- New AirPods features claimed for WWDC 2025 unveiling
- AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 may get camera control, a new mic mode and new head gestures
- Sleep detection may also require Apple Watch
We’re just days away from Apple’s annual developer event, WWDC 2025, and that means the reveal of the next macOS, iOS and iPadOS are imminent. And if reports are correct, that means more really interesting upgrades for the AirPods 4, AirPods 4 with ANC and AirPods Pro 2.
The news comes via 9to5Mac, which has shared five features that it expects to be revealed during the keynote on Monday 9 June – although we won’t be able to actually use them until the beta versions are released in the run-up to their usual September launch date.
What new features are coming to AirPods in iOS 26?
iOS 26 – the numbering is reportedly moving to years instead of versions so that all of Apple’s operating systems’ numbers are in sync – will introduce five features: new head gestures, sleep auto-pause, camera control, audio mix, and wider classroom support.
Head gestures were added to AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 last year: you can decline calls (and some other notifications) with a shake of the head or nod to accept them. Now, Apple is apparently working on additional gestures including one that’ll extend the volume adjustment of Conversational Awareness, a mode that reduces audio when you’re talking.
Apple has also been working on detecting when you fall asleep while listening to your AirPods. However, it’s unclear whether this is going to be an AirPods/iPhone feature alone, or if it’ll require the Sleep Detection feature of the best Apple Watches.
The third feature is one of those “can’t believe they didn’t do it years ago” ones: controlling your camera shutter with your AirPods stem, just like you can do with the volume control on EarPods.
Audio Mix, which was introduced with the iPhone 16, is being enhanced too: 9to5Mac understands that there will be a new “studio quality” microphone mode that’ll make AirPods more attractive to the “holding little lavalier microphones as if they were full-sized handheld microphones” social media creator market.
Last but not least there will be improved classroom support that’ll make it easier to have multiple AirPods users connecting to the same iPad by removing some of the friction in the current pairing system.
It’s likely that we’ll hear about at least some of these features on Monday June 9th, although of course that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll definitely make it into iOS 26: after the smarter-Siri debacle we’re not taking anything for granted until it’s actually there in our iPhones.