The AirPods family looks set to get a big upgrade at WWDC 2025 thanks to several new features coming to Apple's wireless earbuds in tandem with iOS 26 and macOS 26.
According to a report from 9to5Mac, at least five new updates coming to Apple's native apps will result in greater functionality with AirPods and could be announced during the keynote.
New head gestures
Apple's head gestures for AirPods arrived last year, allowing you to to nod or shake your head to accept or decline calls. You could do the same to interact with or dismiss certain notifications. This year, we could see these gestures expanded to include new head gestures.
One of which seems likely to between extending the time a Conversation Awareness volume change lasts for. At present, you can end a volume adjustment by either pressing and holding the AirPods stem or swiping up, but this would give you a nice hands-free gesture to accomplish the same thing.
Auto-pause for sleep
Are you guilty of falling asleep while wearing your AirPods? A new auto-pause feature could debut next week that will trigger when the wearer falls asleep.
What's not clear at this point is whether or not the AirPods will deduce when you fall asleep themselves or if this feature needs to work in tandem with the Apple Watch to be successful.
Camera control
Giving its users more ways to control their iPhone camera is the name of the game this year. First we had the Camera Control button on the iPhone 16 and now it seems the AirPods are getting in on the action.
According to 9to5Mac's sources, the this new feature built into iOS 26 and iPad OS 26 will allow users to snap a picture from their iPhone or iPad by squeezing the AirPods' stem. We could start seeing a lot of pictures where iPhone users are all holding their ears.
Microphone enhancement
One of the big features the iPhone 16 launched with was "Audio Mix", which used AI to separate background noise from speech to deliver "studio quality" audio when you record videos. We put it to the test and it's genuinely impressive.
Well, those smarts look to be coming to the AirPods via an upgrade that would essentially give them a studio quality mic. That would, presumably, allow them to compete with lapel mics for video creators. And, of course, it'll make you sound better when taking phone calls.
Better pairing
Being able to pair AirPods seamlessly with multiple Apple devices is one of the reasons the headphones are as well-loved as they are. Now it seems Apple is looking to develop its pairing technology to make it easier for AirPods to be paired with shared iPads.
According to 9to5Mac, this is likely to be used in classroom and other teaching environments where multiple students use the same device.
When are these features arriving?
The unnamed sources speaking to 9to5Mac seem pretty convinced Apple will reveal these features during the opening keynote at WWDC 2025 next week.
Everything kicks off with that keynote on June 9 as Apple will give us updates on all the software improvements its been working on. And we're expecting a major UI overhaul and a brand new naming convention to go along with it.
The keynote starts at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT / 6 p.m. BST, and you'll be able to watch a WWDC 2025 live stream on YouTube. You can also check out our WWDC 2025 news hub here for everything to expect at the event next week.
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