Apple releases new AirPods Pro 3 beta firmware ahead of iOS 26.1

Earlier this week, Apple shipped a brand new firmware update for AirPods Pro 3, AirPods Pro 2, and AirPods 4. But now just a couple days later, new beta firmware has arrived too.

On Tuesday, Apple released AirPods firmware build 8A358 for several different models:

Apple’s barebones official release notes said the update included “Bug fixes and other improvements.”

Now just two days later, another firmware release is here—but only for beta testers.

The new AirPods firmware is build 8B5014c, and similarly supports AirPods Pro 3, AirPods Pro 2, and AirPods 4.

It’s likely that this new beta firmware will ship to all users later this month when iOS 26.1 is expected to launch.

iOS 26.1 includes a big expansion of AirPods Live Translation, growing the supported language set from six all the way up to 11 languages.

Apple uses beta firmware to test out forthcoming updates with a smaller set of users to iron out any bugs or other issues ahead of the public launch.

Have you installed Apple’s latest AirPods beta firmware? Notice any changes? Let us know in the comments.