Airpods tips

Apple had to find a way to integrate Siri with AirPods Max. While saying “Hey Siri,” activates it, and you can proceed from there, there is a technique to help you read messages with Siri. It is called Announce Messages with Siri. This means Siri will read out the messages for you when you have your headphones plugged in. You can instantly respond to those messages. Here is how you do it:

• Add it to the Control Center.
• Tap the icon to enable ‘Announce Messages with Siri’.
• Mute it for the number of hours or keep it as it is.

Automatic Device Switching is a boon that AirPods Max provide us with. This feature lets your headphones move with you. Thus, as you move from iPhone to iPad to Mac and back, your headphones will keep switching devices too. To disable this feature,

• Go to Settings → Bluetooth.
• Tap the encircled ‘i’.
• Tap Connect to this iPhone.
• Choose “When Last Connected to This iPhone” instead of “Automatically.“ This would stop the automatic switching of devices and only connect to your iPhone if it was the last device AirPods Max were connected to.

AirPods case has only one way to tell you what’s going on. When you flick open the case, you’ll see a little light in between the two AirPods. Based on the color and the blinking, you can discern a couple of states that your AirPods are in. No light: Your AirPods are dead and need to be charged. Amber light with AirPods in case: AirPods are charging. Amber light without AirPods in case: There’s less than a full recharge remaining in the AirPods case. Green light without AirPods in case: there’s more than one full recharge remaining in AirPods case. White flashing light: AirPods have been reset and are ready to connect. Amber flashing light: AirPods have a pairing error and might need to be reset.

The biggest problem with shifting to AirPods is the loss of buttons for volume, play/pause, next track and for picking up calls. Out of the box, AirPods does only one thing when you double-tap on the outer edge – invokes Siri. Apple wants you to use Siri for doing all the above things (and it can). But it’s very unreliable. Thankfully, you can remap these double-tap gestures. After you’ve paired your AirPods, make sure they’re connected and go to Settings -> Bluetooth and tap on the i button next to your AirPods. Here, you’ll see the option for Left and Right. Tap on one and you’ll have five options: Siri, Play/Pause, Next Track, Previous Track, and Off. If you’re not going to be using Siri at all, it’s best to make one ear Play/Pause and the other Next Track. This will take care of the two most frequently used commands when listening to music and podcasts.

AirPods work automatically and best with Apple devices. But they’re still Bluetooth headphones. So you can use them as such with any device that supports Bluetooth protocol. You can pair them with an Android phone or a Windows laptop. To pair AirPods with a new device, flick open the case and press and hold on the button at the back. This puts it in pairing mode. Then make sure the other device is in discovery mode. When the AirPods show up in the list, tap on it to begin the pairing process. While AirPods work with any and every device, the smart features like Automatic Ear Detection are not available.

iOS 12 has a new accessibility feature called Live Listen. It basically turns your iPhone’s microphone into the listening device and your AirPods into a speaker. After you turn this feature on, you can put your iPhone in the next room (upside down so as to not give it away), and go to the next room and listen to everything. As long as you’re in the range of AirPods (around 30 feet), you can hear everything. To turn this feature on, go to Settings -> Control Center -> Customize Controls and add the Hearing control. Now access the Control Center and tap on the Hearing toggle. Connect your AirPods and you’ll see them listed here. Tap on the Live Listen option to instantly start hearing through your iPhone microphone.

If you’ve just misplaced your AirPods or lost a single AirPod, you can find them using the Find my iPhone app. If you’ve already enabled Find my iPhone for your iPhone (which you should), it’s automatically activated for the AirPods as well. To find misplaced AirPods, open the Find my iPhone app and tap on the AirPods. You’ll see them located on the map. Next to the device, you’ll see one of three dots – Blue, Green or Grey. Blue dot shows the device you’re using to look for the AirPods. The green dot means that your AirPods are online. A grey dot means that your AirPods are offline. Either out of battery, in their case or just out of range. The best case scenario is if you see the green dot. Then you can tap on it and make the AirPods play a sound. Now you can just look for them in the area. You’ll also see AirPods location in the map is they’ve still got battery left. If you see the gray dot, not everything is lost. The app will still show you the last location that the AirPods were active. You can try to go back to the location and find the AirPods the old fashioned way.