Apple held its annual Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday night. This event allows the Cupertino-based company to preview some of the latest software changes in the pipelines for iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch and Mac to allow developers plenty of time to update their apps to support the new functionality and designs ahead of the roll-out worldwide in the autumn.
But the opening keynote, which was held as an online-only event for the first time in its history due to the ongoing public health crisis, had a surprise in-store for Apple fans – there is also an upgrade coming to AirPods. For the first time, Apple announced new software improvements designed to boost its wireless Bluetooth earbuds.
The first is reserved for those with the pricier AirPods Pro.
The noise-cancelling ‘buds will now offer “Spatial Audio”, which uses some nifty software tricks to try to recreate a surround sound-like experience – with audio sounding like it’s coming from all around you. When playing video games, watching movies and television shows on your iPhone and iPad, this sound should make for a much, much more immersive experience.
To create this cinema-like experience with AirPods Pro, Apple has to employ dynamic head tracking so that surround sound channels are always in the right place, even as you turn your head or move your device around. Clearly, we’ll have to get our ears on this new feature to test it out, but it sounds incredibly promising.
Watching a horror movie and hearing the thud of ominous footsteps behind you while watching on the train to work, or being surrounded by booming music while playing the latest Apple Arcade launch on a plane journey could make AirPods Pro an absolute must-have. But those with the regular AirPods were treated to some exciting news as well.
New battery notifications will pop-up when your AirPods charge is in the red to let you know when you need to charge your AirPods by popping them back in the carry charge case.
However, most exciting of all is a new feature known as Automatic Switching. Since launch, pairing AirPods with your iPhone will immediately make the earbuds appear in the list of paired Bluetooth devices for every Apple devices associated with your Apple ID. So pairing with your iPhone means your AirPods will instantly pop-up in the Bluetooth menu of your MacBook, for example.
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With Automatic Switching, AirPods will automatically switch between those Apple devices as you switch between them. For example, if you finish a phone call on your iPhone and pick up your iPad to watch a movie, AirPods automatically switch over. Apple will use accelerometer data to detect when the device has been put down. It also can detect when users press play on a song or start a new call from another of their Apple gadgets.
AirPods have always been firm favourites for those deeply invested in devices from the Apple Store. With this latest feature, those who own an Apple-branded tablet, laptop and smartwatch will be rewarded for their loyalty with a convenient new trick.
Like iOS 14, iPadOS 14, macOS 11 Big Sur and watchOS 7, which were all announced during the WWDC 2020 keynote, the latest software for AirPods will launch sometime “this fall”. In previous years, Apple has started to roll out the latest software in September – soon after its annual hardware event to unveil new iPhone hardware.
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