Apple unveiled several new improvements to its AirPods lineup during the 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote session on Monday. The Cupertino-based tech giant has added new gesture-based controls for interacting with Siri, head-tracking capabilities while playing games, and improved audio during voice calls. These features will be available on select AirPods. Currently, these features are available for trial by members of the Apple Developer Program in developer beta. In fact, a previous report claimed that the tech giant is working on a more affordable version of its True Wireless Stereo (TWS) headphones that could arrive later this year.
AirPods Pro (2nd generation) gets new features
While AirPods didn’t dominate the announcement cycle during the WWDC 2024 keynote event, Apple unveiled some big improvements for its TWS devices. AirPods Pro (2nd generation), which launched in September 2023 with the H2 chipset, are now getting advanced capabilities powered by Apple silicon.
Gesture-based Siri interactions will allow users to respond to a virtual assistant without any verbal or tactile feedback. With this feature, AirPods Pro 2 users can nod their head to say yes and shake their head to say no to Siri announcements. Apple says this could be helpful when the user is in a crowded or quiet area and may not want to speak out loud.
Siri Interactions, enabled by the H2 chipset, also allow users to answer or reject calls, interact with messages, manage notifications and more via gestures.
Another new feature exclusive to AirPods Pro (2nd generation) is voice isolation. This feature is already available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and now it’s being extended to the latest AirPods Pro. Voice Isolation improves speaker voice quality and removes background noise to provide clearer sound quality during calls. The company said it used machine learning through the H2 chipset to bring this feature to the TWS device.
AirPods get personalized surround sound for gaming
Apple is also adding personalized surround sound to multiple AirPods variants. This feature comes with dynamic head tracking that will be activated when the user is playing a game while using TWS headphones. Although it is designed for gaming, it will also deliver impressive sound when listening to music, watching movies and more.
AirPods Pro (2nd generation) users will also be able to use this feature to improve audio latency while gaming on iPhone. Furthermore, they will also get 16-bit, 48KHz audio quality when chatting with teammates and other in-game players using their servers.
