Apple's camera-equipped AirPods: New details emerge from leaked macOS beta

The video, first spotted Monday, shows a person wearing AirPods Pro holding up a book and asking Siri to remember it. The earbuds resemble existing AirPods Pro 3.

According to 9to5Mac, which reviewed code in the macOS 26.7 build, each AirPod Pro earbud has its own camera and the two are meant to work as a pair, taking pictures simultaneously. Apple's new AccessorySensorMgrd framework pairs the images together; if only one image is captured, the framework generates an empty counterpart. Apple refers to the camera sensor as the 'Kino Sensor.'

Engadget reported additional details, citing code from the same build. Each earbud takes RGB still images of up to 1 megapixel, and the images are synchronized by Visual Intelligence software into a cohesive view. The earbuds account for head movement, and software rejects images affected by excessive motion or an occluded view. Some processing appears to happen on the earbuds themselves, which the code calls 'peripheral inference.'

The cameras do not shoot video; they support periodic image capture, which is said to be enough for Visual Intelligence to understand the environment. There are active and passive capture modes. Active mode produces higher-quality images, starting with a 640x640 capture and returning a processed 1024x1024 image, according to a MacRumors forums user who examined the code. Passive mode uses a 320x320 capture and can return 320x320 or 512x512 output. Passive mode is described as lower-resolution and supports environmental awareness, with conditions such as ambient speech, audio scene changes, posture changes, head rotation, or the user leaving a defined spatial radius.

Both reports say the AirPods have a privacy indicator light that activates when images are captured. The lenses are intended for AI and visual intelligence only, not for taking pictures or recording video, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reiterated.

The leaked video, first spotted Monday and shared on social media, shows a person wearing AirPods Pro holding up a book and asking Siri to remember it. A voiceover says, 'with Visual Intelligence, your world becomes saveable. See something you like? Just ask me to save it for later.'

Despite the video's presence in the macOS 26.7 release candidate, Apple is not expected to launch the product soon. Bloomberg's Gurman wrote Wednesday that AirPods with cameras remain on track for a 2027 launch. He identified two versions in development: B790, a modified version of AirPods Pro 3 with cameras, and B798, a new generation of AirPods with cameras. It is unclear which version Apple will ship.

Apple is holding its iPhone 18 event next month, where more information could be revealed, but the AirPods are not expected to be released at that time.