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You've probably seen the leak by now. macOS 26.7 RC includes an intro video showcasing a person presenting a book cover to their AirPods and saving information for later. Then, a localization table included strings about setting up AirPods with Visual Intelligence, and how AirPods cameras will handle being covered by hair.

But that's only half of the story. macOS 26.7 RC also includes AccessorySensorManager, which controls the image capture on the new devices.

TLDR:

• A color camera on each AirPod, can take up to 1 megapixel images.
• The two cameras capture synchronized image pairs.
• The system supports one-shot and periodic still-image capture, with an active and background mode.
• There's person detection, and a hardware indicator with controllable brightness.

Here's what I've been able to find based on code that ships in macOS 26.7 RC.

Do the upcoming AirPods have cameras?

Code in macOS 26.7 suggests that each AirPod has its own camera sensor. Apple refers to the hardware sensor as "Kino," and identifies left and right CVCAM (Computer Vision camera) devices. [1] macOS also tracks the left and right camera hardware independently in code. [2]

Are they color cameras, IR, or another type of sensor?

macOS receives color images from the AirPods. The sensor output uses the CoreVideo rg3h format, which contains three 16-bit red, green, and blue planes. [3] CoreVideo explicitly describes the format as ContainsRGB = 1 and ContainsGrayscale = 0. [4]

Still, the code doesn't rule out that AirPods themselves may have additional sensors that do not participate in the image capture pipeline.

Do both AirPods take a picture simultaneously?

Yes, the cameras are designed to act as a synchronized pair. Each AirPod earbud captures a still frame with a specific frame ID. macOS considers a picture complete only when the left and right frame IDs match, explicitly treating a mismatch as an error. [5]

If only one earbud is able to produce a picture, macOS can create an empty placeholder for the missing still. [6]

What resolution are the cameras?

The active capture mode starts with a 640×640 capture and returns a processed 1024×1024 image. That's about 0.4 megapixels of sampled image data, and a little over 1 megapixel for the output frame.

There is also a lower-resolution passive capture mode with a 320×320 capture that can return 320×320 or 512×512 output, depending on the capture mode. [7]

These are capture-specific resolutions, and the physical sensor's native resolution may be larger.

Are these still or video cameras?

AccessorySensorManager supports both one-shot and periodic capture of still frames. [8] There is no implementation for recording conventional video. This ties nicely with the current implementation of Visual Intelligence, which is optimized for image understanding.

In active mode, the framework has two options. It can request a synchronized pair of still images with matching frame IDs from each earbud. Or it can provide a capture rate, and AirPods will continue sending pairs of images at the specified rate. In the one-shot case, the capture rate is 0. [9]

What's active and passive capture?

Active mode is a deliberate, higher-resolution capture. The code doesn't identify what user action or system process starts it, it is easy to imagine that a Siri request may trigger an active capture if the user is wearing AirPods.

Passive mode is lower-resolution and supports environmental awareness. In fact, macOS 26 includes a "contextual alarm" configuration with 5 possible conditions:

• Ambient speech, where speech is detected around the user. The code does not specify whether AirPods classify the speech or respond to any detected speech.
• Audio scene change, where the surrounding audio environment changes. Once again, the code doesn't specify the specific triggering conditions, but possible scenes may include speech, traffic, a room with loud music, or a quiet place.
• Posture change
• Head rotation
• Circular region, where the user has moved out of a defined spatial radius.

[10] [11] [12] [13]

How are the cameras calibrated?

Because the earbuds may sit at different angles and move continuously while worn, the new devices have extensive options for sensor calibration. The framework includes:

• Intrinsics, which describe the camera's field of view, optical center, and how the lens bends the image.
• Extrinsics, which describe the camera's position and angle relative to the earbud, its counterpart, and the user.
• Distortion correction, which compensates for the curved image produced by a particularly small or wide-angle lens. This may give us some more indication about the physical sensor.
• Camera-to-IMU calibration, which allows the framework to account for head movement and gravity.
• Surface models, which help transform the raw image into a user-relative view.

The framework can also set aside images with excessive motion blur or occlusion. [14] [15]

Is there any processing done on the AirPods themselves?

There's at least one mention of inference done on the earbuds themselves. The framework includes mentions of peripheral inference, which is used to detect if a person is in the camera's field of view. [16] [17]

Are there any privacy features included?

The framework contains code that allows it to remotely control a hardware indicator and its brightness. [18] [19] It's easy to imagine that this is some sort of camera privacy light. I did not find any indication that an unobstructed view of the privacy light is required for capture, but this may be handled by the AirPods firmware instead.

I could not find any code that showed that AirPods may suppress images when another person is detected in the image capture. In fact, the person detection mentioned above has a "person not detected, sent the image anyways" result, which points in the opposite direction. [17]

The links throughout the walkthrough have references to code added in macOS 26.7 so you can verify the claims or explore further on your own. They're from blacktop/ipsw-diffs on Github. They do amazing work and you should go give them a star.

> According to a reliable source speaking to AppleInsider, Apple has laid off an unknown number of employees tied to Apple's VR team, the Apple Vision Group, and similar positions. > > […] which aligns with incoming CEO John Ternus reportedly putting the category "on ice."

With the upcoming AI labels set to make those tags visible to Apple Music labels, “content providers will be required to include AI Transparency Tags in any instance where AI was used to create a material portion of the content, including tracks that are AI platform generated,” Apple Music said. “We define AI-platform-generated content as anything that is primarily derived from a generative AI service.”

An Apple Inc. effort to sell camera-equipped AirPods remains on track for 2027, despite a leak from the company indicating that the product might arrive sooner.

The new earbuds, designed to vault the iPhone maker into the AI wearables market, had long been planned for introduction this year, with the product going into advanced testing among Apple employees this past spring, Bloomberg News reported in early May.

But by the summer, when the company had sought to begin producing the earbuds, supply chain and software snags led Apple to postpone the product until 2027, Bloomberg reported in mid-June.

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Important to note that Gurman was reporting that a camera-equipped AirPods model could be launching as soon as this year just two weeks ago.

One of the Beats codenames MacRumors found in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 update (B518) appears to be for the Beats 360, a new set of over-ear headphones that we could see launch soon.

Multiple Reddit users found signs of the Beats 360 on UK websites like Amazon, though those listings have now been removed.

Apple is working on a home hub that incorporates Siri AI, and it's set to launch as soon as this year. The home hub will use a Widget Gallery that lets users select the content they want to appear on the device's home screen.

Apple already uses the Widget Gallery on iPhone, iPad, and Mac for adding widgets to the Home Screen and Lock Screen of those devices, and the home hub will have a similar mechanism.

All users in the home will be able to see the widgets installed on the home hub, but content in widgets will only be visible when the primary linked device is in the home for privacy protection.

Apple will launch its annual National Parks Apple Watch activity challenge on Sunday, August 23 to celebrate national parks across the United States.

Apple Watch owners can earn an Apple Watch activity award by doing a hike, walk, run, or wheelchair push that lasts for 20 minutes or more on August 23, 2026.

> Earning this award is a walk in the park. Or a run. Or a hike. Or a wheelchair push. Just record one of these workouts for 20 minutes or more on August 23.

Like all of the Apple Watch activity challenges, earning the award will provide users with animated stickers that can be used in the Messages app.

Apple today announced changes to its business terms for apps in the European Union, following close collaboration with the European Commission. These changes resolve Apple’s disagreements with the Commission over business terms and alternative distribution. They also reduce complexity by moving every developer that distributes apps in the EU to a single set of business terms. Developers can sign the new terms today, and changes will go into effect on October 1.

Under the new terms:

• For App Store apps using Apple In-App Purchase, the commission will be 26 percent. For the vast majority of developers, including those in the App Store Small Business Program, Mini Apps Partner Program, or Video Partner Program, and for auto-renewing subscriptions after their first year, it will be 15 percent.
• For App Store apps using alternative payment processing, the commission will be 20 percent. Developers in the programs mentioned above will pay a reduced rate of 10 percent.
• For App Store apps that link out of the app to complete purchases, the commission will be 15 percent. Developers in the programs mentioned above will pay a reduced rate of 10 percent.
• For apps distributed via alternative app marketplaces or the web, Apple will charge a 5 percent Core Technology Commission.

Apple is working on camera-equipped AirPods that appear to be nearly ready to launch, based on a video MacRumors found in the macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate.

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All you need to do is press and hold the message, tap Reply, then type your response. It will be received by the recipient as a real threaded reply (i.e. an inline reply), tying it directly to the message in question. It's the same with reactions – react to a shared photo and your contact will see the intended emoji instead of a message saying that you "liked an image."

Apple is hiring a Studio Producer for its Fitness+ service with a background in live production, in what could be a hint at the future of the service.

Apple's upcoming foldable "iPhone Ultra" may see a staggered country-by-country launch over several months, with initial availability limited to the U.S. market, according to an Australian publication.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook once said that what Steve Jobs stood for, in a word, was "innovation." In a CBS News interview conducted yesterday, Cook – in his final weeks at the helm of the company – was asked what his legacy stood for, and this was his response:

"In my view, your legacy is described by others, not yourself. And so, I hope that people will say that I was a good and decent man. And if they say that at the end of the day, I will feel like I have achieved something."