April 2020 • Macworld 85the AirPods Pro is its spectrum of isolation
technologies, from noise-cancelling mode to its
Transparency feature. Apple’s certainly not the
first company to implement such capabilities, but
by designing them to be quickly toggled between,
there’s a strong indication that the company
expects these modes to be used – and switched
between – frequently.
The Transparency mode, which essentially pipes
in outside sound from the AirPods Pro’s mics,
provides a way for users to interact with the world
without having to remove the AirPods. Think of it
like an augmented reality mode, where the noise
cancelling feature is more like a virtual reality
that insulates you in a world where your audio is
the more important factor. I found it handy, for
example, when waiting for my name to be called
at the coffee shop.
Could a similar set of features find their way into
whatever heads-up display hardware Apple might
be developing? I don’t find it hard to imagine an
ability to toggle between an AR mode where you
are getting information about the world around
you and a ‘transparent’ mode where the glasses
focus more on the world itself. That’ll be particularly
important if you’re ever expected to wear these
devices while doing a task like, say, driving a car;
some sort of Do Not Disturb mode would seem to
be a must-have. Because in investing in a wearable
heads-up display, Apple will have to walk a very fine
line between ‘augmented’ and ‘reality’.