Apple's September event unveiled its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone 18 Pro line, ANC on the entry-level AirPods 5, and a Siri Recap feature for its watches, but stopped short of releasing long-rumoured AirPods Pro with built-in cameras. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, that camera-equipped model has been pushed back to 2027, a delay the Verge writer welcomes given concerns about normalising cameras in ubiquitous, easily concealed devices like earbuds, where covert recording could go unnoticed even in sensitive settings.

The rumoured cameras would reportedly be low-resolution and intended not for photos or video but to feed Siri AI and Visual Intelligence, assisting with things like navigation or identifying text and objects. Apple's newly announced Audio Intelligence feature for the Apple Watch, which does not store recordings and keeps data inaccessible even to Apple, may hint at how the company plans to handle privacy safeguards once camera-equipped AirPods do arrive. The author acknowledges potential accessibility benefits, such as aiding users with visual or hearing impairments, but argues these gains would require significant trust in a company's handling of always-on sensor data.