Apple AirPods could get hearing health and temperature sensors, but not anytime soon

He also said that Apple is looking into positioning the AirPods as a hearing aid. They already have features like Conversation Boost and Live Listen but do not have regulatory approval for them yet.

The tech giant is also working on adding sensors to the earbuds to measure the user’s body temperature, which reportedly will be more accurate than the wrist temperature that the Apple Watch 8 Series and Ultra are capable of collecting. “Apple relies on that information for fertility tracking but wants to expand its use to determine if a person has, say, a cold or other illness,” Gurman said.

He said that these features could be “even years away” but some minor upgrades like the shift from the Lighting port to USB type-C could be coming sooner. According to Gurman, Apple is planning the shift for future generations of other audio products as well. Several reports are also suggesting the shift for the upcoming iPhone 15 models.

At its annual developers' conference, Apple said that the AirPods will be getting a button press feature to mute and unmute on calls, as well as improvements for switching between devices paired to AirPods. It also announced Adaptive Audio for automatically switching between noise cancellation and transparency modes.