Apple appears to have accidentally leaked camera-equipped AirPods
A video buried in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate reveals AirPods with a built-in camera that would let Siri describe what the wearer is looking at. The earbuds are expected to be unveiled at Apple's iPhone 18 event next month.
Apple appears to have inadvertently revealed its upcoming camera-equipped AirPods through a video file embedded in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate, according to a MacRumors report. The clip was also spotted by X user @aaronp613.
In the video, a man wearing the earbuds asks Siri to remember a book he is currently browsing in a store. Siri's voiceover responds that with a new feature called Visual Intelligence, the world becomes "saveable" — users can simply ask the assistant to save something they see.
The new AirPods are said to include a low-resolution camera that feeds imagery to Apple's long-delayed, AI-enhanced version of Siri, allowing it to describe what the wearer is looking at. The cameras themselves aren't visible in the footage, and the earbuds otherwise resemble the current AirPods Pro, apart from a somewhat thicker stem.
The camera-equipped AirPods were first reported back in May by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He has also indicated the earbuds may include some kind of indicator showing when the camera is active — a minimal safeguard given that the device is, in effect, a wearable surveillance tool, even if its camera resolution is low.
The presence of the demo video inside macOS 26.7 suggests the camera AirPods are likely to be formally announced at Apple's iPhone 18 event, expected next month. Internal references in Tahoe 26.7 point to the codename B790 for this model.
This version could differ from a separate camera-equipped AirPods model, codenamed B798, which according to another Bloomberg report from Gurman is expected to arrive in 2027.
