When will AirPods Hearing Test Aid be available in Australia?

Re: When will AirPods Hearing Test Aid be available in Australia?

As far as I know there have been no announcements from Apple ... rumours may abound.

Seems the recent iOS18.3 update introduced the Hearing Aid Feature for AirPods Pro 2 into the UK. If I remember correctly, the UK gave approval before the TGA, so it seems Apple is gradually rolling out this feature to all the latecomer countries, while continuing to release it's Apple Intelligence (AI) features. The AI features are turned on by default when installing the iOS 18.3 update, unless it has been turned off in a previous iOS version. More info. About iOS 18 Updates - Apple Support

When Apple announced back in November that they had obtained the approval of Therapeutic Goods Association, Apple said its an “important first step toward making these features available in Australia.”

Evidently, there are other approvals that still need to be obtained. In fact the actual approval was not officially made by TGA until December 17th.

If this is an important feature, which it certainly sounds like, have you asked your elected officials what the holdup is?

I’ve heard that the problem is with the government not Apple. Despite ensuring that everything had the latest software I can’t get Hearing Aid with my iPhone 13 or m4 iPad. I rang Apple Support who confirmed that it is not available in Australia yet. I heard that the government gets a kickback on hearing aids and are preventing this service coming to iPod pro 2. I don’t know if this is true, has anyone else heard about this?