With AirPods Studio and HomePod Mini just around the corner, Apple have dropped all third-party headphones and speakers from their online and retail stores.

As we know, Apple are gearing up to host their iPhone 12 virtual event, the date of which is expected to be announced today (or very soon after), with the event thought to be taking place in exactly a week, 13th October. There are a number of other Apple hardware products we’re expecting Apple to launch imminently:

While we aren’t expecting any MacBook’s to necessarily drop this month, it would make sense to see at least some of the latter four items in next week’s event, as they’d tie in nicely with the iPhone theme.

The news of Apple removing all third-party headphones and speakers from their stores further solidifies the potential for AirPods Studio and HomePod Mini’s release coming very soon. The Apple Store used to stock headphones and speakers from manufacturers such as Logitech, Bose and Sonos. Bar a few third-party case and cable manufacturers, only Apple and Beats (owned by Apple) products can be found in the headphones and speakers page of the Apple Store. This move replicates Apple removing Fitbit hardware from its stores in 2014, prior to the Apple Watch launch.

Jon Prosser and Concept Creator have us covered when it comes to renders of what the headphones may look like:

https://twitter.com/jon_prosser/status/1306281077351350273