Transcription
Hi everyone, Aaron here for zolotete and today Apple released a new AirPods firmware update bringing it to version 8A358 for iOS 26. This is available around the world at the same time for everyone on all supported AirPods.
And what that means is AirPods Pro 3, those are supported along with AirPods Pro 2, both lightning and USBC, and also AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation. Unfortunately, AirPods Max do not get an update. So, there's no changes here, at least for now, and they're only available on the AirPods that I just mentioned.
Now, I wanted to show you what's new, but first, let's take a look at how you can tell if they've been updated and how you can install the update. If you already know how to do that, be sure to check the description below for the chapters so you can jump ahead to what's new.
Now, in order to check if they've been updated, just go ahead and grab your AirPods, open them up, go to your phone, go to settings, and once they're connected, you'll see them here. Go into your AirPod settings here. Scroll all the way to the bottom and you'll see the version number. Now, you'll see this version is actually a couple behind at 8A356. The most recent version, like I mentioned earlier, is 8A358. So, these need to be updated.
My other AirPods updated on their own, AirPods 4. And so, if we open these up and take a look here, we'll go back. AirPods 4. If we scroll to the bottom, you'll see 8A358. We have the latest version. And if we go into it, you'll see that the case also has a matching version of 8A358. However, my AirPods Pro 3 have already updated, but the case has not. So, if we open this up again, we'll connect it, go into it, scroll to the bottom, and you'll see 8A358, and the case version is one behind at 8A357. So, we need to wait for this to update.
It will typically do it on its own, but in order to update your AirPods, there is no update button. Normally what you'll do is just leave them nearby or you can plug them into a Mac. They'll typically update pretty quickly on their own like that. But in order to get these to update, I find that you need to have about 50% charge or more in them. And then in order to update them, what I typically do is I'll place one in my ear and then listen to music for about 30 seconds. And then once I'm done listening to music, I'll place them back in the case, close the case, set the phone down, lock the phone, and walk away. Within 5 to 15 minutes, they'll typically update. If they don't, I'll repeat the process and do it again. So, that's normally how I get them to update, but again, sometimes they'll update on their own. Yours may have already done them by themselves. So, they may have already been updated and they should be ready to go. But again, my case hasn't updated. Sometimes it will once you plug it in since it's waiting for more power or something like that.
Now, as far as new features, well, if we go to Apple's website about AirPods firmware updates, you'll see the latest version available here. And if we scroll down, you can see what it says about it. So, you'll see it says version 8A358 release notes, bug fixes, and other improvements. So, Apple is not giving us a whole lot to go on here, but I did notice something when I tested them out.
One of the issues I complained about before when using AirPods Pro 3 is when I was connected to a Mac or sometimes an iPhone and a notification would come in, they would crackle or sort of stutter and stop playing and then resume playing on their own. It was almost like they were disconnecting and reconnecting every time a notification came in. That appears to be fixed for me this time. So, that's great to see.
And auto pause seems to work well. So, basically what I mean is place this in your ear, take it out of your ear when you're listening to music, the music should stop. Place it back in your ear, it should resume. So, it seems to be working fine as far as that goes. And also, I tested it switching between devices. So, maybe I'm listening to music on my iPhone. So, we'll do that here. And then I'll switch to my Mac. So, if I click play on my Mac that's nearby, you'll see it switched over to my Mac right away. And then if I press play on the iPhone, it should jump right back. And it did. So, it's working very well as far as jumping back and forth, handing off between my Mac and my iPhone. So, it's working as I would expect. Seems to be working fine.
Other people have said that using the button for the camera control here isn't working well for them prior to this update. So, I thought we'd show you that on camera as well. So, if we go into our settings, what they mean by that is there's a new setting here in iOS 26 for camera remote. So, if we press once, we can take a photo. We'll go into our photos here, and let me go ahead and press the stem here. So, we'll do that. And you'll see it activates right away. It counts down and then wants to take a photo. So, that seems to be working just fine. No real issues there for me. And it looks like that's all been resolved. Also, the connectivity in general seems to be improved where it just connects. I'm not having disconnects. It's connecting to devices as you would expect. So, no real issues there, at least for me.
However, I did find that it had one issue when I was listening to music on my Mac. I would mute the sound and then unmute it, maybe change the volume, and when I unmuted it, it would crackle like it was reconnecting or maybe the bit rate dropped and then was resuming. So, this happened over and over. I can repeat it as well. So, that's happening on the current new firmware update for me. So, it's definitely better than it was, but that issue still remains for me.
As far as the other features, well, it could have something to do with iOS 26.1 in the translate feature. So, that's something that's new. So, if you're using translate, you can translate using your AirPods and do it live back and forth. So, you'll see here we have the live option, choose your language, and then translate back and forth. And we have a bunch of new options in iOS 26.1. So, you can translate their language or we'll pick their language as Japanese. Maybe we'll have to download that and then switch maybe to my language, English in the US, and then it should work properly. This may have something to do with this as well to make sure that it works properly with the AirPods. But again, we won't know that until iOS 26.1 is fully released and we see how it works. But overall, it could have something to do with that. But again, Apple has just said improvements and bug fixes. But they did definitely fix some bugs here.
As far as audio quality, I did test them and listen to music on the AirPods Pro 3. I really noticed no difference whatsoever. It sounded clear like it always does. I actually really appreciate the sound of these. And as far as anything else, well, they haven't really mentioned. So, I checked sound quality. I also listened to some music like I mentioned and also checked noise cancellation. It worked very well. I couldn't hear myself type when I was trying out my keyboard and it was working as you would expect. So, I actually have a keyboard right here. And typically what I'll do to test this is I can use AirPods Pro 2 type on the keyboard, then put an AirPods Pro 3 type on the keyboard, see what it's like with with noise cancellation. I couldn't hear a thing. So, they're working really well. Of course, you do need a good seal in your ear.
Now, there is another issue that could be resolved, but I didn't personally experience it, so I wasn't able to test it. But basically what that was is if you were doing a hearing test, sometimes it would tell you to clean the AirPods. Or maybe it would just tell you to clean AirPods Pro 3 and it wouldn't actually work for you even though they looked like they were brand new. Some people were getting a message here where it says clean AirPods Pro to improve audio performance or again like I said, they were doing a hearing test and it just wouldn't allow it because it kept telling them to clean their AirPods. So hopefully this resolves that issue. We don't know if it does. We'll it will probably take a few days to figure that out. But if you had that issue and you've installed the update, I'd love to hear from you in the comments below if it's been resolved.
As far as anything else, well, I would love for Apple to update their release notes and tell us specifically what's fixed. That would be very helpful so we not only would know that it's fixed, but also that we could provide feedback and tell them, hey, you said it was fixed, but I'm still having issues here or there. So, this would be something I would love to see their documentation improve here, where they did with the initial release for iOS 26, talking about what they've added, live translation, and more. Again, we need more of that here with bug fixes and the other improvements. I think it would be great for not only us knowing what's fixed, but also helpful for Apple to know whether or not it's actually resolved for the millions of users they're actually supporting here.
But let me know your experience with the latest firmware update on your AirPods, what version you're using, if you have that clean your AirPods message. I'd love to hear from you as well, and let me know what version of iOS you're running as well. I'll link this wallpaper in the description like I normally do. And if you haven't subscribed already, please subscribe. And if you enjoyed the video, please give it a like. As always, thanks for watching. This is Aaron. I'll see you next time.