Finally, AirPods update revealed!

After many years, Apple details how to update your AirPods firmware.

Author

Leander Kahney
January 28, 2025

In partnership with

If you’ve ever tried to update your AirPods’ firmware, you likely know what a headache it is.

For reasons unknown, Apple made the firmware update process entirely passive.

There’s no way for the user to trigger the update process — there’s no app to download or button to hit.

To update your AirPods, Apple advised making sure your earbuds were in their case and near a compatible device, and then basically hoping and praying.

This caused a lot of angst. For years, the Apple tech community searched for a better way. There are long threads on Reddit advising all kinds of tech voodoo to trigger the process or hurry it along. None of it really seemed to work.

Now, for some reason, Apple finally updated its support document to outline exactly what to do: And here it is.

Also in today’s newsletter:

  • If you just downloaded the latest iOS update, the biggest change is enhancements to Visual Intelligence, Apple’s AI-powered visual search tool. Here’s how to get the most out of it.

  • I discovered the hard way that not all HDMI cables are created equal. To connect newer equipment, you likely need cables that support the latest HDMI 2.1 standard — and would you believe it, they’re on sale!

  • My friends Graham Bower and Charlie Sorrel started a podcast about Apple history called Apple Core. For some reason, they wanted me to tell them how Cult of Mac got started and how I wrote some books about Apple. In our Slack channel, one of our writers said: “Listened to the first half of Leander’s interview on the Apple Core podcast during lunch — absolutely fantastic so far. Hilarious stuff there.”

  • I recently took a course of antibiotics and used the medication tracking feature in the Apple Health app to make sure I took them all. It works great, and you can even customize the pill icons to match your medicines IRL — it’s the kind of detail that often makes Apple’s software so good.

— Leander Kahney, EIC.

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One more thing ...

❝

I can tell you this: I've been married for eight years, and that's had a really good influence on me. I've been very lucky, through random happenstance I just happened to sit next to this wonderful woman who became my wife. And it was a big deal. We have three kids, and it's been a big deal. You see the world differently.

— Steve Jobs, 1999.

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Should Apple add buttons to force AirPods firmware updates?

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