Headphones

LeBron James photographed using the unreleased Beats Studio Buds

The unreleased Beats Studio Buds appear to be caught in an avalanche. Ever since they were discovered in the release candidate for iOS 14.6, the new headphones keep cropping up in other places.

Everywhere except an official announcement. But that will probably be changing in the very near future, now that at least one superstar athlete has been photographed out there in the wild wearing the new headphones. At least, one would hope.

Sonyfy lets jailbreakers toggle noise cancellation mode on certain Sony headphones via Control Center

Apple’s AirPods Pro sent a shockwave through the earbud industry when they became some of the first wireless earbuds to support active noise cancellation. Fast-forward to today, and even Apple’s newer AirPods Max over-ear headphones support this feature along with transparency.

But Apple isn’t the only brand pumping out earbuds and headphones with active noise cancellation and features similar to that of the AirPods Pro and AirPods Max. Sadly, the company limits iOS’ native controls to the first party audio consumption devices — requiring the use of third party apps to control third party accessories (eww).

This tweak stops iOS’ built-in hearing protection for people who don’t like the volume interruption

If you’re using any recent release of iOS or iPadOS, be it 13 or 14, then your handset automatically attempts to protect your hearing by reducing loud sounds when using headphones for extended periods of time.

The option to reduce loud sounds is adjustable in the Settings app, but as many users have pointed out on Apple’s support forums, the adjustment has its limits and may still negatively impact the media consumption experience in certain scenarios even when the user takes steps to mitigate interruptions.

All the ways you can use the rotatable Digital Crown button on your AirPods Max

Your AirPods Max over-ear headphones feature a rotatable Digital Crown button, located on the top of the right earphone. Follow along with this tutorial to learn all the ways you can use the Digital Crown to pause, resume or skip the music you’re listening to (or the video you’re watching), as well as adjust the volume, invoke Siri, answer and end calls, and much more..

Interpreting the meaning of LED light states on your AirPods Max

The LED status light on your AirPods Max headphones, found on the top of the right earphone, was designed to indicate the various states and modes of operation such as pairing mode, charge states and reset/restart statuses. Follow along with our helpful tutorial if you need to learn how to decipher the meaning of the various LED light states of your AirPods Max.

How to reverse Digital Crown volume controls on your AirPods Max headphones

You can turn the volume of your AirPods Max headphones up or down up by using a rotatable Digital Crown button found on the right ear cup. Thankfully, Apple permits you to optionally change the orientation of the Digital Crown button when adjusting the volume. Follow the steps in this tutorial to learn how to reverse the Digital Crown volume controls on your AirPods Max.