Handy Apple AirPods double-tap shortcut

Stephen Lam/Getty ImagesAirPods are one of Apple’s most popular new products in years — in urban areas, the wireless white headphones can be seen adorning the lobes of all manner of commuters and pedestrians. 

That’s why it’s surprising that so many people don’t know about one of the handiest AirPods tricks. Because the AirPods are wireless, you don’t get the same remote with play/pause, track forward and track reverse buttons as you do with wired headphones.

If you miss the remote, you can program your AirPods to react to a double-tap. So to pause the current song, or to move to the next song, all you have to do is tap on the AirPod in your ear twice with your finger.

AirPods come with the default setting for a double tap set to activate Siri. So if you want to change it to a more useful command, you’ll need to fiddle with settings on your iPhone.

Here’s how you do it: