Apple is preparing a number of new features for AirPods, which may be announced at the WWDC 2025 developer conference, which starts on June 9. This was exclusively reported by 9to5Mac.
Among the innovations are expanded head gestures. Last year, Apple already introduced the ability to control the reception of calls and messages using head movements. Now the company plans to add new gestures, in particular for adjusting the volume in Conversation Awareness mode - a feature that automatically lowers the volume of music during a conversation. Currently, this requires tapping or swiping the AirPods stem, but soon it will be possible to do this with a head movement.
Another important new feature is automatic pause of playback when falling asleep. Many users are used to falling asleep with headphones on to music or podcasts, but currently this requires timers that are not always supported by all applications. Apple is working on technology that can detect the moment of sleep and automatically pause playback. The feature is expected to work both independently and in tandem with the Apple Watch, which already has built-in sleep detection.
Apple also plans to add the ability to control the iPhone or iPad camera using AirPods — pressing the earbud will launch the camera, which can be convenient for taking photos or videos.
In addition, the company is developing a new microphone mode, Audio Mix, which uses machine learning to separate voice from background and offer studio-quality sound, which should interest content creators.
As always, some of these features may be delayed or changed before the official release.
By the way, at WWDC 2025, we should also expect new Apple operating systems: iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26. They will receive a unified design under the code name Solarium.