With the announcement of iOS 17, news came not only to the iPhone, but also to the AirPods Pro that were used with this version of the system. Of course, only to the most recent 2nd generation AirPods Pro. The one that stands out the most is match noise and volume cancellation to the environment in what is known as adaptive audio.
Having those same headphones in my possession and having installed the iOS 17 betas on my iPhone, I had no choice but to try these new features. As a preview, I will tell you that Apple has done a very good job here, although there are still aspects to polish. Overall, quite satisfied.
Activating adaptive audio on AirPods Pro couldn’t be easier
Although the news was announced in June, at WWDC 2023, it did not arrive with the first betas of iOS 17. In fact, to be honest, I must admit that I forgot about it and stopped looking for it. It was in the foreseeable last beta in which I found it, so It will surely reach the entire public when iOS 17 is released next week.
The fact is that you don’t need to dig too deep, not even into the mysterious new developer settings released in iOS 17 (the mysterious part comes because, suddenly, they disappeared). As soon as you connect AirPods Pro 2 to an iPhone with iOS 17, the option appears. All this in the small and now classic window that appears below the iPhone screen and in which a quick guide to its functionalities is offered.
Then, To control it you just have to go to the control center. There we must press and hold the sound bar, which must have the AirPods Pro icon as an indication that they are connected. At the bottom the well-known cancellation modes, ambient sound, noise cancellation and the new ‘Adaptive’ mode will appear.
By clicking on that mode, more added options appear, such as choosing whether or not we want to adapt the noise cancellation and detect the conversation when we start talking. The spatial audio option launched by Apple a year and a half ago also appears there.
It should be said that Also in the settings we find options to activate the functions we want. All you have to do is open the iPhone’s own settings and enter ‘AirPods Pro’ (if they do not appear here, we must enter ‘Bluetooth’ and, next to ‘AirPods Pro’, click on the ‘i’ icon).
First tests and a good scare from Siri
Image: Apple
Although in the end it is still a detail (useful, by the way), I want to warn that The first time these options are used, Siri will notify us. In my case, I was about to listen to a podcast and, before 5 seconds of playback was up, it paused completely so that Siri could announce to me that it had indeed activated adaptive audio and explain how I could control it. As I said, the warning is good, although it gave me a good scare.
Removing the personal anecdote I experienced, I have to say that At first we may not notice anything new, although it depends on the environment. Hence it is adaptive. I was leaving the house to take a walk and on the way from the door to the elevator and from the elevator to the street there was silence and therefore the feeling was that of being in ambient mode.
However, it was going out into the street and starting to notice how The noises of cars or the murmurs of people were almost completely reduced. There the noise cancellation had already been activated and the “almost” comes from the limitations of these headphones, given that they have excellent noise cancellation for a TWS (for me, the best), but never at a level as high as headphones that also add a good dose of passive noise cancellation.
I must also recognize that Apple does not invent anything in the sense that there have already been headphones for years with similar functionalities. Everything starts from the idea of isolate ourselves from environmental noise when it is annoying and take us out of the bubble when necessary. However, and although it is still a new feature in AirPods, I admit that I liked it more than in other headphones that I have been able to try.
There are things to polish, but it is by no means a beta feature
I don’t know the details and technical complexity that implementing something like this must have, but in my experience I have perceived that AirPods Pro are capable of distinguishing sounds very well. Much better than others. An example is that it cancels out the sound of cars that are far away, but amplifies them when I am close.
I see this as very positive by virtue of being able to cross a street with certainty that we are not going to be run over. Yes, we must always look even at pedestrian crossings, but it is enough for us to be distracted for a second or at a corner where a car suddenly appears. There, I consider being able to hear the sound of the vehicles vital.
It is also interesting that lower the volume when a conversation is detected. Here I have a somewhat bittersweet taste, since it works, but it shows that it still needs to be polished. The first positive example was found when I stopped in the middle of the street to talk to an acquaintance, who started the conversation and, without me having said a word yet, automatically lowered the volume. Good.
The volume adapts when we speak (or are spoken to), but it still has a hard time differentiating when we simply cough
I have also noticed that when I am the one initiating the conversation, the volume also decreases, returning to the volume I had set once my speech ended (just like when the other person stops speaking). However, just as it detects environmental sounds very well, it errs on the side of not differentiating a simple cough from a conversation. It has not failed on all occasions, but enough so that it is clear that this is a point for improvement.
The big question I was asking myself, and that you are probably asking yourself, is how much the volume drops when it detects a conversation. And the truth is that I don’t have an exact answer because there isn’t one. It all depends on the volume that we have already established and that of our voice and that of our interlocutor. What is common in all cases is that it is enough to be able to continue the conversation without stopping listening to what we were playing on the iPhone in the background (it is up to us whether we prefer to pause or not to better attend to the conversation).
Another point, and this is purely personal and even understandable, is that when I walk my dog I tend to talk to him. Don’t take me for crazy and imagine a guy chatting about life with a canine. I mean saying phrases like “come on, let’s go” when he stops too long to sniff things he shouldn’t. In those moments I admit that it bothered me that the volume of the playback was lowered, but I already say that it is completely normal. How will Apple know if I talk to my dog? Or maybe he knows it and gives it importance, so he hears, maybe it’s even good.
Removing some drawbacks and purely personal issues, the adaptive sound reaches the AirPods in style
Whether jokes and purely personal anecdotes, now the conclusions, in general I find here a very well-worked functionality that was already a necessity. We did not see massive demonstrations outside the Apple headquarters, but anyone who knows of the existence of these functions and has also tried them, surely missed their arrival on the AirPods.
The pity is that it is limited to the latest AirPods Pro and is not present in the first generation. There will be reasons, whether they are technical or marketing issues. The fact is that, beyond the noise cancellation that was already there, I am immensely happy to be able to feel like I really have ‘Pro’ headphones in my ears. Now, let’s keep testing and see how it improves.
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