One of our most sought-after features is coming to AirPods Pro 2, and it's not one of the five new AirPods features Apple announced at its WWDC 2024 event. The new feature will give you a lot more control over how Adaptive Audio Mode works (via from 9to5Mac), allowing you to adjust how much noise it blocks out from outside and providing the kind of smart control we've come to expect from the best noise-cancelling headphones from other manufacturers.
Adaptive Audio mode combines two ANC functions: active noise cancellation and Transparency mode. The former eliminates ambient sound, while the latter lets it in so you can remain aware of your surroundings, mixing it with your music. The adaptive audio mode is a little smarter, using noise cancellation power to reduce unnecessary background noise while still allowing voice or traffic to carry through. But at the moment there is only one setting for Adaptive Audio: you can have it on or off. iOS 18 will change that.
What iOS 18 will bring to your AirPods
The new feature was discovered in the latest beta version of AirPods firmware and offers two new settings: remove more noise or remove less. So this should mean that you find a balance that best suits your environment: perhaps you want to use “remove more noise” in the office, so that you basically only let sound in when someone wants to talk to you directly, and maybe you. You will use “remove less noise” if you use them in the house and want to hear what the family is doing, but you don't need to hear the noise of the dryer.
We would have liked even more control so we could adjust the settings ourselves, but as always with Apple, the focus is more on simplicity than full customization. And, without a doubt, three options are better than one.
Unfortunately for older AirPods Pro owners, this new feature is only coming to the AirPods Pro 2, and two other key new features – voice isolation for better call clarity and head gesture detection – also need the H2 chip from the second generation Pros.
But there are other new features coming to AirPods more broadly in the form of custom spatial audio with dynamic head tracking for gaming, which will expand to cover AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods Pro, and AirPods Max. Apple also promises that the AirPods Pro will get “the best wireless audio latency Apple has ever offered for mobile gaming,” as well as better voice quality during gaming sessions.
It'll be a while before new features arrive on your AirPods: iOS 18 isn't expected to launch until September (probably right around the time the iPhone 16 arrives).
