“You’re the Flock camera now.”<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
By Frank Landymore<\/p>\n\n\n\n We just got our first glimpse of Apple\u2019s long-rumored camera-equipped AirPods \u2014 and they already look like a privacy nightmare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a short demo video that MacRumors<\/em> unearthed<\/a> from the files of an upcoming macOS version, a man wearing the new AirPods holds up a book so the cameras in the device can see its title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, a voiceover says, \u201cWith Visual Intelligence, your world becomes savable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSee something you like?\u201d it continues. \u201cJust ask me to save it for later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s the extent of the demo, but it more or less confirms the rumors and reports we\u2019ve been hearing about the devices for a year now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bloomberg <\/em>has reported<\/a> that the cameras in the AirPods will \u201cessentially act as eyes\u201d for Siri and its Visual Intelligence features, allowing a wearer to ask things about their environment or, as the clip teases, take notes and transcribe text. Crucially, the camera-equipped AirPods aren\u2019t designed to take photos or video, according to the reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, the upcoming AirPods will raise huge privacy concerns once their existence becomes more publicly known. The controversy around Meta\u2019s AI-powered smart glasses \u2014 or \u201cpervert\u201d glasses, as some call them \u2014 has all but ensured that camera-equipped wearables will be a cultural issue going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, Apple has a better reputation when it comes to privacy \u2014 and pretty much everything, now that we think of it \u2014 than Meta, so it\u2019ll be interesting to see the kind of response this gets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A key difference is that Meta\u2019s smart glasses explicitly record and take photos and videos of their surroundings; the camera-equipped AirPods, if the rumors are true, can\u2019t be used to film yourself harassing women and strangers<\/a>, as many \u201ccreators\u201d on social media wearing the Meta spectacles have made a shtick out of doing. (As with Meta\u2019s glasses<\/a>, hardware hackers will probably be intensely interested in unlocking the camera to capture covert photos and video, though the AirPod ones reportedly will only \u201ccapture visual information in low resolution.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those are all nuances worth considering, but it\u2019s more than reasonable to feel uncomfortable about the casual proliferation of AI-powered cameras that scan your surroundings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/apple-leaked-airpods-privacy.png?quality=85&w=1152\")
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