It’s time to do that dance again: Apple has released a new beta firmware update for its AirPods wireless earbuds, and no one is quite sure what it does.
Firmware version 6E188, up from version 6B34 released in December, is currently in beta and, as MacRumors reports, is only available to developers. (For this reason, it has not yet replaced 6B34 on Apple’s firmware listing page.) This is the second generation AirPods Pro and applies to the USB-C and Lightning editions of this device .
Apple has been testing iOS 17.4 for about a month and should arrive on phones next week. It’s likely that this beta will arrive alongside this release or shortly after.
But what does it actually do? TO DO? No one outside of Apple really knows, and that’s not unusual. A look at the firmware page listed above shows that the last seven have all listed, under their release notes, simply “Bug fixes and other improvements.” Apple doesn’t really tell people what firmware updates change about how AirPods behave, and even that boilerplate text is misleading because there are often only “big fixes” and no “other improvements.” at all.
At times like this, the best approach is to review recent news to see if the AirPods models in question have any obvious, high-profile bugs that would require fixing. But there’s not much to say about the AirPods Pro.
Interestingly, the forum response to the MacRumors article has a number of complaints that the update could possibly be intended to address, but they cover a range of issues – auto-switching, inconsistent Bluetooth connection, loss charges – none of which have been resolved. reported in large volumes; These are more likely isolated issues with individual units rather than fundamental issues that need to be fixed at the firmware level. (One cynic even suggests that the update could be aimed at weakening the headphones’ performance in order to make customers more likely to buy an imminent new model.)
Usually we would say that the best way to find out what the update does is to install it. (Or rather, wait for it to install itself. This will happen automatically in the near future when the AirPods are in their case and charging.) But since this one is for developers only, we’ll all have to wait that it is installed. made public to the general public.
