Football star reveals existence of unreleased Apple headphones

An unreleased and as-yet-unidentified set of Apple’s Beats-branded headphones has been spotted in an Instagram post by the professional footballer Lamine Yamal.

Yamal, a young, highly rated, and extremely famous midfielder who plays for Barcelona, posted four photos and a video to the social network over the weekend. In all of these, the viewer can make out a pair of light pink over-ear headphones with the Beats logo, but they don’t look like any over-ears the company has released up to now.

Apple does currently make a set of Beats over-ears (or on-ears, at any rate, a subtly different style) in that color: the Beats Solo 4 come in Cloud Pink. But the design of the headband is clearly different. The Beats Studio Pro, on the other hand, don’t come in pink, but they’re also sufficiently different in design that we can be sure this isn’t just a new colorway for that product.

Instead, this is evidently something that hasn’t been released yet. And it’s probably the same mystery product that was glimpsed last month in an FCC filing. These were described in documentation only as “Bluetooth over-ear headphones.” Apple made a confidentiality request to conceal further details. There was speculation at the time that these could be an updated version of the Beats Studio Pro.

The first Beats Studio Pro arrived in July 2023 and are approaching their third anniversary, so they’re due for an update. It’s worth noting that Apple occasionally debuts new headphone technology in Beats before they arrive in AirPods. For example, the PowerBeats Pro 2 got a heart rate sensor more than six months before arriving in AirPods Pro 3. So it’s possible these new headphones could hold some clues for the next-gen AirPods Max, which haven’t received a meaningful update since their 2020 debut.

The prominent and seemingly gratuitous position given to the headphones in the images (Yamal isn’t listening to them; they just hang ostentatiously from a bag or around his neck, their pale color contrasting nicely with the player’s black outfit and the dark furniture) hints at a deliberate and/or commercial decision to showcase the new product. But nothing is stated explicitly. We don’t get the brand name, the pricing, the release date, or even an acknowledgment of the headphones’ presence: the caption is simply “ey españa!” or “Hey Spain!”

In other words, this is probably a piece of stealth marketing, albeit one that’s not very stealthy. If Apple has got to this stage in its marketing cycle, it seems likely we will find out more soon.