Apple’s AirPods changed the game for in-ear headphones when they launched back in 2016. A second-gen version appeared in 2019 and the latest, third-generation, model arrived in 2021. AirPods Pro, which added noise-cancelling, were launched in 2019, and updated in 2022. Now, it seems that striking new features may be added in updates to the true-wireless earbuds, including remarkable hearing-health and temperature features.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter, Apple is going to give its headphones, “a fresh boost”. Here are the details claimed in this new report.
Hearing Health
The AirPods Pro already have features which can help the wearer hear better, such as Conversation Boost. And you can personalize the audio just by letting compatible iPhone cameras take a look at the shape of your ear.
Gurman says, “The company is working on a new hearing test feature that will play different tones and sounds to allow the AirPods to determine how well a person can hear. The idea is to help users screen for hearing issues, not unlike how the Apple Watch ECG app checks for heart problems.”
This makes sense and could mean much more personalized audio still, boosting the sounds we don’t hear so well, perhaps.
And Gurman says it has ramifications elsewhere: “Separately, Apple is exploring how it could better position AirPods as a hearing aid.”
New Sensors
The report also claims that new sensors may be added to future AirPods or AirPods Pro which, “can determine body temperature via a wearer’s ear canal. That type of data is considered more accurate than wrist temperature, which is collected on the Apple Watch Series 8 and Ultra models while users sleep. Apple relies on that information for fertility tracking but wants to expand its use to determine if a person has, say, a cold or other illness.”
We’ve heard rumors of health sensors being added before, but this takes things to a new level. The downside? These changes could be years away.
What’s Next?
Coming sooner, it seems, are more modest changes, though still important. These include switching the charging socket on the AirPods Pro case from Lightning to USB-C, the same switch we’re expecting to see on this year’s iPhones. Though Gurman doesn’t specify a timeline for this, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was as soon as this fall.
Does this mean a new-generation of AirPods Pro? After all, Apple doesn’t like to miss a trick by upgrading a processor at the same time? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Remember that when the third-generation AirPods were released, with a case featuring MagSafe technology, Apple quietly added the same upgrade to the first-generation AirPods Pro with nary a fanfare.
I’d expect the same thing to happen with USB-C. It’s possible regular AirPods could change to USB-C at the same time, though I’d suspect only for the third-generation model, not the second-gen AirPods, which are still available.
But as Gurman points out, AirPods have been upgraded on a roughly two-year basis: after the introduction in 2016, the second release was Spring 2019 and the third in late 2021. So, maybe fourth-gen AirPods will land this year? We’ll see.
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