Apple Testing AirPods-Like Pairing, Live Activities and Notification Forwarding for Third-Party Wearables in EU With iOS 26.5

For the last several months, Apple has been working on interoperability changes that are set to be implemented in the European Union to comply with the Digital Markets Act. Apple is developing AirPods-like pairing and notification forwarding for third-party wearables. Testing on these features started back in iOS 26.3 and continued in iOS 26.4, but the options have not yet launched. Apple is still testing them in iOS 26.5, and both notification forwarding and proximity pairing for wearables are included in the iOS 26.5 beta. Today's update also appears to include a new feature forwarding Live Activities to a third-party wearable device, so Live Activities will be included under the notification forwarding umbrella. Third-party wearables like earbuds will be able to use proximity pairing, similar to AirPods. Bringing a set of earbuds close to an iPhone or iPad will initiate an AirPods-like one-tap pairing process, so pairing third-party earbuds and other wearables will no longer require