One of the best additions made to the AirPods lineup over the past few years is Spatial Audio and Head Tracking. This can truly immerse you in whatever music (or movies) that you are listening to, creating a completely different experience than you’ve ever imagined.
The way that it works is that whenever you turn or move your head, the music follows you. This ensures that your remain immersed in the music and that it still “fills the room”.
One of the best parts about Spatial Audio coming is that other music services and streaming services like Amazon Music and Netflix are enabling the ability to use Spatial Audio. This transforms even your movies into a completely different experience, making you feel like you’re in the movie theater.
Turn off Head Tracking and Spatial Audio in iOS 15
As a reminder, head tracking and Spatial Audio only works with the likes of the AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, and select other headphones. However, if you find that you don’t like the experience offered by head tracking, you can actually turn the feature off. Here’s how you can turn off head tracking and Spatial Audio in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15:
Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
Scroll down and tap Accessibility.
Tap AirPods & Beats under the Physical and Motor section.
Select the AirPods or Beats headphones that you want to turn off Head Tracking and Spatial Audio for.
Under Spatial Audio Head Tracking, tap the toggle next to Follow iPhone or Follow iPad.
Once completed, you can try turning your head back and forth while listening with your headphones. You’ll notice that the music no longer follows you around while you’re walking around.
The reason why some might want to turn this unique feature off is that it can be a little bit jarring at first. When you first listen to an album using Spatial Audio and move your head around, it’s definitely something like you’ve never heard before. But this has been known to cause a bit of confusion until you get used to it.
Andrew Myrick is a freelance writer based on the East Coast of the US. He enjoys everything to do with technology, including tablets, smartphones, and everything in between. Perhaps his favorite past-time is having a never-ending supply of different keyboards and gaming handhelds that end up collecting more dust than the consoles that are being emulated.
What about for video?
All this stuff is turned off
And it still follows my phone.