Remember when Steve Jobs returned to Apple in the late 90s, looked at their product naming schemes, and said wtf? He went to a whiteboard and drew a quadrant: laptop/desktop, consumer/pro. That became the new product lines. Methinks maybe Apple needs to do that again.

AirPods Max is clear outlier - Max is over-the ear, very different from the other ones. You want it or you don’t Deciding between the remaining AirPods is somewhat confusing Main reason to buy basic AirPods is price (“good” $129), cheapest way to have easy integration with iPhones and Apple devices The next step up (“better” $179) is the AirPods with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC). Previously, you had to buy AirPods Pro to get ANC.

AirPods and AirPods Max aren't really the same device at all, you don't really want to be choosing between those two. Now, AirPods and AirPods Pro are definitely direct competitors and that decision is much messier. For me, it comes down to the fact that Pros let you put real eartips on and AirPods just hang loosely in your ears.