Apple’s Camera AirPods Were Supposed to Debut Today. Now They’re a 2027 Product.

Somewhere in a version of today's Apple event that no longer exists, there are earbuds with cameras in them. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple planned to show off high-end AirPods with built-in cameras at the 10am Pacific keynote, and then took them off the schedule. They are now aimed at 2027.

This is Gurman's reporting, not an Apple announcement. Apple does not comment on products it has not shipped, and it has not commented on these. Gurman has been tracking the earbuds all year, though, and the story has held its shape even as the date kept sliding.

The year the date kept moving

In May the earbuds were reportedly in advanced testing with mass production close. In June the target slid to late 2027. In early August Gurman reported they were far enough along to possibly ship before the end of 2026, which put them on today's stage. By the middle of August, Apple had pulled the model out of its 2026 plans. Gurman points at supply chain and software problems, and says a fall 2027 launch would line the earbuds up with the 20th anniversary iPhone.

Two versions exist internally, by his account: B790, an AirPods Pro 3 with cameras, and B798, a later model. B790 is the one that was on the 2026 map until recently.

What a camera in your ear is actually for

The cameras are low resolution and cannot take photos or record video. Their job is to look at whatever is in front of you and hand that context to Siri and Apple's Visual Intelligence features. Apple's own leaked demo makes it concrete. Someone holds a book up to the earbuds and asks Siri to save the information off it.

About that leak. A demo video of the camera AirPods turned up inside the release candidate build of macOS Tahoe 26.7, which is the only way anyone outside Apple has seen the product in motion. Apple leaked its own unreleased earbuds and then declined to ship them. An earlier rumor about an infrared sensor did not survive contact with that code, by the way. Nobody found one.

Does anyone want earbuds that watch?

Earbuds that can see are Apple's version of a bet plenty of companies are making right now, that people want an AI with a view of their surroundings available at all times. Humane tried it with a pin. Meta is doing it with glasses. Nobody has proven that a lot of people want to buy it, and the one demo we have shows a person scanning a book, which the phone in your pocket already does.

The privacy problem arrived on schedule too. These are cameras pointed outward from your head, worn indoors, in meetings, on trains. Low resolution and no photo capture help, but "my earbuds are looking at you" is still a sentence people react to. Apple would have to answer that on stage, and answering it goes better when the software works.

A product slipping a year is ordinary. Apple does it constantly. This one is more interesting because the product is the ambient AI pitch in earbud form, and Apple would rather sit out a keynote than demo it.

What you can actually expect today

AirPods 5 are still expected at the event, reportedly in two versions, one with active noise cancellation and one without. Ordinary earbuds, no cameras. If you were holding out for the pair that can see, you have at least another year of waiting, and Gurman's target date for them has already changed three times in 2026.