IOS 26 allows us to turn on hearing aid even if below moderate hearing loss...

Hey,

and this might have been changed for a while, but when the hearing aid feature first came out for AirPods Pro 2 last year, I believe you couldn't turn it on unless your hearing test dropped you into the moderate hearing loss and above band. Just mucking about with it again today, doing a hearing test, I found I, though it wasn't recommended necessarily, could turn it on.

For those of us who are completely reliant on hearing, I think this is interesting. I've lost some higher frequencies in my right ear and so boosting them is helpful in navigation, audio queues, etc. There is also the worry of audio deprivation where, because the physical part of my ear is not as good as it once was, fewer signals fire up the auditory neurons which the brain can end up reorganising. E.g., use it or lose it.

I might be entirely wrong and this has always been possible, but I found it quite interesting, if not exciting, especially with AirPods Pro 3 out at the end of this week which, from all accounts, have significantly better transparency mode and with a more comfortable fit.

They might be something very useful in certain scenarios, loud environments, for example. I do wonder if there is a way of filtering, or harnessing this feature. If you're anything like me, loud environments are highly frustrating if not downright distressing.