Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has reported that some of Apple’s AirPods
may offer a new ‘hearing health’ feature with support of iOS 17. Additionally, he
says that all of Apple’s upcoming headphones will be equipped with USB-C.
“Apple is preparing to give the earbuds a fresh boost. It’s exploring major new hearing health and body-temperature features, and is planning cheaper models and a transition to USB-C charging ports,” states Gurman in a latest Bloomberg newsletter.
The AirPods’ current hearing feature is ‘audiograms’ or
audio profiles that enable the technology to tune itself to the wearer’s hearing
abilities after identifying where their hearing may be inadequate. As and
advancement of these hearing detection abilities, the device will reportedly be
able to detect the wearer’s temperature via their ear canal. The feature may
only be limited to the AirPods Pro, though. A similar temperature-taking
feature was also previously launched in the Apple Watch Series 8, for menstrual
cycle tracking.
While the new AirPods Pro hearing update will likely be a
reality, it may not happen any time soon. However, the USB-C version of the
AirPods Pro is expected to arrive later this year, more precisely in the second
or third quarter. Lastly, Apple is also reported to be developing the new AirPods
Max models, which may be available as soon as next year.
