Hearing test not available in Australia after iOS update this morning

Some news from Apple here about Canada (who are in a similar situation as us in Australia)

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/03/18/airpods-hearing-aid-feature-canada-update/

I know it's not that helpful, but at least some things are moving somewhere ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

None that I have found. If anyone breaks this nonsense, plenty will be grateful. Having been a loyal iPhone, iPad (since their initial releases) and Mac user including a current M4 Mini Pro, this issue and the issues with removable drives in recent MacOS releases are undermining my faith in Apple.

Don’t think so … actually going to a country that is supported seems to enable the functionality .. so iPods at $400 & a return ticket to NZ for $1000 😉…. still about $3600 less than dedicated hearing aids …..

I too would like to know if we can somehow change our geolocation without having to travel to another country to access this feature. Obviously, Apple don't think we are important enough to get moving on this. Makes me wonder whether setting up an Apple-based ecosystem for my business was a wise move.

Confirming, the hearing test and aids feature is active. I wear HAs and wanted the APP2 aid feature for casual use for walking while listening to music and such. I used my last audiogram (I have moderate (right ear) and severe (left ear) loss) to program and I guess they work okay and certainly better than the previous transparency mode. But of course won’t replace my HAs. However, they will do nicely for the purpose I wanted.

Just updated my phone to iOS 18.4 (Saturday 5 April 2025 at 23:50).

Sadly, the hearing aid function is still not there.

What's going on, Apple Australia? Have you been so heavily lobbied by the Hearing Aid Lobby that you may never add this function in Australia?

As others have noted & was even featured on News over different media on The hearing test facility appeared on my AurPods Pro 2 settings on Wednesday 26th March.

I have been using it since then daily. It wasn’t associated with any announced firmware updates.

I posted here last night and now my post has disappeared. Does the Big Hearing Aid lobby control this site too?

What I said was that I have just installed the 18.4 update on my phone and the hearing aid function is still missing. Is this a game or something?

peter.neale wrote:

I posted here last night and now my post has disappeared. Does the Big Hearing Aid lobby control this site too?

What I said was that I have just installed the 18.4 update on my phone and the hearing aid function is still missing. Is this a game or something?

I see your previous post here just fine. Maybe you need to use the Sort By option just under the original post and choose the Newest option so the posts will show newest first. Not sure what your issue is with the "Big Hearing lobby", but it seems everyone else in Australia has it and they have had it since March 26th. Updating to iOS 18.4 is not necessary.

The AirPods do need to be using a firmware version greater than 7B19. That firmware version was available a long time ago, so unless your AirPods were never given the chance to update automatically, they should already have at least that update and the most recent firmware version is 7E93. All the information about firmware updates are in my previous post along with the announcement from Apple showing it became available on March 26th. The other requirement is that you have to be at least 18.

Thank you kindly for responding to my reply.

Guess it is a matter of "wait and see".

Cheers :-)

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They also appear to have removed the ability to select your clinical audiogram stored in the Health App in headphones accommodations.

Such a loss. This feature was the best!

Thanks. It was working perfectly for many months but now it’s gone.

Looks like it’s something to do with Australia not having access to the new hearing features.