According to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman’s recent news on social platforms, Apple is planning a new form of AirPods, and the wireless headset body will integrate a camera module “designed for Siri”. The price of this new product is expected to be higher than the current $249 AirPods Pro 3, so Apple is internally considering a new name of "AirPods Ultra" for it to differentiate it from the existing Pro series in terms of positioning.
Unlike traditional photo and video cameras, Gurman previously reported that "AirPods Ultra" will not be used to directly capture photos or videos, but is equipped with an infrared camera that senses the user's surrounding environment through computer vision technology and sends the data back to Siri. With this hardware foundation, the headset will specifically enhance the Visual Intelligence function provided on iPhone 15 Pro and newer models, giving the device greater environmental awareness in terms of understanding scenes and identifying objects. The principle is considered to be similar to the infrared camera used for Face ID on the current iPhone, except that the application scenario is expanded from facial recognition to surrounding environment understanding.
As early as June 2024, Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that AirPods equipped with cameras are expected to enable new forms of interaction such as "air gesture control". However, Gurman said in his latest statement this week that he does not expect the new AirPods to support gesture operation functions, which means that Apple is currently more focused on using infrared cameras as sensors to improve Siri's perception capabilities, rather than directly creating a new gesture interaction paradigm.
Regarding product positioning, the market initially believed that AirPods with a camera might be launched as a high-end configuration version of AirPods Pro 3, similar to today’s AirPods 4, which offers different styles with and without noise reduction. However, judging from recent revelations, Apple is more inclined to shape it into a completely independent "AirPods Ultra" series, with the overall positioning higher than AirPods Pro in the product line, rather than a simple Pro derivative model.
It is worth noting that the “Ultra” brand label is rapidly penetrating into Apple’s multiple product lines. Filipe Espósito from Macworld recently reported that Apple plans to launch "iPhone Ultra" and "MacBook Ultra" within the next year, which together with "AirPods Ultra" will form a new Ultra product portfolio. At present, Apple has widely adopted this name in Apple Watch Ultra, CarPlay Ultra, and chip series from M1 Ultra to M3 Ultra. Ultra is gradually becoming an important symbol of the "highest end" or "enhanced experience version" in Apple's system.
As for the specific release time of "AirPods Ultra", there is currently no conclusion. If Apple intends to coincide with the long-rumored foldable "iPhone Ultra" debut, then this September's fall launch event would be a fairly reasonable window. According to existing reports, the newly designed "MacBook Ultra" is expected to debut around the beginning of 2027, featuring a series of major upgrades such as OLED displays and touch operations, which will continue to enrich Apple's hardware layout at the Ultra level.