Apple accidentally leaked a demo video of its camera-equipped AirPods

[Harper84]

Apple appears to have left a demo video showing camera equipped AirPods inside the macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate, a build primarily pushed out for security fixes. Code researcher Aaron Perris found the video, giving the clearest look yet at a product that's been rumored since January 2025 and answering a question Apple watchers have argued about for months, what would a camera on a pair of earbuds actually be for.

The short clip shows someone wearing the earbuds while holding up a book, with a voiceover explaining the feature, with Visual Intelligence, your world becomes savable, see something you like, just ask me to save it for later. The cameras aren't visible in the video itself, and the earbuds look similar to the current AirPods Pro, with a slightly thicker stem being the main visible difference.

This aligns with earlier reporting suggesting the cameras are meant for feeding visual information to Siri rather than conventional photography, letting the assistant identify objects and answer questions about the wearer's surroundings without capturing actual photos or video. The release candidate also reportedly contains an alert warning users to keep the AirPods uncovered for accurate results, and references the internal codename B790.

There's apparently a separate camera equipped AirPods project too. Codenamed B798, which Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has reported is a different product currently expected in 2027, meaning B790 and B798 may represent two distinct camera AirPods efforts running in parallel rather than the same product referenced twice.

Given the video's presence in a release candidate this close to Apple's expected fall event. Coverage widely expects an announcement alongside the iPhone 18 lineup in early September, though Apple has said nothing officially and the specific product name, whether this becomes a new AirPods Pro generation or a separate higher end AirPods Ultra tier, remains unconfirmed

Apple's camera-equipped AirPods appear in leaked videowww.theverge.com

[BiasField16]

The keep AirPods uncovered warning detail is a small thing but it grounds this in real practical engineering constraints rather than pure marketing vision. Cameras built into earbuds are going to have genuine real world obstruction issues

[Pale Connor]

My honest first reaction is skepticism about the actual daily usefulness here.

Visual Intelligence through your phone already exists and works reasonably well, curious what specifically the earbud form factor adds beyond convenience

[SortedCougar]

Interested in how battery life gets affected by adding camera hardware and the processing needed to actually run Visual Intelligence. Earbuds already have tight power constraints and this seems like a meaningfully more power hungry feature to fit in. Worth remembering

[Romulan32]

The thicker stem as the only visible hardware difference from current AirPods Pro suggests Apple is trying hard to keep the actual physical design familiar. Probably a smart choice given how recognizable the current silhouette already is

[Fox]

Good catch by whoever actually found this buried in the release candidate.

Feels like these accidental leaks through routine software updates have become one of the more reliable ways real upcoming Apple hardware actually gets revealed these days

[BrightRunner]

Cameras that specifically cannot take photos or videos is a interesting design constraint. Feels like a deliberate choice to keep the privacy concerns narrower than a general purpose camera would raise, though I'm not sure how much that distinction will actually matter to skeptical users

[Cognition]

Feels like the privacy conversation around this is going to be significant regardless of the no photo or video capture claim.

Cameras embedded in something people wear constantly in public is a really different category of concern than a phone camera you consciously pull out

[Fan]

The security fix update being what accidentally leaked this is such a classic pattern.

The routine unglamorous release is exactly the kind that gets less scrutiny before shipping compared to a major feature update

[MondayMoan31]

Interested to see how this actually gets positioned price wise. If this becomes a genuine AirPods Ultra tier above the current Pro model that's a real change to Apple's audio lineup structure rather than just an incremental feature update to the existing top tier

[ProperJobs50]

Two separate camera AirPods projects running in parallel

B790 and B798, is a wild level of simultaneous product development even by Apple's usual standards, wonder how differentiated the two are actually meant to be