AirPods 5 and AirPods Pro 4 Spotted: Revealing Apple’s Latest Innovations!

This marks the first tangible evidence of development for the AirPods 5 and AirPods Pro 4. In the recent RC release of macOS 26.7, the website MacRumors uncovered mentions of these upcoming models. The codenames B868M and B868E denote the AirPods 5 models, with and without noise cancellation technology respectively (AirPods 4 use the codenames B768M and B768E), while the reference AirPodsPro1,4 is associated with the new variant of the AirPods Pro 4 (with AirPods Pro 3 referred to as AirPodsPro1,3).

In October, tech analyst Mark Gurman reported that Apple had initiated the development of these new models designed to replace the AirPods 4 released in September 2024 and the AirPods Pro 3 launched in September 2025. At that time, he mentioned just one update: the Apple H3 chip, which he claimed would provide “improved latency and better audio quality than the current Apple H2 chip.” It’s anticipated that there will be additional enhancements, though details remain unspecified at this point.

It’s unlikely that the AirPods 5 and AirPods Pro 4 will be released before next year. However, this doesn’t mean Apple won’t introduce new features this fall. Notably, they plan to debut the first AirPod models equipped with cameras, offering advanced visual intelligence capabilities. This was briefly glimpsed in a video accidentally left in a macOS beta. Predictably, these models will be priced higher than the current AirPods Pro 3 and are not intended as direct replacements.