You’d better get the tissues ready before watching Apple’s new seasonal holiday ad, appropriately titled “Heartstrings.”
I know I got a little misty.
The ad depicts a moving father-and-daughter moment on Christmas morning to showcase the new hearing aid feature in AirPods Pro 2.
Watch the ad below.
Apple Christmas ad for AirPods
Apple’s Christmas ad for AirPods promotes the new hearing aid capabilities of AirPods Pro 2 (which coincidentally are their lowest price ever for Black Friday, at just $153 ($100 off), a genuine steal for the best wireless earbuds for Apple users.
The AirPods Pro recently got a software update allowing to work as medical-grade hearing aids.
As Apple points out in the ad’s description, most people with hearing loss don’t know they have hearing loss:
“People with hearing loss wait an average of 10 years before getting their hearing tested and fitted for hearing aids. Leaving millions unaware they’re living with hearing loss and without the assistance they need,” Apple says.
To use AirPods Pro 2 as hearing aids, you need to upgrade them to the latest firmware (version 7B19) and pair them with an iPhone or iPad running iOS 18.1 or iPadOS 18.1 or later.
The hearing aid feature is available in the U.S. and several European countries and is gradually being rolled out to the rest of the world.
It also includes a hearing aid test that I strongly urge you to take. It only takes a few minutes, and compared to professional audiograms, gives very accurate results.
That might be you on Christmas morning.
The ad appears to be tugging heartstrings across the internet.
“I’m not crying, I’m just sweating through my eyes,” said @aaron on X.
https://x.com/aaronp613/status/1862132392711868553
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
