Apple's camera AirPods are almost ready — and Siri is finally catching up
Apple's long-rumored camera-equipped AirPods have cleared a major development hurdle, reaching the advanced testing phase with a near-final design — putting a real product closer to your ears than ever before. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports the earbuds are in DVT (design validation testing), the stage just before mass production. The target window is September 2026, timed to launch alongside iOS 27 and a significantly upgraded Siri.
The cameras aren't for selfies
The built-in cameras are infrared and low-resolution — they won't shoot photos or video. Instead, they feed visual data to Apple's next-generation, AI-powered Siri, enabling what Apple calls Visual Intelligence. The idea is context-aware assistance: hold up groceries and Siri suggests a recipe; glance at a restaurant menu and it surfaces reviews. A small LED indicator signals when the cameras are active, a direct nod to privacy concerns. Think of them less as eyes and more as environmental sensors.
The earbuds are expected to carry the Ultra name — in line with Apple Watch Ultra and the rumored foldable iPhone — and will be priced above the current AirPods Pro 3, which starts at $249. Early estimates put the AirPods Ultra somewhere between $299 and $349, though Apple hasn't confirmed a figure.
Why the wait, and what changed
The original plan was an early 2026 release, but Siri's AI development kept slipping. The pivot came when Apple struck a strategic partnership with Google, gaining full access to Gemini's models to accelerate Siri training, per Bloomberg. That appears to have unstuck the project. Still, Apple's track record with AI features has been shaky — Siri's contextual capabilities remain well behind ChatGPT and Google's own assistant, and the company could delay again if the quality bar isn't met by launch.
The bigger picture
Camera-toting earbuds sit in contested territory. Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses have already normalized AI-powered visual sensing in a wearable, at around $300. Apple's pitch is that AirPods Ultra does the same job without requiring you to wear a second device — your earbuds are already in. Whether US regulators or privacy advocates push back on always-on infrared cameras in public spaces remains an open question, especially given existing FTC scrutiny of wearable data collection.
If September holds, AirPods Ultra will be one of the most significant Apple hardware launches in years — not because of the cameras themselves, but because they signal what Siri is finally supposed to become.