Apple delayed its camera AirPods because Siri wasn't ready. Gurman says they're back in late testing.

Apple’s camera-equipped AirPods have hit a milestone, three years into development. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported on May 7 that the earbuds have entered advanced testing with near-final hardware, making them Apple’s closest-to-shipping wearable AI device. The design is almost locked.

The product was supposed to launch in the first half of 2026, but its core dependency, a smarter version of Siri, still isn’t finished. Now that iOS 27 is set to introduce the revamped assistant in September, the hardware team is catching up. Apple is considering “AirPods Ultra” branding and pricing above the current $249 AirPods Pro 3 tier, according to Gurman’s reporting.

What we know

Gurman’s May 7 report puts the product in “advanced” testing with an “almost finalized” design. Here’s what Bloomberg confirmed:

• Each earbud will contain a tiny infrared camera in a slightly longer stem. The rest of the design looks similar to AirPods Pro 3, which currently sell for $249.
• The cameras can’t take photos or video. No shutter. They’re AI-only sensors that feed visual context to Siri, similar to how image uploads work in chatbot apps today.
• A small LED will illuminate when the AirPods are sending visual data, signaling to bystanders that the cameras are active.
• Apple is considering “AirPods Ultra” branding, according to Gurman, though “AirPods Pro 4 With Cameras” hasn’t been ruled out.
• Pricing will sit above $249, though the exact figure hasn’t leaked.

What we don’t know

Several key details are missing from Gurman’s May 7 report.

• Whether the cameras process anything on-device or stream everything to an iPhone. Battery life implications differ enormously between the two approaches.
• How Apple handles the privacy optics of always-available cameras in earbuds. The LED indicator helps, but it’s a smaller signal than Meta Ray-Ban’s prominent recording light.
• Whether the camera AirPods will support third-party AI models. Apple’s iOS 27 AI marketplace opens the platform to competitors like ChatGPT and Gemini, but it’s unclear if that extends to wearable camera feeds.
• The exact launch date. Gurman’s reporting suggests a September 2026 window aligned with iOS 27, but Apple originally planned the first half of this year and missed it.

The Siri bottleneck

Apple’s wearable AI strategy runs through Siri, and Siri has been the bottleneck. The company wanted these AirPods shipping in early 2026, but the smarter AI version of Siri that makes the cameras useful wasn’t ready. Without the assistant upgrade, camera-equipped earbuds would be hardware waiting for software.

The intended use cases make the dependency clear. Gurman describes users looking at an item and asking Siri what it is, getting reminders triggered by visual context (walking past a dry cleaner while your receipt is in your pocket), and receiving turn-by-turn directions informed by what the cameras actually see around the wearer.

None of that works with the current Siri. It needs the multimodal, context-aware version that Apple has promised for iOS 27’s September debut. That’s why the hardware team has been holding the product: the cameras are ready, but the brain behind them isn’t.

What this means for you

Apple’s play here is similar to Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses but integrated into a form factor 150 million people already wear. If you own AirPods Pro today, the upgrade pitch will be: same comfort, same audio, but now Siri can see what you’re seeing. Meta has a head start on the concept (Ray-Ban Meta glasses shipped camera-enabled smart glasses in 2023), but Apple’s distribution advantage through its existing AirPods install base is hard to match.

The September timeline means WWDC in June will likely preview the software side. If you’re waiting on this product, that’s your signal to watch. And if the $249 AirPods Pro 3 price point is already your ceiling, expect to pay more. These will be Apple’s most expensive AirPods to date, though Gurman hasn’t put a specific number on it. Watch the iOS 27 preview at WWDC for how much of the “new Siri” actually ships on day one.