Apple Reportedly Plans To Launch Its Smart Glasses In Late 2026
Apple plans to launch its competitor to the Ray-Ban Meta glasses in late 2026, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
Apple plans to launch its competitor to the Ray-Ban Meta glasses in late 2026, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
Gurman, who has a strong track record of reporting on Apple products in advance of an official reveal, previously said that Apple planned the glasses for 2027, but now reports Apple is "ramping up work", with an aim to produce "large quantities of prototypes" by the end of this year.
Assuming the previous timeline was accurate, Apple's accelerated plans may be in response to the breakout success of Meta's smart glasses and Google's plans to imminently enter the market with Gemini glasses too.
David Heaney
Gurman says the Apple smart glasses will have cameras, microphones and speakers, and be used for phone calls, music playback, live translations, turn-by-turn directions, and multimodal AI, which Apple calls Visual Intelligence.
Gurman previously reported that the glasses will use a new Apple-designed chipset, based on the highly efficient S-series chips used in Apple Watch with support for cameras.
All in all, it sounds like a very similar device to the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, though Gurman says Apple hopes it will be "better made", though some within the company are "concerned that its AI failings may undermine the new product", he writes.
David Heaney
Meta won't be standing still though. Mark Zuckerberg's company reportedly plans to launch Oakley Meta glasses later this year too, alongside higher-end smart glasses with a small heads-up display (HUD) in the right eye and a neural wristband that can sense finger gestures for input.
Meta also plans to launch its first true AR glasses in 2027, sleeker than its Orion prototype but with a narrower field of view.
Apple is working on true AR glasses too, Gurman again reports. Last month Gurman claimed that Tim Cook is "hell-bent" on releasing "industry-leading" AR glasses before Meta, citing sources claiming that he “cares about nothing else” and that they are “the only thing he’s really spending his time on from a product development standpoint”.
But Gurman also noted that it will take "many years" for Apple's AR glasses to be ready, and in January said executives don't expect a product launch until 2028 at the absolute earliest.
