“By the summer [of 2026], when the company had sought to begin producing the earbuds, supply chain and software snags led Apple to postpone the product until 2027,” Gurman writes. By summer, he means mid-June, more than two months ago. Those snags haven’t miraculously disappeared just because of the macOS leak. Gurman says they’re still being resolved.
Worse, the delay until 2027 doesn’t mean January. It means late 2027. When covering the snags in June, Bloomberg said the camera-equipped AirPods would come out “around the same time as a next-generation foldable phone and a fresh iPhone model that will mark that product’s 20th anniversary,” which means the fall of next year. And that timing doesn’t appear to have changed.
Apple only just launched the AirPods Pro 3 last fall, and it’s not uncommon for two years to pass between releases. Still, the whole situation is rather disappointing. Apple has had one of the biggest products of next year thoroughly spoiled, and fans who may have had their hopes up still have a long wait.
