There are a lot of excellent earbuds out there, but if you're in the Apple ecosystem, few options are better than AirPods. While Apple's earbuds offer fantastic audio quality in their own right, their real selling point is how well they work with the company's other products. If you have one device, like an iPhone, your AirPods will instantly pair with it when you pop them in your ears; if you have multiple devices, like a Mac or an iPad, your AirPods will automatically switch between them as you start different audio sources. If you have an Apple TV, you can quickly pair your AirPods with a button press on the remote and watch movies and shows without bothering anyone else in the house. For those of us in the ecosystem, AirPods are pretty great.
There is one major downside to AirPods, however, especially for Android users coming from a competitor's earbuds: settings and management. See, AirPods are ideal when you don't have to tinker with the defaults. Auto-pairing, auto-switching, Conversation Awareness: The automated settings make AirPods easy to use. But once you start thinking about changing the settings, things get a bit murky. Rather than a dedicated AirPods app to manage these defaults, Apple instead spreads out your AirPods' options throughout your device's OS. Take iOS, for instance: You can control a number of settings from the volume slider in Control Center, including noise cancellation, Conversation Awareness, and Spatial Audio. But you won't find other settings, especially any that have to do with customizing your AirPods. For that, you'll need to dive into the Settings app. When paired, your AirPods should appear towards the top of the page, but if not, you might need to jump into Bluetooth settings, then tap the (i) next to your AirPods. Here, you'll find all of the settings and features you can adjust on your AirPods, minus EQ. If you want to change that (at least for Apple Music), you'll need to find the Music app's settings page, then "EQ." In short, the whole experience is a bit of a mess.
iOS 27 may improve AirPods management
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple may be improving things with its upcoming iOS 27 update. Gurman says that Apple "has heard the feedback" about the lackluster experience of managing AirPods settings, and while the company isn't necessarily building a dedicated app, it is taking steps to update the AirPods settings menu.
The goal here is to make the menu "more functional, better organized, and more streamlined." Details are thin, but Gurman says the overhaul should make AirPods easier to work with, and users should be able to clearly see all the features their AirPods are capable of from this new menu. Perhaps this means a more permanent placement in the Settings app, as well as a reorganized settings menu, with clearly labeled categories and explanations for all features.
Personally, I think Apple should consider adding graphics and animations in this space. Some features are too complicated for a quick text blurb: People may need to see how things work in order to learn how to use those features themselves. One of my favorite AirPods Pro perks is Adaptive Transparency, which can lower the loudness of sounds without blocking them. Teaching users how to use this feature, and even how to adjust it to make it more or less sensitive, would be an excellent use of this settings redesign.
What do you think so far?
AirPods really need a dedicated app
While this could be a step in the right direction, AirPods are in desperate need of a dedicated app. Apple can make the new settings menu as clear and easy to follow as possible, but how many people are going to go digging through their Settings app to find these options? I think new AirPods users are much more likely to try an app on their iPhones called "AirPods," and learn about all the things their new earbuds can do for them—and how they can personalize the experience to their needs.
Plus, it's beyond time for Apple to offer some sophisticated EQ and tuning options, which would fit perfectly in an AirPods app. While the overall sound experience is great for most users, plenty of other earbuds come with these adjustments, which let users customize the sound experience to their liking. Apple's built-in EQ presets are far from adequate, since you can't actually customize each. If "Bass Booster" doesn't actually boost the bass enough for you, too bad. Apple doesn't love customers breaking out from its core design, but when it comes to AirPods, especially AirPods Pro, I think the company should relent.
Based on Bloomberg's reporting, it sounds like an AirPods app isn't coming anytime soon, so I should consider myself lucky I'm getting improved AirPods settings at all with iOS 27. But if Apple wants to seriously update the AirPods management experience, I hope they consider a dedicated app for iOS 28—or even a future version of iOS 27.
