Isolation, and Live Translation, but many of these capabilities were enabled as a result of the headphones finally getting the four-year-old H2 chip. "The real issue is putting a '2' in the name," he argued. "It means that Apple is treating a maintenance update as if it were a new generation. Historically, this branding would signal meaningful hardware changes." With the AirPods Max 2 name, however, he said it "implies a leap forward that isn't present." "Like the earlier USB-C refresh, this