Apple has inadvertently disclosed plans for camera-equipped AirPods after promotional footage embedded in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 Release Candidate showed the unreleased earbuds in action. The leak, first reported by MacRumors on August 17, reveals a feature called Visual Intelligence that uses built-in cameras to capture low-resolution visual data and relay it to Siri.
In the demonstration, a man holds a book toward the AirPods camera so the assistant can read its title, with Siri's voice inviting users to "save" what they see. The earbuds, code-named B790, resemble AirPods Pro 3 with a thicker body and longer stems to accommodate photographic sensors, and include light indicators to signal cloud uploads.
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the device remains on track for a potential September 2026 debut alongside the iPhone 18 Pro lineup and Apple's first foldable phone, the iPhone Ultra. The software build also references unreleased products including a HomePod mini, iMac, and iPad mini.