Apple is expected to announce its next-gen operating systems at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) that kicks off on June 9. However, the Cupertino-based tech giant could also announce new features for the AirPods during the WWDC keynote.
The folks at 9to5Mac report that Apple is working on five new features for the AirPods, including new head gestures, sleep auto-pause, camera control, Audio Mix, and improved pairing experience in shared iPads.
Apple introduced head gestures for the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 last year. These allow users to accept or decline Announce Calls and interact with or dismiss Announce Notifications without using their hands simply by nodding up and down or side-to-side.
The new head gestures will extend the Conversation Awareness volume adjustment before returning the users to their original noise-control settings. Moreover, users might be able to use a head gesture to end a Conversation Awareness volume adjustment, which is currently done by pressing and holding on the AirPods’ stem or swiping up on it.
Apple AirPods Pro 2
Speaking of the AirPods’ stem, the TWS will get the Camera Control feature, allowing users to take a picture with the paired iPhone or iPad’s camera by clicking on the AirPods’ stem.
Next up is sleep auto-pause, which will use sleep detection to automatically pause music playback if the user falls asleep while wearing their AirPods.
Further, we have Audio Mix, introduced by Apple last year alongside the iPhone 16 series. It separates background elements from speech with the help of machine learning and lets users choose from three voice options: In-frame, Studio, and Cinematic. The source claims that Apple is developing a similar “studio quality” mic mode for AirPods but didn’t provide more details about it.
Lastly, the source reports that Apple is working on a feature for AirPods to improve the pairing experience with shared iPads, which could be useful in classrooms where multiple students share a single device. “The goal is to streamline how AirPods connect to iPadOS in these settings, likely with less friction and fewer manual steps,” says the source.
We’ll hear more about these features next week if Apple indeed plans to introduce them at WWDC.