Police in London have warned AirPods users to enable Transparency Mode when using Apple’s AirPods Pro and AirPods Max headphones, in the wake of a spate of phone thefts in the capital.
It comes following the guilty plea of one Sonny Stringer, 28, who stole 24 phones in 24 hours on the streets of London using an electric bike to sneak on unsuspecting victims. Stringer has pleaded guilty to the thefts in court and is due to be sentenced in August.
Phone theft remains a prolific crime in the city, with the Metropolitan Police admitting that a mobile phone is stolen every six minutes in London, according to data in 2022. Aside from the usual vigilance, however, Londoners who own AirPods have been given another more specific instruction to combat the thefts.
Guard your phone with your AirPods
Speaking to BBC Radio on Wednesday, PC Jordan Smith said “If you’re wearing headphones [or] if you’ve got AirPods, make sure you’ve got transparency mode on so you can hear what’s going on around you.” Apple first introduced Transparency Mode with its AirPods Pro, which uses microphones to drown out ambient noise using Active Noise Cancellation. Transparency Mode is a setting that lets some noise through, but not everything, to give you a better feel for the world around you. Apple has previously advertised the feature as useful for crossing roads and other activities that require more user attention.
Finding methods to prevent your phone from being stolen is the first and best recourse against theft, but if you do lose it Apple has a wealth of tools on hand to try and help you recover it. Notably Find My iPhone has features that can track your phone’s location, lock the device, and even wipe it remotely to protect your data. The Find My network also powers AirTags, which recently helped police in Howard County track down $5 million worth of construction tools, some 15,000 items in total.
