iOS 26 rumors for AirPods

New head gestures - Apple could add new head gestures, such as a gesture for adjusting the volume of Conversation Awareness. Last year, Apple added a nod and a head shake to answer or decline calls.

I’m not a fan of Double Tap on the Apple Watch. It’s a frustrating feature that doesn’t work every time, and also doesn’t understand the context of what I’m trying to accomplish in that given moment. Every time I’ve tried to use it things just fail, and I can’t trust the feature at all. That’s a dissapointment, because the idea of it is so great. I want more ability to control things on my phone without having to use the screen.

But this announcement isn’t even about the watch.

I’m interested in the idea of head gestures with AirPods. I don’t use any currently, namely because I have most notifications turned off, and having my music interrupted by Siri announcing a call is a horrible idea, even if I can just shake it off.

If I could adjust volume, or pause a podcast, all without using my hands, that’d be interesting.

Auto-pause for sleep - The AirPods could pause audio when the wearer falls asleep, presumably using sleep data gleaned from the Apple Watch, as the AirPods have no sleep detection functionality.

This is interesting. I know people who fall to sleep listening to books or podcast. I like the idea of it knowing where I was and just stopping. I’d probably use this.

Camera trigger - Apple is planning to add trigger functionality to the AirPods, capturing an image on a linked iPhone with a press on the AirPods stem. It's possible this might work with a timer so the iPhone user isn't touching an ear when the photo is taken.

Brilliant. The Apple Watch trigger for the camera is decent, but it doesn’t feel solid and tappable. The “buttons” on the AirPods are reliable, something I can always count on working. If I could trigger with an AirPod, then get an audio countdown to prep, that’d be a fun feature to use for group photos.

Via MacRumors.