When my spouse and I journey, we normally obtain some reveals to look at on our flight. However we at all times have to separate a set of AirPods once we watch these reveals so we every have one earbud. Which means certainly one of our ears is having fun with the present whereas the opposite is pressured to endure the crying child behind us on the airplane, which may be distracting. However because of Apple’s Audio Sharing characteristic, we will every get pleasure from a present collectively whereas utilizing our personal units of AirPods.
Audio Sharing was launched with iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 in 2024. It permits two pairs of suitable AirPods or Beats headphones to pair with a single iPhone or iPad. So that you and one different particular person can immerse yourselves into music, films or a TED Speak with out disturbing these round you.
Learn extra: Every thing Apple Introduced at WWDC 2025
This is how one can share audio with one other set of AirPods or Beats headphones.
Find out how to get pleasure from music and podcasts collectively
You’ll be able to share your audio with one other pair of headphones by tapping your personal headphone management.
1. Open Music, Podcasts, Spotify or any comparable app together with your AirPods in your ears and related to your iPhone or iPad.
2. Begin taking part in music or a Podcast.
3. Open your Management Heart by swiping down from the highest proper nook of your display.
4. Go to your audio controls web page — it is your second Management Heart web page by default.
5. Faucet the AirPods emblem close to the underside of your display.
6. Faucet Share Audio.
7. Deliver the opposite pair of AirPods of their case or Beats headphones close to your machine. You may must press the button on the again of your AirPods case to enter Pairing Mode.
8. Faucet Share Audio when your machine detects the opposite AirPods or Beats headphones.
You’ll be able to management the quantity of each headphones from the related machine.
Every pair of headphones can change their very own quantity through headphone controls, or you may change the quantity for every pair through the related machine. However you’ll get pleasure from a podcast or different music collectively with out splitting a pair of AirPods or disturbing folks round you.
Find out how to watch a film or present with separate headphones
Pairing one other set of headphones to your machine to look at a movie or TV collection is analogous. This is how.
1. Open Apple TV, Netflix, YouTube or one other streaming app together with your headphones in.
2. Begin taking part in a movie or present.
3. Swipe down from the highest proper nook of your display to open your Management Heart.
4. Go to your audio controls web page — it is your second Management Heart web page by default.
5. Faucet the AirPods emblem close to the underside of your display.
6. Faucet Share Audio.
7. Deliver the opposite pair of AirPods of their case or Beats headphones close to your machine. You may must press the button on the again of your AirPods case to enter Pairing Mode.
8. Faucet Share Audio when your machine detects the opposite AirPods or Beats headphones.
Tapping Share Audio will allow you to join to a different set of headphones so that you and one other particular person can hear or watch one thing collectively on the identical display.
Now you and one other particular person can watch a video collectively with out disturbing the folks round you and with out splitting a pair of AirPods.
For extra on iOS 18, here is what you’ll want to learn about iOS 18.5 and iOS 18.4, in addition to our iOS 18 cheat sheet. You can too try what it is best to learn about iOS 26 and the way the upcoming OS lets us kill the alarm’s 9-minute snooze.
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