I am thinking of buying the new AirPods Pro but according to the support page, you “need” at least macOS Catalina 10.15.1 in order to use them. However this is surely misleadingly worded since AirPods work with any modern Bluetooth audio host (Windows, Android, etc.). My question is, since I rely on 32-bit apps on Mojave, what exactly does it mean to not have one of the new OSes?
AFAIK no definitive explanation exists, here are the possible differences I’ve gathered (I don’t know which are true):
- You’ll have to (gasp) manually pair the AirPods to each device
- You’ll need to set up button behavior, size test, etc. on one of the newer OSes but your settings should carry over to all devices
- You’ll need to control noise canceling via the button on the AirPods themselves instead of… a nested menu of the volume button on the menu bar (does this include the Touch Bar?)
- No audio sharing
- Switching between devices might be affected somehow (how?)
Is this correct and is there anything else?
Best Answer
I'm have been using the AirPods Pro with Mojave, so it is definitely possible to use them together.
I didn't need to manually pair the AirPods Pro to the MacBook Pro running Mojave. It paired them with my iPhone, and it automatically synced to the MacBook Pro.
Squeezing the stem of the AirPods to enable/disable ANC, play/pause, forwards/backwards in tracks all works without problems.
There's no setting for ANC in Mojave, but I can control volume up/down like with the regular AirPods.
Switching between devices seem to work the same as with the AirPods. I.e. I can be listening to Spotify on my iPhone, and then on my Mojave Mac click the speaker icon in the status bar and select the AirPods - and I will be hearing sound from the Mac instead of the iPhone.
Mojave also supports displaying charge status of the AirPods Pro in that menu - similar to the AirPods.
As far as I know, Audio Sharing is an iOS-only feature - so that wouldn't be available with either Mojave or Catalina.