Reports back in February indicated that Apple is pushing hard to get three AI products out to market. One of them is the camera-equipped AirPods. A more recent report by Bloomberg indicates that it’s getting pretty close, with the AirPods having reached the late stage of development, and is just a couple of steps away from mass production.
Per the report, internal testers “are actively using prototypes of the new AirPods that are at a stage known as DVT, or design validation testing”. That’s one step away from production validation testing (PVT), which is itself one step away from mass production. This would line up with the prior report that claimed that it could launch as early as this year.
But that’s on the hardware side of things. On the other end of the spectrum is software, or more specifically, AI. The report notes that concerns about AI elements could hold back the launch of Apple isn’t happy with the performance of its visual intelligence features.
That being the case, Apple has also been working on other uses for the AI cameras on the AirPods. One example in the report includes giving reminders based on something the camera sees, though it’s unclear what that function would actually look like in practice. Another makes more intuitive sense – giving better turn-by-turn navigation directions based on visible landmarks.
As to what these new camera-equipped AirPods will look like, the report notes that they “will resemble the AirPods Pro 3”. Though their stems will be longer to house their cameras. These cameras are also described as allowing the AirPods “to capture visual information in low resolution”. It also sounds like they won’t come with any capturing capabilities. That being said, Apple still plans on giving them a small LED light to indicate when they are feeding visual data into the cloud. This may or may not assuage privacy concerns of passersby.
(Source: Bloomberg)
