Apple’s AirPods are about to get even smarter with adaptive sound and conversational awareness – Apple

Two years ago, this included boosting conversation and better collaboration with Find My. A year earlier, the company announced spatial audio and automatic device switching. At WWDC 2023, the company announced several new improvements, such as Adaptive Audio, which intelligently combines noise cancellation with transit transparency depending on the conditions around you.

Adaptive Audio will appear as an additional option next to Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and Transparency Mode. When active, AirPods Pro constantly analyze your environment and adjust ANC and Transparency for the best listening experience.

Conversation Awareness will automatically turn on Transparency Mode and lower the music volume when your AirPods detect speech. The best offerings from other companies, such as Sony for example, already have a similar function. Once you stop talking, the voice will return to normal.

Apple also introduced better background noise reduction to prevent people on the other end of the call from hearing unwanted sounds. The AirPods ad Apple showed at WWDC this year featured a ribbon surrounding a person wearing the second generation Apple AirPods Pro. To the person on the other end of the call, the music the band was playing was barely perceptible.

Apple’s automatic cross-platform switching — which is frustratingly buggy at times — should work faster and more reliably when using AirPods, according to Apple. The updates are expected to roll out this fall alongside the release of iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and tvOS 17.