Apple has added another major trophy to its cabinet this year. TIME Magazine, with its annual “Best Inventions” roundup, has named the AirPods Pro 3 among the 300 most inventive products of 2025. The inclusion in the list is an acknowledgment received at the right time, since the company just added new features that stand out from the crowd as well as the prior iterations.
Apple’s latest AirPods Pro 3 push the boundaries of audio innovation with new health, AI, and real-time translation capabilities
If you have tried the AirPods Pro 3 recently, you would have experienced improvements in noise cancellation and audio quality. Apple claims that the third-gen AirPods Pro reduce ambient noise twice as effectively as their predecessor, but it’s the newer and bolder additions that grab the spotlight.
What earns AirPods Pro 3 a spot?
One new addition is live translation, which allows the AirPods Pro 3 to translate conversations in real time across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German. Apple also promises support for additional languages like Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese by the end of this year, which would make the earbuds more appealing in additional markets.
The AirPods Pro 3 also come with a built-in heart rate sensor that uses photoplethysmography or PPG to monitor your pulse passively while you work out or while you are in a resting state. This new addition treads the line between a fitness accessory and a health device.
Additionally, these earbuds also act as a rudimentary hearing aid and leverage Apple Intelligence to smooth the listening experience. On the contrary, Apple has made the AirPods Pro 3 nearly impossible to repair, according to the wearable’s teardown.
What else made the cut this year?
In the Consumer Electronics category, the AirPods Pro 3 shared the stage with a diverse lineup, which includes the 70mai Dash Cam 4K Omni, the immersive Antigravity A1 drive-camera, and accessories like Belkin’s PowerGrip. However, another Apple product made it to the list of “Special Mention” by TIME Magazine.
The Apple Watch Series 11 didn’t miss out and earned a special mention in the wearable section. TIME highlighted the wearable’s new blood pressure monitoring feature, which uses optical sensors to give users an easy indication of hypertension risk.
Apple’s new Series 11 watch comes with a new FDA-cleared hypertension detection feature, which alerts users to signs of chronic high blood pressure. It uses data from the optical heart sensor to analyze how a user’s blood vessels respond to each heartbeat.
The recognition suggests that Apple is pushing harder into audio devices that blur the line between convenience, health, and communication. It’s one thing to produce a solid pair of earbuds, it’s another to deliver something that feels future-forward. Do you think Apple’s focus on health and AI integration makes the AirPods Pro 3 a must-have upgrade, or is it still more evolution than revolution?
TIME Names AirPods Pro 3 One Of 2025’s
