If you thought the new Apple AirPods for 2019 were looking a little feature-light compared to what we were expecting from a true AirPods 2 hardware revision, perhaps we’ve all been a little too hasty in casting judgement. At WWDC 2019 Apple revealed a pair of significant new features coming to Apple’s true-wireless headphones.
First up, AirPods can now not only read message as notifications come in, but it can seamlessly respond to them, too. That’s thanks to SiriKit on your paired device – as a message is read out, a short pause will occur after it, giving you the opportunity to respond without needing to prompt Siri to dictate your words.
Whether its Apple’s own messaging app you’re using, or a third party messaging service, this feature will work across both.
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Share a song
Audio sharing is also coming to Apple’s audio ecosystem. If you and your buddy both have a pair of AirPods, you need simply to tap two phones together and you’ll both be able to listen in with your individual AirPods to whatever is playing.
This also isn’t limited to any one app, being a system-level feature powered by SiriKit. So whether you’re watching a film, an online clip or streaming a song, you’ll be able to get this feature working.
While there’s still lots we’d like to see introduced to future AirPod models, these smart new features will be great conveniences for anyone jumping in with Apple’s earphones today.
Expect to see these new features land with the full release of iOS 13, which is likely to land in September 2019.
- Catch all the announcements from the event in our WWDC 2019 news hub
