Powerbeats 4 spotted at retail ahead of official announcement

An eagle-eyed shopper has spotted Apple's new Powerbeats 4 on WalMart shelves despite not being officially announced yet.

Apple is expected to release some products sometime in the month of March, as they did last year, and this public sighting of a new product confirms that at least some new products are headed our way. The Powerbeats 4 on display are retailing for $150, despite the previous generation being $200 normally.

@9to5mac @MacRumors did the new Beats Powerbeats drop without announcement? these were found in my local Walmart in Rochester NY. pic.twitter.com/oiqDD20dcB
— (@eddiezus) March 14, 2020

The packaging shows that the unreleased earphones have a new design, are still wired ear-to-ear, but feature up to 15 hours of listening time. This is likely due to the inclusion of Apple's latest H1 chipset, which may also allow for "Hey Siri" voice commands.

AppleInsider has independently confirmed the Powerbeats 4 are available to purchase. In purchasing the earphones at a Walmart, AppleInsider was informed a special label had to be applied to the packaging as it wasn't in the system for sale. They were also not available on the shelves, but store staff advised they didn't know about specific launch plans, and stock was received last night.

Unlike the Powerbeats Pro and AirPods ranges that rely on a charging case to regain power, the Powerbeats 4 are recharged using a Lightning connection.

AppleInsider update this post as soon as an official announcement is made.

7 Comments

wizard69 13358 comments · 21 Years

About 4 years ago

Nice! Probably a sign of the times. We might get the new Macs this way.

k2kw 2079 comments · 11 Years

wizard69 said:

Nice! Probably a sign of the times. We might get the new Macs this way.

Production may have gotten up to speed in China but I expect sales will be drastically down in the US and Europe for the next 3 to 6 months as the CoronaVirus spreads across the country. I will be surprised if they get a new iphone 12 out before November. They should really scale back the extent of changes in iOS 12 so that any release is more reliable than last year. Maybe just do an IOS 13.5 that focuses on changes for the new QualComm Modem changes.

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

k2kw said:

wizard69 said:

Nice! Probably a sign of the times. We might get the new Macs this way.

Production may have gotten up to speed in China but I expect sales will be drastically down in the US and Europe for the next 3 to 6 months as the CoronaVirus spreads across the country. I will be surprised if they get a new iphone 12 out before November. They should really scale back the extent of changes in iOS 12 so that any release is more reliable than last year. Maybe just do an IOS 13.5 that focuses on changes for the new QualComm Modem changes.

Nope to your entire post.

mac_dog 1083 comments · 16 Years

k2kw said:

I will be surprised if they get a new iphone 12 out before November. They should really scale back the extent of changes in iOS 12 so that any release is more reliable than last year. Maybe just do an IOS 13.5 that focuses on changes for the new QualComm Modem changes.

...bcoz last year was such a failure.
/s

Soli 9981 comments · 9 Years

Based on that price it doesn't look like Powerbeats 4 will have noise cancelation or transparency modes, which is too bad.

k2kw said:

wizard69 said:

Nice! Probably a sign of the times. We might get the new Macs this way.

Production may have gotten up to speed in China but I expect sales will be drastically down in the US and Europe for the next 3 to 6 months as the CoronaVirus spreads across the country. I will be surprised if they get a new iphone 12 out before November. They should really scale back the extent of changes in iOS 12 so that any release is more reliable than last year. Maybe just do an IOS 13.5 that focuses on changes for the new QualComm Modem changes.

I pretty much agree with Lkupp, except to say that production in China clearly is on the rise.

As for the iPhone not being released until November or Apple skipping a primary OS updates this year, that seems highly unlikely. Even if they do a Snow Leopard / Mountain Lion-type release that focuses on bug fixes and performance gains with fewer feature updates I can't imagine Apple not moving to iOS 14.