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No plan for hearing aid features in UK
- Thread starter darthbane2k
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It's a legal issue. They're not withholding features out of spite.
We know this.
Many customers are going into Apple Stores in the UK or other countries that haven’t been approved to discuss the hearing aid feature of the AirPod Pro 2s. The staff at the Apple Stores haven’t been mentioning that the feature is unavailable in their countries and that is not only unforgiveable, it's not good for business.
Many, many people have been buying them for the hearing aid feature only to get home and try to set them up, only to find that they can't. The Apple community forum is full of people who have done exactly that.
Many if them will have bought them online or from other retailers but Apple store staff should know better.
Either the Apple Store staff don't know themselves OR they are lying by omission.
Obviously not all of us do 😉
Or people are buying AirPods without doing their homework and without asking questions.
I don't agree with you.
Many, many people don't do much research especially when they are getting information about a product at an Apple Store to discuss the hearing aid features of the AirPods. One of the first things the staff should tell a customer is that the feature they are specifically buying them for is not currently available in their country.
This is America (where I am anyway), you don’t have to agree with anything.
A, you’re assuming people are SHARING their specific reason for buying them, and B, it’s an obscure (from Apple’s perspective and from the original purpose of AirPods) feature. “Should” store personnel be aware of it NOT being a feature in their country? Sure, I suppose so… but I can see why maybe they’re concentrating on actual “selling” features rather than on what the product DOESN’T do. Caveat emptor.
I’m a hearing aid wearer myself, but I haven’t upgraded my AirPods Pro 1st generation mainly because I can’t think of why I’d want hearing aids with a <5 hr battery life. I’m sure there’s an application for it - but it’s not an obvious one to me.
Does anyone know what happens if I travel from the UK to a country where the hearing aid feature is available? Would it work for me in that country? Would I need to download anything? Would it still work when I return to the UK?
And what happens when a US resident comes to the UK? Does the hearing aid function continue to work for them?
From my research your country is based on the location when you set up your Apple ID or maybe the country location of your credit card. I doubt that will work. If someone sets their AirPods up in the US, there is no reason why they wouldn’t continue to work in a different country.
If you have an older Apple iPhone or iPad running an older IOS than 18.1 you can set them up via Settings/Accessibility/Headphone Accommodations.
You keep saying "older than iOS 18.1" but I think it's only iOS 17 and 18.0. I don't think that feature was in iOS 16.
It was in IOS 14 in 2020 and worked with the original AirPods Pro.
Apple Introduces Hearing Aid Functionality to Airpods Pro
Apple has introduced hearing aid functionality to Airpods Pro as part of their new IOS update, don't throw your hearing aids away just yet though
Hmmmm. Well, what I can say is that I tried this on iOS 16 and AirPods Pro (I forget if it was APP 1 or 2), and the effect I got from that was nothing compared to what I get from iOS 18.It was in IOS 14 in 2020 and worked with the original AirPods Pro.
Apple Introduces Hearing Aid Functionality to Airpods Pro
Apple has introduced hearing aid functionality to Airpods Pro as part of their new IOS update, don't throw your hearing aids away just yet thoughwww.hearingaidknow.com
iOS 18 sounds very close to what my hearing aids from the 1990's did. What I got from iOS 16 was more like a hearing amplification device, not a real hearing aid.
Maybe iOS 17 was better than 16, or maybe for your hearing loss, it works better than for me.
Basically, when you say "that function" you may be thinking of something different than what I'm thinking of. For you, AirPods functioned as hearing aids since iOS 14. For me, it only started acting as hearing aids with iOS 18.1. Whether or not iOS 17 would have worked for me as hearing aids, we'll never know.
Right, the headphone accommodations prior to the hearing aid function as I always used them were for media played through headphones/earbuds. The hearing aid feature is much different - it works all of the time, whenever you have the AirPods Pro 2 in, whether you are listening to media or not.
All I did was show you a link to an article from 2020 to prove that the hearing aid feature has been available for a long time.
I started using the AirPods Pro 2s in September before IOS 18.1 arrived and found that they are better than the Jabras tried in Costco. Because i never rush to upgrade to any new OS whether it's on my iPhone or my Mac they continued to work while everybody else was rushing to upgrade to 18.1.
People who had been using them for a while lost the use of their audiogram in countries where they havn't been approved. People who went out and bought them without checking if they were available in their country have been VERY disappointed.
They still work well for me using 17.7.1 and they work well. I will find out how much better 18.1 actualy is if, and when, the UK has been approved for their use.
In the meantime, I will continue to use them without any restrictions.
What do YOU class as a heaing amlifucation device? I undertand it is a device you put in your ears and ALL frequencies are amplified.
The AirPods allow me to create an audiogram or upload mine from my hearing test at Costco and the frequencies missing from my ears are those that are boosted. The Noise cancelling is excellent AND Loud Noise reduction works really, really well.
I'm afraid you are 100% wrong. Going back to when AirPod Pro 2s were launched in 2022 the hearing aid feature works all of the time. If it is different at all to 18.1, the differences are in the simplification of the menus and the addition of a hearing test that is really similar to the Mimi hearing test app. Not forgetting the IOS 18.1 geographical lock for people who live in the wrong country where they haven’t been approved.
The writer of the article misunderstood a new feature available at that time, which was to adjust playback to meet hearing loss profiles. It had nothing to do with ambient audio.
Yes, that's what the AirPods did on iOS 16 -- at least for hearing sounds in the environment. For listening to music and videos played from the iPhone, it did adapt to my audiogram, though not as well as it does on iOS 18.
Or as I told my mom, listening to music on the AirPods on iOS 18 made me feel like I switched to color TV from black and white. On iOS 16, there was some improvement, but not so dramatic.
Yes it has. Even the original AirPods Pro had transparency mode to allow somebody to use them as hearing aids. Obviously not as good as AirPod Pro 2s but they helped people with mild to moderate hearing loss back then.
You think transparency mode = hearing aid function? Ok, that's where our perceptions differ, and why you think AirPods had hearing aid function before 18.1, and I don't.
Nonsense. I have moderate hearing loss, and transparency mode was not at all helpful for that. The playback of media, however, was MUCH improved.
That's fine. They work really well for my mild to moderate hearing loss in the high and mid frequencies running IOS 17.7.1 and I won't find out how much better they will be until the MHRA get around approving them for the UK.
Glad to hear it works for you. For me, transparency mode didn't offer any noticeable amplification, though when I first used it, I did think, "wait a moment, can't they turn this into a hearing aid?"
Hope the iOS 18.1 hearing aid function does get approved in the UK. I'm enjoying being able to watch TV with other people while hearing all the nuances of the dialogue. Until now, I've had to chose between watching with others and losing nuanced hearing or watching by myself on earphones.