Support for the Find My network feature for the AirPods Pro earbuds and AirPods Max over-ear headphones is delayed and won’t launch alongside iOS 15 today, Apple has confirmed.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS:
- Find My network for AirPods Pro and Max has been delayed
- It was supposed to launch alongside iOS 15 on September 20
- Apple has confirmed that support for this feature is coming later in the game
Find My network support for AirPods Pro and Max due later in 2021
No, Apple did not issue a press release to make this announcement nor have its PR teams taken to Twitter and other social media to share the news. Instead, Apple tucked this away as a side-note on its iOS 15 webpage. And why haven’t we spotted this before?
Because the confirmation was added only recently as part of a quiet update to the iOS 15 features page that was discovered by MacRumors.
The webpage says that Find My network support for AirPods Pro and AirPods Max is coming “later this fall”. That line wasn’t there before the update, indicating that something happened that has caused the company to remove this feature from the initial release of iOS 15.
What is Find My network?
Find My network takes advantage of the hundreds of millions of active Apple devices around the world which can help you locate misplaced items in the Find My app. Rather than relying on the lost device being near the device you run the Find My app on, the lost device uses the low-powered Bluetooth protocol to advertise its presence to nearby devices.
→ How to add third-party accessories to the Find My app
Should someone with an Apple device happen to come within Bluetooth range of the lost device, their device will report an approximate location of the lost item, allowing you to locate it more easily on a map in the Find My app.
Other features missing from the initial iOS 15 release
iOS 15 is releasing publicly later today.
Find My network support for the AirPods Pro and Max is joining nearly a dozen iOS 15 features that have been scheduled to release later in 2021 and in 2022. Some of the missing features include Shared With You, Universal Control, digital car keys, driver’s licenses in Wallet, App Privacy Report, Apple ID Legacy Contacts and 3D navigation on CarPlay, to mention but a few.
All of the missing features will eventually make their way into iOS 15 via point updates (iOS 15.1, iOS 15.2 and so forth) that will be released later in 2021 and in the first half of 2022.