Camera-Equipped AirPods Are Definitely Coming For Your Ears - DTNS 5334

**Jason Howell** (0:04)
This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, August 18th, 2026 We tell you what you need to know, give you the important context of all of it, not in a weird AI sort of way. But hopefully we help you and everyone understand.

**Tom Merritt** (0:19)
Speaking of weird AI sorts of ways today, unintentionally on Apple's part, we get our first look at Apple's upcoming camera-equipped AirPods.

**Jason Howell** (0:29)
Unintentionally? Are you sure? Yeah, probably unintentionally. I'm Jason Howell.

**Tom Merritt** (0:33)
I'm pretty sure. Tom Merritt.

**Jason Howell** (0:36)
Let's start with what you need to know with a big story.
Yeah, this is interesting. I'm super excited to dive into this. Apple's latest Mac OS, Tahoe 26.7 release candidate that was released yesterday and buried within were references to a handful of unreleased Apple products, a lot of them, actually, which we'll talk about. The one getting the most buzz, though, today, is Apple's unannounced, but rumored, I think we've talked about it before on this show, camera-equipped AirPods spotted for the first time in a Mac OS demo, like a video demo showing off visual intelligence. In the video, there's a man wearing AirPods, holding up a book, and then you hear a voiceover.

**Tom Merritt** (1:23)
With visual intelligence, your world becomes saveable.
See something you like? Just ask me to save it for later.

**Jason Howell** (1:31)
Okay, holds up a book. He looks at the book with the title. We can only imagine he saw something that he liked, and he wanted to save it for later with the camera and the AirPods.
Mark Gurman had already shared on Bloomberg that the product, which in this case is code named B790, could launch in September. A video showing the product kind of makes that seem at least a little more likely or possible, at least. There were a slew of other products listed, as so many, in fact, that I'm not going to name them all, but some notable ones that I pulled out. Apple's upcoming home hubs, one with a base, the other with a wall mount, a possible security camera, a tabletop robot, whatever the heck that is, new Beats and AirPods Pro 4 headphones, the iPhone 18 series, which we talked a lot about, new MacBook Pros, new iMacs, an OLED iPad mini update, a second generation Vision Pro, possibly the cheaper, more affordable one, which I think we've also talked about at some point, and a new Apple TV remote. Again, there's more in there, but those were some of the highlights that I saw.
Yeah, lots of unknown model numbers as well that they couldn't immediately identify or clearly link to an upcoming product that has been rumored. None of these products, of course, were officially announced by Apple to date, except for the official looking video that was found inside of this.

**Tom Merritt** (2:58)
Yeah, you often find product numbers in here, and then there's enough rumors and leaks and Mark Gurman stories out there where you can triangulate what a lot of those are, which is most of what this is. That would not be a particularly unusual story at this point, to be like, oh, there's a reference to that tabletop robot we've been hearing about, that's interesting. But it doesn't even mean it's coming out. It just means they're starting to lay the groundwork for it. That video, though, shouldn't be there. That's a mistake. That's a thing where it's like, oh, this is definitely a product that someone at Apple has shot a demo video for, and it's going to be in your Mac OS at some point, but shouldn't be there yet.
So that is really interesting to see that. I'm not particularly shocked that they are that far down the road. I'm more shocked that they left the video in than it's like, oh, we might actually get these in September. I'm certainly not shocked at most of the stuff. Like, yeah, oh, wow, the iPhone 18 I keep seeing the headline on Google News every day when we do the show, like, Apple may release an iPhone 18 in September. I'm like, yeah, I think, like they do every September. Wow, what a shocking rumor.
But yeah, it's still interesting to see the video and see how it works.
There was another reference in there to like, if your hair is covering the AirPods, you might need to move your hair out of the way. So they've thought through that kind of thing. And I think when people thought AirPods with cameras, they were thinking like big lenses hanging off your ears. So it's nice to see that that's.

**Jason Howell** (4:33)
Yeah. And I mean, we don't get a front shot, right? If you didn't watch the video version, it's kind of like a side profile of the guy.