{"id":46447,"date":"2025-01-15T11:37:03","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T16:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=46447"},"modified":"2025-01-15T11:37:03","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T16:37:03","slug":"airpods-pro-2-and-airpods-4-pushed-into-transparency-mode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/15\/airpods-pro-2-and-airpods-4-pushed-into-transparency-mode\/","title":{"rendered":"AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 Pushed Into Transparency Mode"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spencer Dailey<\/a> (via Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago I noticed my pair of AirPods Pro 2 aggressively switching me into Transparency mode. It seemed like a bug. Again and again I would have to manually switch back out of Transparency mode. Annoying.<\/p>

Then a few days later, Apple removed the ability<\/strong><\/em> for me switch out of Transparency mode altogether!<\/p>

There are ways to reverse each of these changes (the force switching and the Off removal), but the whole process was a major pain as a user to figure out, it wasn’t simple to reverse even once I knew how to, and there wasn’t any heads up that I remember getting from Apple explaining the changes. This led to me and a lot of<\/em> people being confused.<\/p>

Well over 100M<\/a> people own AirPods. Here are some reddit posts (1<\/a>, 2<\/a>, 3<\/a>, 4<\/a>, 5<\/a>) made by users frustrated over these AirPods changes. Notably, none of these reddit posts contain in their comments all of the steps needed to revert the changes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

iOS 18 and macOS 15 have a new Off Listening Mode<\/strong> setting<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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For AirPods Pro 2 paired with compatible devices, enable the setting called Off Listening Mode, which allows you to turn off all noise control technology.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

If you don’t enable the Off<\/strong> mode, the AirPods will only show the Transparency<\/strong>, Adaptive<\/strong>, and Noise Cancellation<\/strong> modes. The regular mode, without extra processing, is gone.<\/p>\n\n

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In frustration, I eventually Googled myself down a rabbit hole where I learned: all of this is likely tied to a relatively new feature called Loud Sound Reduction<\/a> that only works if AirPods are in an active “Noise Control” mode. So Apple perhaps recently decided that everyone needed this feature enabled, and that’s why they made all these annoying changes to Noise Control? I can only speculate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

This is odd because I find that unwanted sounds are much louder<\/em> in Transparency mode. I’ve always found this mode off-putting and rarely use it.<\/p>\n\n

He also points out that the Loud Sound Reduction<\/strong> setting looks like it can’t be turned off. You have to find the toggle in elsewhere in Settings ‣ Accessibility<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

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But you know what? tvOS still<\/em> did not show an “Off” mode for my AirPods 2! I ended up needing to hard reset my AirPods<\/em>, change all the settings mentioned above on iOS for a second time, and then let tvOS rediscover them before “Off” would appear there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n