One of the more unnoticed announcements from WWDC23 involves AirPods. Although the Apple Vision Pro was the absolute novelty of the event, capturing all eyes and attention, those of Cupertino presented a series of very interesting software innovations for AirPods, most relevant being adaptive audio.
Adaptive Audio is available on the second-generation AirPods Pro and combines transparency mode with active noise cancellation mode. Basically it will cancel out the noise we have around us, but if it detects something important like someone starting to talk to us it will let that sound through, lower the volume of what we are listening to and block the rest of the noise from outside. At the moment it is only available in beta format, and although its installation is somewhat complicated, it is worth it.
You need a Mac, iPhone and (obviously) AirPods Pro 2
Unfortunately, if you don’t have any of these three devices, you won’t be able to install this beta to take advantage of adaptive audio. You don’t need to install the macOS Sonoma beta, although you do need to install the iOS 17 beta, otherwise the new functions will not work.
The first thing you will need to do, once you have iOS 17 on your iPhone, is go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Developer Mode. Most likely, as is my case, it’s not there. To make it appear, you will need to follow the following steps (if for some reason that seems like it, you can just skip all of that):
Go from your Mac – on which Ventura 13.3 at least is installed – on the Apple Developer website and sign in with the same Apple ID that is linked to your iPhone. Most likely it will ask you for some sort of double check, so keep an eye on your phone as you will surely need to confirm the connection.
Once inside, you need to click on “Tools and Resources” and under the “Software Downloads” option, tap on “Show Downloads”. There it will take you to a page where you can see all available beta versions. You’ll need to tap on “Applications” in the top right, and as soon as you see something that says “Xcode 15 Beta 2” you’ll need to tap on “Show Downloads” just below. There it will take you to another page where the first thing you will see will be “Xcode 15 Beta 2” and below that something that says “Show details”. Click here. It will display a menu from which you need to deselect the iOS 17 optionthen click on “Xcode 15 Beta 2 and selected platforms” which will download it to your Mac.
The file weighs around three gigabytes and download time will depend on your internet connection, although it shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes if you’re using fiber optics. Once installed, open it and plug in your iPhone (important that you have iOS 17 installed) by cable to your Mac. You will need to give “Trust” on your iPhone to proceed.
If everything worked as it should, once you go to Settings > Privacy & Security, you will find a feature called “developer mode”. You will need to access it, activate it and restart the iPhone. As soon as you turn on the phone, make sure to click on “Activate” in the message that will appear as soon as you unlock it. Otherwise, you will have to repeat this process.
Now you will need to go back to phone settings, access a new option called “Developer”, there you will need to scroll down, access “Pre-release beta firmware” and activate the “toggle” next to your Second generation of AirPods Pro. Please note that since you clicked “Pre-Release Beta Firmware” until this tab is open, it may take a few seconds. It will look like it’s been blocked, but it’s not. Give it 15 or 20 seconds and it will work.
From there, all you have to do is wait for your second-generation AirPods Pro to update. There is no button or option to do it on the fly like on the iPhone, instead This is an automatic process over which we have no control.. Of course, there are methods to force it, although that’s already something you need to evaluate.
We hope this tutorial helped you test out the new features of the second-generation AirPods Pro before most. Of course, remember that betas are betas, and so they are likely to be buggy, issues, bugs and more. Always proceed with caution and assess whether it is worth not waiting until September, when the final official version should be released.
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