When AirPods owners connect to their iPhone running iOS 27, they'll see a completely revamped settings menu for their earbuds that does a better job at organizing all of the feature options that Apple has added over the last few years.
In the first iOS 27 developer beta, released on Monday, the new settings menu can be accessed in the same way as the old one – i.e. by appearing only when your AirPods are paired with your iPhone – but the menu itself is now a lot more easy to navigate.
Apple has added a volume slider under the Listening Mode toggles, while the Hearing Health, Call Controls/Camera Control, Live Translation and Adaptive Audio sections have been condensed into separate menus identified by new icons: Accessibility, Audio & Routing, Hearing Health, and Controls & Gestures. There are also new menus for Battery, Privacy, and Find My options.
The new design makes the AirPods settings menu a lot more compact, and it no longer feels like you have to endlessly scroll to try and find the option you're after. Apple has also implemented the redesign in System Settings for macOS 27 Golden Gate.
Apple plans to release a public beta version of iOS 27 and macOS 27 next month, with a general release of the updates expected in the fall.
Sunday September 13, 2026 3:00 am PDT by Eric Slivka
Update 10:04 a.m.: iOS 27 is rolling out now, though it may take a bit for all users to see it, so keep checking!
Apple is about to release iOS 27, which will finally deliver more advanced Siri AI capabilities as well as a variety of other refinements, improvements, and new features to iPhones. It's Apple's biggest software update of the year, and Apple announced at Wednesday's iPhone event...
Wednesday September 2, 2026 12:35 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has added a new "iPhone Handoff" feature to iOS 27 that will allow you to switch between two iPhones while using the same phone number on each device.
This functionality was briefly mentioned during the WWDC 2026 keynote in June, on a slide that listed hundreds of new features coming in iOS 27 and corresponding software updates, but Apple never shared any further details at the time.
...
Wednesday September 9, 2026 9:10 am PDT by Jordan Golson
Apple's "Surprise and Shine" event kicks off today at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, where we're expecting to see the foldable iPhone Duo, the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 models, new AirPods 5 earphones, and perhaps some other announcements.
Apple is providing a live video stream on its website, on YouTube, and in the company's TV app across various platforms. We...
The one feature I wish I could access more quickly is the three levels of adjustment to ANC strength you can make within Adaptive Audio. I usually want the middle value, but sometimes want the highest one. Changing that involves digging into that settings panel, and I wish it could be surfaced in a widget or something. Anybody know if it can be changed via a shortcut?
Wake me when I have better control over updating them. Which doesn’t appear to have been fixed here.
I found out that if your phone is connected to your home Internet via Wi-Fi and you have your AirPods active, the update usually occurs automatically pretty quickly. I do agree on a manual update process, though; hopefully, we'll see it in the next developer beta.
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