Hi everyone,
I’m experiencing a strange and reproducible issue with Conversation Awareness on my AirPods Pro 3 running firmware 9A348, after updating my iPhone to iOS 27.
Normally, Conversation Awareness works when the microphone setting is:
- Automatically Switch AirPods — works
- Always Left AirPod — works
- Always Right AirPod — does not work
However, I found two specific ways that consistently cause Conversation Awareness to stop working.
1. Switching to the right microphone
If Conversation Awareness is working and I change the microphone setting to Always Right AirPod, Conversation Awareness immediately stops detecting my voice.
After that, switching the microphone back to Always Left AirPod or Automatically Switch AirPods does NOT restore Conversation Awareness.
If I put both AirPods back into the charging case and then take them out again, Conversation Awareness starts working again with Automatic and Always Left — as long as I don’t select Always Right AirPod again.
2. Taking the right AirPod out of the case first
I noticed another reproducible behavior.
If I take the right AirPod out of the charging case first, and then take out the left AirPod, Conversation Awareness does not work — even when the microphone is set to Automatically Switch AirPods or Always Left AirPod.
If the AirPods are returned to the case and reconnected in a way that allows Conversation Awareness to work again, the feature functions normally until the right AirPod triggers the issue again.
So it seems that having the right AirPod initialize first can also cause Conversation Awareness to stop working.
Troubleshooting I have already done:
- Reset and re-paired the AirPods several times.
- Tested the AirPods with another iPhone — the issue persists.
- Tested voice recordings separately with the left and right AirPod microphones — they sound almost identical and both microphones appear to work normally.
- Tested Noise Cancellation — works normally.
- Tested Transparency Mode — works normally.
- Tested Adaptive Audio — works normally.
- Switched back to the original Apple ear tips — no difference.
- Confirmed that the AirPods are running firmware 9A348.
I also did not notice this issue before updating my iPhone to iOS 27 and my AirPods Pro 3 to firmware 9A348. Conversation Awareness worked normally before these updates. The problem only became noticeable after the iOS 27 / AirPods firmware update.
Because both updates happened around the same time, I cannot say for certain whether the issue is caused by iOS 27, AirPods firmware 9A348, or an interaction between the two.
However, the fact that I can reproduce the problem on another iPhone, while both microphones and all other listening modes work normally, makes me wonder whether this could be a firmware initialization/microphone-routing issue involving the right AirPod rather than a hardware failure.
The most interesting part is how reproducible it is:
Conversation Awareness working → select Always Right AirPod → Conversation Awareness stops working → switch back to Left/Automatic → still doesn’t work → put AirPods in the case and reconnect → Left/Automatic works again.
Also:
Take the right AirPod out of the case first → take the left one out → Conversation Awareness doesn’t work, even with Left/Automatic selected.
Has anyone else with AirPods Pro 3 on firmware 9A348 and iOS 27 experienced the same issue or been able to reproduce this behavior?