I'm exactly the opposite. I've never enjoyed a pair of Apple earbuds in my life because of the hard, uncomfortable plastic. Rubber earbuds are mandatory for me.

These will probably be the first Apple headphones I'll buy, and use.

These have a transparency setting to let through ambient sounds

I’m intrigued to actually try this. Turning the transparency setting on and off.

On an active phone call I can carry on a conversation in the room im in 10 feet away from the person. To have that cancelled out would be interesting to try.

Noise cancelling cancels out white noise - not people's conversations.

Also - the "transparency" mode is quite common feature of noise cancelling headphones. All of the Bose NCs have had this for years. When you seal off the ear to provide NC you need to be able to hear yourself when youre on a phone call. So its more a necessity than a "nice to have".

They also have venting to equalize pressure.

for #2 - you generally want enough sound coming through to be safe, but I find the current ones often are unlistenable on the bus or walking down a street with traffic. Some isolation of constant noise would be fantastic.