I got Apple’s wireless earphones “AirPods 4” released on September 20, 2024, so I played around with them for a while to see what kind of functions they have, and then checked the battery life etc. I did.
AirPods 4 – Apple (Japan)
https://www.apple.com/jp/airpods-4/
When you connect AirPods 4 to your iPhone, AirPods setting items will be displayed in the “Settings” app. The following is displayed on an iPhone 15 Pro Max with iOS 18.0. I tried connecting to an iPhone 8 with an older version of iOS 16.7.10, but only some functions, such as noise canceling, could be used.
AirPods 4 has a function called “Noise Control”. “Off” is a mode in which noise control is turned off, as the name suggests, “External Sound Intake” is a mode in which you can clearly hear external sounds even when the AirPods are attached by playing surrounding sounds from the earphones, and “Adaptive” mode. combines active noise canceling and external sound capture mode into one new mode that allows the noise control level to be automatically adjusted to match the changing noise conditions of the usage environment. “Noise Cancelling” is a mode that enables active noise canceling.
My impressions of “noise canceling” among noise controls are written in the article below.
I compared the noise canceling performance of Apple’s open-ear earphones “AirPods 4” with Sony’s “WF-1000XM4” – GIGAZINE
The “adaptive” settings are as follows.
“Adaptive” allows you to change the noise reduction rate depending on the settings. Adjusting “Reduce Noise” on the left will reduce the amount of noise you hear. When I was in a quiet office in this state, I got the impression that although it didn’t feel as quiet as when noise canceling was turned on, the noise was reduced to a reasonable degree. When you go to a noisier place, the amount of noise decreases even further, giving you the same sense of calm as when you turn on noise canceling.
By default, “Adaptive Audio” and “Noise Cancelling” will not work unless you wear earphones in both ears, but if you open “Accessibility” from the AirPods settings screen and select “When only one AirPod is attached” By turning on “Noise Cancellation”, it will work even when you are wearing only one ear.
While I had noise canceling on, I heard people around me, and although I could hear them, it was difficult to tell if they were directed at me.
You can control playback by touching the indentation on the stem of AirPods 4. When I pressed this area tightly with two fingers, I heard a light, small sound. Although the stem is not physically dented, the sound gives the illusion that it is actually dented. Press once to play/pause/answer/mute calls, press twice to go to the next song/end call, and press three times to go to the previous song. Volume cannot be controlled. Also, when you take AirPods 4 out of your ears, music automatically stops and starts playing again when you put them back on.
From the setting item “Operations when pressing and holding AirPods”, you can change the noise control setting when pressing and holding AirPods for a long time, and you can also use it as a Siri activation switch instead of noise control. You can switch between noise controls with a check mark by long-pressing the stem, so you need to select the noise control you want to use in advance. It’s easy to understand because a sound effect plays when the noise control changes.
The only thing that bothered me a little when playing audio was that the AirPods 4 itself started to heat up. Within a few minutes of starting playback, I started to feel a slight warmth, although it wasn’t hot, which made me feel uncomfortable. I got used to it after wearing it for a while.
When I turned on “Conversation Detection” and talked to someone, I felt that the noise canceling suddenly weakened after the second word I started speaking. However, you have to say it clearly, and if you just mutter something to yourself, it won’t be considered a conversation.
Next, I tried “facial gestures” that allow you to respond to incoming calls and operate notifications by shaking your head up, down, left and right.
With the default iPhone settings, no matter how much I shook my head, it didn’t respond, but after changing a certain setting, it worked properly.
The settings are below. From the Settings app, go to Apps, then Phone, and tap Voice alert.
It is OK if you set it to “headphones only” or higher here. Now, when you receive a call, you will hear a voice saying, “You received a call from ○○ (phone number). Do you want to reject it? Do you want to answer it?” After this voice, turn your head vertically or horizontally. You can now respond/reject by shaking.
Regarding notification operations, you can stop the notification that is automatically read out by shaking your head, or start up Siri and say something like “I want to send it to notifications”, then follow the prompt “Do you want to send it?” It was possible to wave and send messages.
Next, measure the battery life. This time, not only noise canceling but also all configurable items such as “personalized volume”, “conversation detection”, “adaptive audio”, and “personalized spatial audio” are turned on. I raised the volume twice from 0 and continued playing a random radio program on my iPhone’s Apple Music. Play/stop operations were kept to the bare minimum.
We started measurement from 100% and recorded the remaining battery power approximately every hour.
4 hours and 47 minutes after the start of measurement, the battery of the left AirPods ran out. At this time, the remaining battery power of AirPods on the iPhone was “2% remaining”. At this point, the noise canceling, which had been set to not work unless both ears were worn, was forcibly turned off. The right ear continued to play music for about 8 minutes, but the battery completely ran out 4 hours and 55 minutes after the measurement started.
Apple’s specificationspageAccording to , it says, “Up to 4 hours with 50% volume, spatial audio/speech detection/noise control off, and active noise canceling on,” which means it exceeds the minimum standard.
Next, measure the time it takes to charge from a state where the battery level is 0%. I put AirPods 4 in a case with 100% remaining capacity and measured it every 30 minutes without connecting it to a cable. The result is below, and it was full in about 1 hour and 30 minutes. The case’s charge level dropped from 100% to 78%. When I left the case in this state for 24 hours and checked the remaining charge of the case, it had decreased by 5%.
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