Apple recently aired an emotional new holiday season ad promoting the hearing aid features of the AirPods Pro 2. Now, Sarah Herrlinger, Apple’s global head of accessibility, has shared more thoughts on the company’s efforts to create health features in an interview.
Apple exec talks about using AirPods as hearing aids
According to Herrlinger (via Forbes), the new hearing aid features launched this year for AirPods Pro 2 reinforce Apple’s “longstanding commitment” to making technology accessible to everyone. The executive said that there are more than 1.5 billion people in the world with hearing loss, and the company’s own study revealed that 75% of these people “don’t get the assistive support they need.”
Herrlinger notes that Apple was the first company to use Bluetooth LE for audio, which resulted in the first LEA (Low Energy Audio) protocol to stream audio from a smartphone to a hearing aid. “Since then, we introduced awareness and hearing accessibility features such as Headphone Audio Levels, Headphone Accommodations, and Conversation Boost,” she said.
The executive believes that the technology built into the AirPods Pro 2 is a “first-of-its-kind, end-to-end hearing health experience” and that it’s the result of “years of learning” by the software engineers, acousticians, designers and many more at Apple. By turning wireless earbuds into hearing aid devices, Apple brings “clinical-grade” features to anyone over the age of 18.
AirPods Pro 2 gained hearing aid capabilities with iOS 18.1, which was released to the public in October. Users can run a test to detect potential hearing loss and then use the results to adjust their own AirPods so that they function as hearing aids.
Earlier this month, Herrlinger spoke at the Web Summit Lisbon 2024. She highlighted how Apple has been using AI to improve the lives of people with disabilities through technologies such as Eye Tracking, Sound Recognition, and AssistiveTouch.
Be sure to read the full interview on the Forbes website.
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