iOS 18 AirPods Pro 2 Firmware
With head gestures, users can control Siri on the AirPods Pro with a shake or a nod of the head. If you get a phone call, for example, you can shake your head no if you don't want to answer it, or nod to accept the call. Siri interactions can be used for responding to incoming messages, calls, and notifications.
Apple is adding Voice Isolation to the AirPods Pro to cut down on loud background sounds to make you easier to hear, and there is a new Personalized Spatial Audio feature specific to gaming.
Previously:
Update (2024-10-22): Chris Welch (Hacker News):
With iOS 18.1 and the soon-to-be-released AirPods firmware update, the AirPods Pro 2 will offer hearing protection at all times across noise cancellation, transparency, and adaptive audio modes. There’s no “concert mode” or a specific setting to toggle. You can think of this as an expansion of the loud sound reduction option that was already in place. Hearing protection is on by default, and Apple says “an all-new multiband high dynamic range algorithm” helps to preserve the natural sound of concerts and other live events.
[…]
For those 18 years and older with mild to moderate hearing loss, the AirPods Pro 2 can now serve as a clinical-grade hearing aid. Once enabled, you can also toggle on a “Media Assist” setting that uses your hearing test results to optimize the sound of music, phone calls, and video content.
3 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
I’m interested in how voice isolation in AirPods themselves compares to the voice isolation mode that’s been available in iOS for a while. Anyone with experience care to comment?
Sidenote: I think it’s pretty incredible how many significant new features Apple added to both generations of AirPods Pro years after they were released.
Been using it today for work calls and games, seems a lot better. People used to complain about background noise, so far so good. Only time I asked for comment they remarked that it sounded surprisingly good.
On both my Airpods Pros 2 (one Lightning, one USB-C) I keep losing amplification with custom transparency mode—it just cuts out, randomly. Anyone else using this mode and now find that it actually works? Because if these things really are going to become hearing aids, randomly losing amplification is a deeply unattractive feature.
