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Apple’sApple’s AirPods are the most popular headphones in the world. Go outside, take a look around, and it’s very likely you’ll see someone with white plastic stems coming out of their ears. Once ridiculed, we’ve come to shrug and accept this signature look as normal. AirPods weren’t the first true wireless earbuds, but they quickly came to dominate the category because of their sublime ease of use and small-enough-to-take-anywhere carrying case. The second-generation AirPods added wireless charging and a few other minor enhancements but left the design and sound quality unchanged.

The big obvious change is the new design, which switches to an in-ear construction with silicone tips. This is a significant upgrade that will instantly appeal to many people. The first two models of AirPods were hard plastic earbuds that sat in your ears, just like Apple’s iconic iPod headphones. This design did the AirPods well — as evidenced by their massive success. But the one-size-fits-most approach always leaves some of us in the cold. It never worked for me. I could get AirPods in my ear, but any sudden movements or even a quick turn of my head, and they’d go tumbling to the ground. Exercise? Out of the question.

If you’re like me and your ears have never been a good match for AirPods, the Pros — yes, I’ll pluralize them however I want, thank you — will finally let you experience the so-called “magic” that others have come to love since late 2016. On top of that, the AirPods Pro also include active noise cancellation to help mute your surroundings when you want little distraction from your music.

To mitigate the downsides of in-ear headphones, such as a clogged, pressure feeling, there’s a vent on the outside of each earbud. So whereas many earbuds can make you feel closed in — you hear your own voice too loudly and almost feel like you’re underwater — that phenomenon doesn’t really exist on the AirPods Pro. As a result, they’re exceptionally comfortable to wear. The vent system also reduces wind noise when you’re on a voice call, according to Apple.

FindingFinding a good seal with in-ear earbuds is crucial to getting the best sound from them. For the Pros, Apple includes multiple sizes of silicone tips: small, medium, and large. In an effort to take any guesswork out of finding the right size, the company added a software-based fit test to the AirPods settings, which can be found in the Bluetooth section of the iPhone’s Settings app. You put the AirPods Pro in, and the test plays a small snippet of music. An inside-facing microphone listens for how things sound in your ears. If a tip is loose, you’re told to try a bigger size. It works! But all the test checks for is a seal, so you might see a good result for more than one size. So picking comes down to comfort and how well they stay in your ears. You might find that a different size in each ear works best.

With the shift in design, Apple has also changed how you control the new AirPods. Instead of tapping a touch sensor built into the sides of each earbud, there’s now an indented “force sensor” on the smaller-than-before stems of both AirPods that you squeeze to do things. There’s no actual button, but you hear a very quiet click in the earbuds when the sensor is pressed.

• Quick squeeze: play / pause / answer calls
• Double squeeze: skip to the next track
• Triple squeeze: go back to the previous track
• Squeeze and hold: Switch between noise-canceling and transparency modes.