AirPods 4 Get Custom EQ in iOS 27 Beta, Closing Gap With Rivals

Apple has seeded developer beta firmware for the AirPods 4, AirPods Pro 2, and AirPods Pro 3, build 9A5292e, tying the headphones to iOS 27 features before the software ships publicly. The more telling detail is what those features actually are: a redesigned AirPods interface, custom EQ, and tighter integration with the new Siri AI.

Custom EQ is the part that deserves attention. Apple has offered preset sound profiles for years, but letting users tune their own curves is something third-party headphone apps and competing earbuds have had for a long time. Shipping it now, quietly, inside a beta firmware drop, suggests Apple knows it was behind.

The Siri angle is harder to read at face value. The firmware lists AirPods as “compatible with the new Siri AI,” which is vague enough to mean almost anything. Given that Siri’s AI overhaul has already slipped roughly two years from its original timeline, “compatible” may be doing a lot of work until the underlying features actually ship.

Developer Access and Distribution

Getting beta firmware onto AirPods used to require indirect methods. Since iOS 26, Apple has built a beta firmware toggle directly into the AirPods settings interface, visible when the earbuds are connected to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. That infrastructure change is what makes this kind of targeted developer seeding practical at scale.

The firmware is developer-only for now, which puts it on the same track as macOS 27 Golden Gate, currently in developer beta with a public release expected this fall. Apple is clearly using the summer beta cycle to let developers validate audio and Siri behavior before any of this reaches general users. Whether the macOS 27 feature set extends fully to older hardware remains a separate question, but on the AirPods side, all three supported models are in scope from the start.