References to a camera-equipped AirPods variant called B790 have surfaced inside iOS 27 beta code, suggesting Apple may ship a version of its Visual Intelligence earbuds later this year rather than waiting until 2027. Mark Gurman reported the development in his Power On newsletter, noting that B790 has been on Apple’s internal road map for a debut as early as this year.
This represents a meaningful shift from where things stood just weeks ago. The more advanced model, internally coded B798, was originally targeted for a first-half 2026 release but slipped to 2027 after Apple concluded that the upgraded version of Siri needed to power the cameras wasn’t ready. The B790 appears to be a separate, presumably less advanced variant that Apple may have positioned as an earlier entry point.
The camera-equipped AirPods are designed to feed visual information about the wearer’s surroundings directly to Siri, not to capture photos or video. Apple has been working on the project for four years, and the earbuds are described as its first wearable AI product. The hardware looks similar to AirPods Pro but with slightly longer stems to accommodate the cameras, and includes an LED that illuminates when data is being sent to the cloud. The branding is still unsettled internally: “AirPods Ultra” and “AirPods Pro 3 With Cameras” have both been floated, and Apple reportedly does not intend to call them AirPods Pro 4.
The potential 2026 release timeframe lines up with Apple’s September software push. The new version of Siri, with Visual Intelligence baked in, is expected to ship with iOS 27, macOS 27, and iPadOS 27 in September. IOS 27 is also adding a Siri mode to the Camera app that incorporates Visual Intelligence for things like scanning nutrition labels for calorie tracking, which points to the broader system these earbuds are built to fit into.
There is a complicating data point, prototype leaker Kosutami has claimed the camera AirPods project was “suspended” rather than simply delayed, which contradicts the iOS 27 code findings. Whether that suspension report is accurate is not clear yet, and the appearance of B790 in shipping beta code at minimum suggests work is continuing on some variant of the product.
The more advanced B798 model is now expected to arrive in late 2027, reportedly alongside the 20th anniversary iPhone and a next-generation foldable iPhone. If B790 ships this year, it would likely arrive as something closer to a first-generation proof of concept for the platform, with B798 delivering the fuller version of the experience Apple originally had in mind for 2026.
