AirPods Sound Quality Fixer And Battery Life Enhancer For MacOS

Fixes sound quality drops when using AirPods with Macs. It forces the default audio input to be the built-in microphone instead of AirPods' microphone so MacOS doesn't have to mix down the output. It also increases battery life because AirPods doesn't have to broadcast sound back. If you have more input devices you can select which device you want to force over the AirPods microphone.

Locale-independent built-in mic detection

The app now detects the built-in microphone using CoreAudio's transport type property (kAudioDevicePropertyTransportType == kAudioDeviceTransportTypeBuiltIn) instead of relying on localized device name substrings. This makes detection reliable and consistent across all locales.

Tray icon visibility persistence

The app remembers whether the menu bar icon was previously hidden and restores that state on the next launch. To restore a hidden icon, simply launch the app again.

Compatibility: Requires macOS 13.0 (Ventura) or later.

Download & Installation

1. Download the latest compiled application (AirPods Sound Quality Fixer.app.zip) from the releases page.
2. Unzip the downloaded file.
3. Drag the AirPods Sound Quality Fixer.app to your Applications folder.

Note: If you encounter a "developer cannot be verified" warning when launching the app, this is a standard Gatekeeper security measure. To open it, right-click (or Control-click) the app icon in Finder, then choose "Open." You'll see a dialog with an "Open" button. Clicking this will add an exception, and you won't be prompted again.

Usage

Once launched, the app will appear as an icon in your macOS menu bar.

• Click the menu bar icon to see a list of available audio input devices.
• Select a device from the list to force it as the default audio input. This will ensure your AirPods are used for output only, improving sound quality and battery life.
• The "Open at login" option (if selected) will automatically launch the app when your Mac starts up.

Development

After cloning, set up git hooks:

git config core.hooksPath .githooks

This installs a pre-push hook that verifies version tags (v*) match the CFBundleShortVersionString in Info.plist. To release a new version:

1. Update CFBundleShortVersionString in AirPods Sound Quality Fixer/Info.plist
2. Commit and push to main
3. Tag and push: git tag v1.2.0 && git push origin v1.2.0

The CI workflow will build, sign, notarize, and publish a GitHub release automatically.

Support & Contributing

If you encounter any issues or have suggestions for improvements, please open an issue on the GitHub Issues page. Contributions via pull requests are also welcome!