Apple’s camera-equipped AirPods won’t launch until 2027 despite demo video Woozad found earlier this week, reports BloombergIt’s Mark Gurman.
Monday, Woozad shared a demo video showing the camera-equipped AirPods in action. The video was hidden in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate, suggesting that Apple was preparing for a launch. That’s apparently not the case, and people familiar with the product told Gurman that AirPods with cameras won’t be launching anytime soon.
AirPods are not on Apple’s 2026 release schedule as the company is still working to resolve supply chain and software issues.
Gurman’s own reporting on the timing of the camera’s AirPods has been confusing. In May, he said AirPods were in an “advanced” testing phase with mass production expected to begin soon, then in June he said AirPods had been delayed until the end of 2027.
In early August, he changed course and said camera-equipped AirPods could launch as early as September. In that report, he clarified that there were two camera-equipped AirPod variants in the works, one codenamed B790 and one codenamed B798. “Apple creates competing versions of the same product internally,” he wrote.
In today’s report, Gurman says that the B790 product is a version of the AirPods Pro 3 with cameras, while the B798 model is a new generation of AirPods Pro with cameras. The B790 AirPods were featured in the video, which showed a man holding a book in front of the AirPods so Siri could read the title and save it for later.
The B790 model was apparently “until recently on the 2026 roadmap”, but Apple no longer plans to release it.
AirPods planned for 2027 will include low-resolution cameras that transmit information to the AI Siri for visual intelligence features, as demonstrated in the video. AirPods cameras will not be able to capture photos and videos.
Apple could launch the new AirPods in fall 2027 alongside the 20th anniversary iPhone.
