Apple does not discount its own products on its official site. What it does instead is let Amazon absorb the margin cut quietly, and that is exactly what is happening with AirPods 4 right now. The standard AirPods 4 without Active Noise Cancellation are down to $99, off their $129 list price and at their record low on Amazon. The official Apple site shows $129 with no promotion in sight.
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H2 chip, Personalized Spatial Audio, and Voice Isolation
AirPods 4 are built around the same H2 chip that powers AirPods Pro 2, which gives them computational audio capabilities that the previous generation could not match. Personalized Spatial Audio maps the acoustic profile of your ears and uses that data to place sound precisely around you in three dimensions, with dynamic head tracking that adjusts the soundstage as you move. The effect is most noticeable on Dolby Atmos music and spatial audio video content, where instruments and effects move independently rather than collapsing into a stereo field.
Voice Isolation on calls uses the H2 to separate your voice from background noise in real time, which handles coffee shops, wind, and street noise more effectively than the passive noise reduction on previous AirPods generations. Siri Interactions adds a gesture layer: nod your head to confirm, shake it to decline, without touching the earbuds or speaking. The optical in-ear sensor pauses audio automatically when you remove an earbud and resumes when you put it back.
