Before leaving for my family get-together on Thanksgiving, I posted an item about Apple’s annual holiday ad. Called Heartstrings, the new spot centers on a family celebrating Christmas morning and the father using the hearing aid feature on AirPods Pro to better hear his daughter serenade him with her acoustic guitar. The poignancy meter is off the charts as it shows Apple at its absolute best. Of course the company surely hopes people are pushed to buy AirPods Pro, but the more salient point is the earbuds have far greater resonance than merely being passive listening devices for music and podcasts. Thanks to the FDA and the commensurate iOS 18.1 software update released in late October, AirPods Pro have the ability to act as bonafide over-the-counter hearing aids for people who are dealing with mild-to-moderate hearing loss.
In a recent interview, Apple’s senior director of global accessibility policy and initiatives Sarah Herrlinger explained the hearing aid feature in AirPods Pro is yet one more manifestation of the company’s “longstanding commitment” to the disability community vis-a-vis accessibility. She said there are 1.5 billion people worldwide coping with hearing loss, the severity of which is mostly on the mild-to-moderate side. Herrlinger added Apple’s hearing study revealed 75% of people coping with hearing loss “do not get the assistive support they need.”
It’s why Apple has supported hearing health features “for decades.”
‘We’ve always been committed to ensuring that our products not only support but embrace the needs of users with hearing loss. That’s why we were the first company to use Bluetooth LE for audio, creating the first LEA [Low Energy Audio] protocol to support streaming audio directly from a smartphone to a hearing aid more than ten years ago,” she said. “Since then, we introduced awareness and hearing accessibility features such as Headphone Audio Levels, Headphone Accommodations, and Conversation Boost—all of which support hard-of-hearing users in customizing their hearing experience across Apple devices.”
These features work “seamlessly” with AirPods Pro, Herrlinger said. The earbuds are “the best-selling headphones in the world”—the ones people reach for most often to listen to their favorite media. Apple figured why not combine their ubiquity with their “powerful foundation of the acoustic technology,” along with the company’s institutional ethos on prioritizing accessibility and ever-burgeoning ambitions in healthcare, to “do something about the huge issue” around untreated hearing loss.
Herrlinger said the so-called “first-of-its-kind, end-to-end hearing health experience” is the result of what she described as “years of learnings” that encompassed a “powerful team” of software engineers, acoustic engineers, designers, clinicians, and many more types of people.
“Hearing loss can affect people of all ages,” Herrlinger said. “These features are focused on the pillars of prevention, awareness, and assistance. With active Hearing Protection, a scientifically-validated hearing test, and a clinical-grade hearing aid capability for adults over the age of 18 with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss.”
She went on: “By bringing the hearing aid feature to AirPods Pro 2, alongside tools to promote [hearing] awareness and prevention, we’re offering the assistive power of a clinical grade hearing aid feature with a product that millions of people already own and already comfortable wearing. These features are already available in more than 100 countries and regions around the world today to help users prevent exposure to potentially harmful environmental noise, bring education and awareness to their hearing levels over time, and assist them in better connecting to the world around them.”
Herrlinger seconded the notion that the hearing aid feature represents the very best of Apple, telling me the company incorporates accessibility into “everything we do” because disability is part and parcel of the human experience. The company truly wants everyone to be able to use its products, she told me, adding it’s part of Apple’s mission to make technology that’s customizable so as to reflect the diverse needs of people. According to Herrlinger, Apple ardently believes technology can play powerful roles in fostering greater “productivity, creativity, [and] collaboration” as well as empowering people to “live out their dreams.”
“Our approach is to design with accessibility in mind right from the start and build it into the core of our products. As we design our products, we think about how anyone who would want to use them has the opportunity to do so. And to make them built-in so they are available right out of the box as soon as you turn the device on,” Herrlinger said of how Apple approaches design. “In doing so, we’ve seen accessibility not just make an impact for disabled users in their day to day lives, but also drive innovation and even reduce stigma and social isolation. This is what we mean when we say accessibility is a core value at Apple. There are so many more examples of this across the Apple ecosystem.”
When asked about feedback, Herrlinger told me Apple “loves” hearing from its customers. The hearing aid function in AirPods Pro has been “no exception” in the weeks since iOS 18.1 dropped, the company has heard from users who have shared stories about how the functionality has “had an impact for a friend, family member, or in their own life.”
For John Pelletreau, the protagonist in Apple’s Heartstrings ad, the hearing aid feature in AirPods is revelatory in numerous ways, not the least of which cost-wise. He told Men’s Health prescription hearing aids from an audiologist are “crazy expensive” while adding if AirPods Pro can potentially improve one’s life for the better, “that’s a done deal.”
As to the future, Herrlinger noted 2025 will mark 40 years that Apple’s been working on assistive technologies. She pointed to the slew released this year, including Music Haptics (my personal favorite), Vehicle Motion Cues, and eye-tracking. “As we look ahead to our 40th year, we continue to build upon our commitment to accessibility in vision, hearing, speech, mobility, and cognitive disability,” she said.