You Can Soon Use Your AirPods as Hearing Aids

Apple squarely shifted its focus toward artificial intelligence with the unveiling of its hotly anticipated iPhone 16 along with a slew of new features coming with the next update to the device's operating system. While the new phone lineup headlined Monday's showcase, the tech giant also shared updates to its smartwatch and AirPod lineups, the AP reports. Here are all the biggest announcements from Apple's "Glowtime" event:

• Apple Intelligence: Apple's core artificial intelligence offerings are being packaged and billed as Apple Intelligence—first revealed at the company's developers conference in June. These features include the ability to search for images in your library by describing them, creating custom emojis, summarizing emails, and prioritizing notifications. Apple Intelligence will also upgrade Apple's virtual assistant Siri to get it to better understand requests and give it some awareness of on-screen actions taking place on the phone, hopefully making it more useful.

• iPhone 16 and the camera button: The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max will offer slightly bigger displays and feature variants of the powerful A18 chip, which gives Apple the computing power its devices need to run AI functions. The iPhone 16 "has been designed for Apple Intelligence from the ground up," CEO Tim Cook said during Monday's event. On the other end of the spectrum, the biggest physical change to the iPhone 16 lineup comes in the form of a dedicated camera-control button. The button responds to clicks and gestures, allowing users to quickly snap pictures, preview a shot or start video recording.
• Apple Watch upgrades: The Apple Watch Series 10 features a larger, and brighter, wide-angle OLED display that will allow users to better view the watch at an angle. But Apple focused much of its presentation on the device's ability to detect signs of sleep apnea. The new device is also being offered in a titanium finish for the first time, joining a longtime trend in the watch industry of offering a tougher, more lightweight, and perceived higher-quality, alternative to traditional materials.
• Airpods upgrades: The new AirPods 4 series will come with an upgraded chip for better audio quality, and will feature more active noise cancellation. If you frequently lose your ear buds, the new AirPods will also play a sound when you locate them through the Find My app. In a medically focused update to the AirPods Pro 2, Apple said it will upgrade the devices so they can act as an over-the-counter hearing aid.

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