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AirPods today offer a handful of different features related to hearing health and accessibility. However, a new report today says that Apple has big plans for iOS 18: a new “headphone mode” for AirPods Pro.
AirPods Pro with iOS 18
In the last edition from your Power On newsletterBloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes that the AirPods Pro won’t see any hardware changes in 2024. Instead, he says the “big news will be a major new headphone mode, arriving alongside iOS 18.”
AirPods already offer a feature called Live Listen, which launched as part of iOS 12 in 2018. This feature essentially turns an iPhone into a directional microphone, streaming audio captured by that iPhone to the AirPods in real time. Various testimonials over the years have shown how useful this feature can be.
Apple also introduced a Conversation Boost capability to AirPods Pro in 2021, which increases microphone pickup directly in front of you to better hear someone speaking to you. A 2022 study showed that some of these existing AirPods Pro features already compare well to much more expensive dedicated devices.
Also notable: in 2022, the fda established new guidelines to allow a category of hearing aids that can be purchased without a prescription. Hearing aids within this category can be sold directly to consumers in stores or online without a medical examination or fitting by an audiologist.
Further details about this new iOS 18 feature for AirPods Pro users are unclear. However, this is not the first time Gurman has written about Apple’s plans to bring new hearing health features to AirPods. Last year, he reported that Apple is also working on a hearing test feature for future AirPods.
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