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Beats most iconic workout buds are back and better than ever.

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MacworldAt a glanceExpert's RatingProsLighter and smaller with the same secure ear hook designGreatly improved sound qualityHeart rate monitorImpressive battery lifeConsMissing some AirPods Pro features it should haveHeart rate monitor is limited if you use an Apple WatchOur Verdict These are now our hands-down favorite earbuds for exercising and athletics. Our only reservations are that the heart rate monitor always defers to Apple Watch if you have both and that AirPods Pro features like conversation awareness, personalized volume, and adaptive audio should be supported. Software updates could fix all of this.Price When ReviewedThis value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefinedBest Pricing TodayThe Powerbeats Pro have been a tremendously successful product, arguably the most popular fitness-oriented earbuds of all time. The iconic ear hooks and b logo are found in gyms and tracks everywhere.After five years its time for an upgrade. What has Beats done for an encore? Theyve improved just about every aspect of these buds, and even thrown in a brand-new technology not even found on Apples latest AirPods Pro. There are a few items on my software update wishlist if these are to reach their full potential, but the Powerbeats Pro 2 are easily my new favorite earbuds for working out.PowerBeats Pro 2: Smaller, lighter, sleekerIts not as if the original Powerbeats Pro were large, but theyre showing their age. Powerbeats Pro 2 are significantly sleeker, without giving up the physical controls we love from the last model.You can still press the b for standard play/pause/back or press and hold it to toggle noise canceling and transparency mode. And the little physical rocker switch along the top edge is a much easier way to tune your volume than running your finger along an AirPods stem hoping it registers without knocking the earbud out.Of course, the earhook is what makes a Powerbeats product what it is. The hooks are 50 percent smaller now, but certainly keep everything locked in place while out for a run or working out at the gym just as well as before.The earhook is the signature Powerbeats thing, and the new smaller hook is an improvement.FoundryCompared to something like AirPods, its always a little tricky to put on a pair of Powerbeats as you try to position the hook behind your ear and nestle the tip into your ear canal. The smaller hooks have made that process just a tiny bit more frustrating, but once youve got them on, theyre more comfortable. Wearing them with glasses is improved as well, though still not ideal.We noted that the charging case on the original Powerbeats Pro was too big to pocket easily, but it had to be that way to fit the ear hooks. With smaller hooks comes a smaller case; 33 percent smaller, in fact, which makes it still considerably bigger than an AirPods case but much easier to stuff in your pocket.Smaller hooks mean a smaller case, but they added wireless charging, too.FoundryIn total, the lighter weight, smaller size, and sleeker build make for an overall more comfortable experience thats less likely to snag on your clothes when, say, taking off your hoodie. You also get IPX4 water resistance, which means theyre not going to be bothered by some sweat or a run in the rain.PowerBeats Pro 2: Better specs, new featuresPowerbeats Pro were pretty advanced back in 2019 with Apples H1 chip, and thats true once again in 2025.Upgraded with the H2 chip, you get a lot of the same improvements and features you find on AirPods Pro 2. Theres better sound quality (from the chips processing as well as a slew of other acoustic improvements), greatly improved noise reduction, and a transparency mode that sits right up there with AirPods Pro 2 as the most natural-sounding on the market.These buds support ultra-low-latency lossless audio when used with Apple Vision Pro, just as the newer USB-C AirPods Pro 2 do. You get personalized spatial audio and Adaptive EQ, too. The charging case gets a few upgrades too, including USB-C, wireless charging (Qi, but not MagSafe or Qi2), and a speaker for pairing and Find My sounds. True to the Beats line, Android users get a much better set of features than they would with AirPods: One-touch pairing, firmware updates in the Beats app, switching listening modes, and Find My Beats location service.) Naturally, you get all the expected basic Apple stuffone-touch pairing, Find My, quick pairing with other devices through iCloud, automatic firmware updates and integration into your iPhone/iPad/Mac settings, and hands-free Siri. But with the H2 chip and all the other improvements in drivers and mics, its a wonder why the Power Beats Pro 2 are missing some of the best features you find on AirPods Pro 2. There are no hearing health features (hearing test/aid, hearing assistance, hearing protection). No personalized volume. No conversation awareness. No adaptive audio (the self-adjusting transparency/ANC mode). No head gestures for accepting or declining notifications.Surely the hardware is there to do nearly all of this? I can see regularly approval being a reason why the hearing aid and related features would be absent at launch, but they havent been announced for a later date. And theres no real reason why conversation awareness or adaptive audio, two of my favorite AirPods Pro 2 features, shouldnt be there.The cynic in me feels like these were intentionally withheld by Apple because they belong only on AirPods branded productswhich is silly, because Beats is an Apple brand, and theyre using lots of other Apple hardware and software features.Powerbeats Pro 2: Fitness first with great battery lifeAfter a few workouts, a run, and some indoor listening sessions, Im ready to proclaim Powerbeats 2 as my favorite fitness-oriented earbuds, even if Im not quite ready to ditch my AirPods Pro 2 yet.Music playback quality is not quite on par with AirPods Pro 2, sounding perhaps a little too bright (a strange criticism to make of famously bass-heavy Beats headphones, but its what I hear). Still, they sound appropriate clear, and punchy for earbuds in this price range. You can certainly find better-sounding earbuds, but you usually have to stretch to higher prices for them.Voice quality on phone calls is better too, thanks to improved microphones and voice isolation.Powerbeats Pro 2 comes with five tip sizes (Medium are pre-installed).FoundryBattery life is greatly improved over the old Powerbeats Pro, and quite respectable for modern wireless earbuds. Beats claims 10 hours for the buds in normal playback, which gets cut down to 8 hours if you use ANC or transparency mode.The charging case holds another 3.5 full charges worth of power, and offers, fast charging, now standard in this class of earbuds. Five minutes of charging is said to give dead earbuds enough juice to run for 1.5 hours (without ANC or transparency).I didnt time out multiple full charge/discharge cycles, but judging from the power drain I experienced over several days, the specs from Beats seem fairly accurate.PowerBeats Pro 2: (Limited) heart-rate monitoringThere have been rumors for quite a while of a new AirPods Pro 3 coming as early as this year, with heart rate monitoring as a major new feature. Imagine our surprise when Apple introduced it first in its Beats line!Its a real feat of engineering to miniaturize an optical heart rate sensor to fit in earbuds this small, and Beats made a big deal in its marketing materials about just how incredibly accurate it is. The inside of your ear is highly vascular with thin skin and is relatively close to your heart and major arteries. It makes sense as a prime location for measuring heart rate with an optical sensor. But there are certainly some tradeoffs.That little thing is an optical heart rate sensor!FoundryThe first is battery life, which drains a lot faster when using the heart rate monitor. Thats to be expected, of course.Your Apple Watch has a much bigger battery. It takes sporadic heart rate measurements throughout the day, and then continuously when youve started a workout (on the watch itself or in a supported app). To preserve battery life, Powerbeats Pro 2 only measures your heart rate when youve started an active workout in a supported app.The bigger issue is that whole supported app thing. Beats has worked with Nike Run Club, Runna, Open, Slopes, Ladder, Peloton, and YaoYao to integrate support for heart rate monitoring. For those apps, it basically works as though you had one of those third-party chest-strap Bluetooth heart rate monitors on. Support in other apps will likely come over time.The same goes for select gym cardio equipment. If you go to a fancy gym, you may have bikes or treadmills that can connect to Bluetooth heart rate monitors, and you can press and hold the b button on Powerbeats Pro 2 to sync up.Unfortunately, if you have an Apple Watch, your iPhone and its apps will always prefer heart rate data from that. And while you can start a Fitness+ workout video in the Fitness app on your iPhone without an Apple Watch, all of the other regular workout types (running, biking, hiking, strength training) are initiated from Apple Watch.Heart rate monitoring works with third-party apps, but not if youre using your Apple Watch at the same time.FoundrySo for iPhone users to use the heart rate monitoring of their new Powerbeats Pro 2, you have to not wear your Apple Watch, and start your workout in a supported third-party app or play a Fitness+ workout video. The Fitness app will not display your metrics during a Fitness+ workout as it does with the Apple Watch, but your heart rate will be recorded in your Health app.This feels like a huge own goal by Apple. A simple options toggle in Settings or in the Watch app to prefer heart rate data from the Watch or Powerbeats Pro 2 during workouts would let you get the allegedly more accurate data from Powerbeats Pro while still using your Watch.For Android users, the heart rate monitor does not directly interface with Google Fit, but it does work in all the aforementioned apps just as a chest trap monitor would.Should you buy the PowerBeats Pro 2?For all the great things the Powerbeats Pro 2 do, it feels like theyre missing some features they should probably have. You get all the basic Apple stuff: one-touch pairing, audio sharing, Find My, Personalized Spatial Audio, pairing with multiple devices through iCloud, and hands-free Siri. You even get the low-latency lossless audio pairing with Apple Vision Pro. And of course, if youre into actual color, you wont find it on AirPods, but you can get Powerbeats Pro 2 in Jet Black, Quick Sand, Hyper Purple, and Electric Orange. The price is $249, the same as the launch price of the original Powerbeats Pro and the current AirPods Pro 2.As much as I love wearing these to work out, and I have no reservations recommending them to Apple users who want fitness- or sports-tailored earbuds, I think theyre a couple of software updates away from true greatness. Letting those with an Apple Watch choose to use the Powerbeats Pro 2 heart rate monitoring at will is a no-brainer, and adding features like adaptive audio and conversation awareness are obvious areas for improvement.

We often take the internet for granted. Its an ocean of information at our fingertipsand it simply works. But this system relies on swarms of crawlersbots that roam the web, visit millions of websites every day, and report what they see. This is how Google powers its search engines, how Amazon sets competitive prices, and how Kayak aggregates travel listings. Beyond the world of commerce, crawlers are essential for monitoring web security, enabling accessibility tools, and preserving historical archives. Academics, journalists, and civil societies also rely on them to conduct crucial investigative research.Crawlers are endemic. Now representing half of all internet traffic, they will soon outpace human traffic. This unseen subway of the web ferries information from site to site, day and night. And as of late, they serve one more purpose: Companies such as OpenAI use web-crawled data to train their artificial intelligence systems, like ChatGPT.Understandably, websites are now fighting back for fear that this invasive speciesAI crawlerswill help displace them. But theres a problem: This pushback is also threatening the transparency and open borders of the web, that allow non-AI applications to flourish. Unless we are thoughtful about how we fix this, the web will increasingly be fortified with logins, paywalls, and access tolls that inhibit not just AI but the biodiversity of real users and useful crawlers.A system in turmoilTo grasp the problem, its important to understand how the web worked until recently, when crawlers and websites operated together in relative symbiosis. Crawlers were largely undisruptive and could even be beneficial, bringing people to websites from search engines like Google or Bing in exchange for their data. In turn, websites imposed few restrictions on crawlers, even helping them navigate their sites. Websites then and now use machine-readable files, called robots.txt files, to specify what content they wanted crawlers to leave alone. But there were few efforts to enforce these rules or identify crawlers that ignored them. The stakes seemed low, so sites didnt invest in obstructing those crawlers.But now the popularity of AI has thrown the crawler ecosystem into disarray.As with an invasive species, crawlers for AI have an insatiable and undiscerning appetite for data, hoovering up Wikipedia articles, academic papers, and posts on Reddit, review websites, and blogs. All forms of data are on the menutext, tables, images, audio, and video. And the AI systems that result can (but not always will) be used in ways that compete directly with their sources of data. News sites fear AI chatbots will lure away their readers; artists and designers fear that AI image generators will seduce their clients; and coding forums fear that AI code generators will supplant their contributors.In response, websites are starting to turn crawlers away at the door. The motivator is largely the same: AI systems, and the crawlers that power them, may undercut the economic interests of anyone who publishes content to the webby using the websites own data. This realization has ignited a series of crawler wars rippling beneath the surface.The fightbackWeb publishers have responded to AI with a trifecta of lawsuits, legislation, and computer science. What began with a litany of copyright infringement suits, including one from the New York Times, has turned into a wave of restrictions on use of websites data, as well as legislation such as the EU AI Act to protect copyright holders ability to opt out of AI training.However, legal and legislative verdicts could take years, while the consequences of AI adoption are immediate. So in the meantime, data creators have focused on tightening the data faucet at the source: web crawlers. Since mid-2023, websites have erected crawler restrictions to over 25% of the highest-quality data. Yet many of these restrictions can be simply ignored, and while major AI developers like OpenAI and Anthropic do claim to respect websites restrictions, theyve been accused of ignoring them or aggressively overwhelming websites (the major technical support forum iFixit is among those making such allegations).Now websites are turning to their last alternative: anti-crawling technologies. A plethora of new startups (TollBit, ScalePost, etc), and web infrastructure companies like Cloudflare (estimated to support 20% of global web traffic), have begun to offer tools to detect, block, and charge nonhuman traffic. These tools erect obstacles that make sites harder to navigate or require crawlers to register.These measures still offer immediate protection. After all, AI companies cant use what they cant obtain, regardless of how courts rule on copyright and fair use. But the effect is that large web publishers, forums, and sites are often raising the drawbridge to all crawlerseven those that pose no threat. This is even the case once they ink lucrative deals with AI companies that want to preserve exclusivity over that data. Ultimately, the web is being subdivided into territories where fewer crawlers are welcome.How we stand to lose outAs this cat-and-mouse game accelerates, big players tend to outlast little ones. Large websites and publishers will defend their content in court or negotiate contracts. And massive tech companies can afford to license large data sets or create powerful crawlers to circumvent restrictions. But small creators, such as visual artists, YouTube educators, or bloggers, may feel they have only two options: hide their content behind logins and paywalls, or take it offline entirely. For real users, this is making it harder to access news articles, see content from their favorite creators, and navigate the web without hitting logins, subscription demands, and captchas each step of the way.Perhaps more concerning is the way large, exclusive contracts with AI companies are subdividing the web. Each deal raises the websites incentive to remain exclusive and block anyone else from accessing the datacompetitor or not. This will likely lead to further concentration of power in the hands of fewer AI developers and data publishers. A future where only large companies can license or crawl critical web data would suppress competition and fail to serve real users or many of the copyright holders.Put simply, following this path will shrink the biodiversity of the web. Crawlers from academic researchers, journalists, and non-AI applications may increasingly be denied open access. Unless we can nurture an ecosystem with different rules for different data uses, we may end up with strict borders across the web, exacting a price on openness and transparency.While this path is not easily avoided, defenders of the open internet can insist on laws, policies, and technical infrastructure that explicitly protect noncompeting uses of web data from exclusive contracts while still protecting data creators and publishers. These rights are not at odds. We have so much to lose or gain from the fight to get data access right across the internet. As websites look for ways to adapt, we mustnt sacrifice the open web on the altar of commercial AI.Shayne Longpre is a PhD Candidate at MIT, where his research focuses on the intersection of AI and policy. He leads the Data Provenance Initiative.

There's got to be a better way to find the right Apple Watch band size for your wrist than trying out countless ones, or printing out paper guides and Apple thinks it has the answer.How it used to be when finding the right size Apple Watch band was complicatedThe Apple of today is very different from when it used to stick to Steve Jobs's famous quadrant of laptop, desktop, consumer, and professional computers. And perhaps the single clearest indicator of that is the single most confusing choice buyers have to make which Apple Watch band to get.Apple's online store has seemingly countless combinations of Apple Watch Series, Apple Watch types, and Apple Watch bands, and that's probably never going to go away. But there is one thing that Apple thinks it can improve, and that's the confusion over which size band you need for your wrist. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Apple's push to bring Apple Intelligence to China has taken a big step forward, with it working with Alibaba to produce AI features for the country's iPhone users.Apple Intelligence isn't available in China yetApple is in the middle of a slow rollout of Apple Intelligence to its iPhone, iPad, and Mac users, with it currently only available in a small number of English-speaking countries. There is the intention to bring it to China among other territories, but regulatory issues have been the stumbling block so far.To operate in China, Apple has to abide by the country's regulatory rules concerning AI models. While it is a difficult prospect to do so by itself, the easier path is to partner with a tech company in the country working on AI, which can quickly be turned into a regional and regulation-meeting version of Apple Intelligence. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums