According to The Verge, a video that MacRumors found in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 Release Candidate may offer a first glimpse of Apple's rumored camera-equipped AirPods. The short clip features a man wearing the earbuds while holding up a book with the cover displayed so that Visual Intelligence can see the book title.
The clip shows the AirPods from the back only, and no lights can be seen on them from that angle. The AirPods in the demo look like a slightly thicker version of the AirPods Pro 3, which is what Bloomberg's Mark Gurman had predicted, along with longer stems to accommodate the cameras and LED lights that indicate when data is being uploaded to the cloud.
A Siri voice-over plays over the clip, saying "with Visual Intelligence, your world becomes savable. See something you like? Just ask me to save it for later." Gurman has previously reported that the rumored AirPods with cameras are designed to take in "visual information in low resolution" and act as eyes for Apple's AI features, potentially allowing Siri to give turn-by-turn directions or answer questions about the wearer's surroundings.
The AirPods' cameras "aren't designed" to snap photos or videos, and the Visual Intelligence features leave the earbuds poised to compete with other camera-equipped AI gadgets like Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, though Apple is also reportedly working on its own smart glasses. For now, details about Apple's AirPods with cameras are still slim. If demo videos are already making their way into Apple's OS betas, the new AirPods may launch alongside the improved version of Siri, which is expected to arrive in September together with the next generation of iPhones.
