Apple’s Smart Glasses Are Still Coming (Eventually)
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The mythic Apple Glass project we once all dreamed of may remain a moonshot, but Apple’s more modest ambitions for creating a basic set of smart glasses are reportedly still on track. It remains an open question when we’ll actually see them, but at least this project fits within the realm of achievable goals.
There’s been a lot of mixed news about Apple’s plans for smart glasses over the past few months, but one thing that seems certain is that whatever the company is working on will be more in line with Meta’s Ray-Bans and Amazon’s Echo Frames — a pair of iPhone-connected smart glasses that would offer basic capabilities like recording video, playing music, and responding to voice commands.
They might also overlay some information onto the front lenses, although they won’t come anywhere near a true augmented reality experience.
Apple has reportedly been dreaming of true AR glasses for the better part of a decade. The rumor mill has been rife with speculation for years on what Apple was up to, with reports ranging from glasses that would beam info right into your eyeballs to a really far-out report of a “Steve Jobs Heritage Edition” version coming in early 2021 (we scoffed at this one at the time; five years later it seems downright quaint). There have even been reports that Apple plans to round out its lineup with AR smart contact lenses.
There’s little doubt that Apple is exploring all of these areas (well, except for the “Steve Jobs Heritage Edition” — that’s just plain nuts, and not at all Apple’s style to do something so tacky as to exploit Jobs’ legacy). There’s even evidence that Apple has been researching smart contact lenses, but there’s a world of difference between studying something and being able to turn it into a product.
That’s precisely what happened with the so-called Apple Glass. Rumors of the work on AR glasses were frequently accompanied by reports of Apple’s other product, a “mixed-reality” AR/VR headset. By late 2019, these had coalesced into a fairly solid report of Apple’s work on both projects, complete with code names. Sources who leaked information from an internal all-hands meeting led by Apple’s then-new AR/VR team lead, Mike Rockwell, said that Apple planned to release the headset, code-named N301, in 2022, followed by a “sleeker” pair of AR glasses (N421) the following year.
Although the 2022 date turned out to be a bit optimistic, we now know that N301 was what ultimately became the Vision Pro. Apple showed that off during its 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), making it technically only a year late; however, it didn’t go on sale until the following February.
Meanwhile, Apple Glass is still nowhere to be found. Reports on those died down as the Vision Pro neared its debut. What little we heard suggested that they’d never gotten past the “architecture” stage — the preliminary research and development phase where Apple is still trying to figure out how to make all the technologies work and is nowhere near a prototype. The project was eventually shelved, partly to focus on the Vision Pro but also because the technology wasn’t yet ready for prime time — at least not to a level that would allow such a pair of glasses to be sold for a reasonable price.
Nevertheless, “shelved” doesn’t mean “dead,” and Apple’s CEO is reportedly still “hell-bent” on a true set of Apple Glasses, if for no other reason than to beat its rivals to the market. Last year, Meta unveiled Orion AR Glasses, but these remain little more than a publicly announced prototype. They reportedly cost $10,000 to build and aren’t anywhere near release. It hopes to launch a consumer version by the end of 2027, but there’s no guarantee that will happen.
Meanwhile, Apple plans to aim slightly lower to get at least something out before then. We saw the first reports that Apple was pursuing something simpler in early 2024, and while it’s reportedly had some false starts with one version, code-named N107. that was supposed to be Mac-connected, it hasn’t given up.
In this week’s Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman says that the version Apple is currently working on is code-named N50, which suggests something different from the scrapped AR glasses. This device “isn’t close to being ready yet,” but it’s a much less ambitious set of glasses that “will stop well short of true augmented reality,” Gurman says.
Instead, the goal is to use them as an Apple Intelligence device, perhaps as a wearable version of the Visual Intelligence feature that Apple debuted on the iPhone 16 lineup. “The product will analyze the surrounding environment and feed information to the wearer,” according to Gurman, possibly through some simple screens.
Apple seems to be looking to stick cameras on several of its products, from the AirPods to the Apple Watch, all with a similar purpose — gathering data from the world around you to feed into Apple Intelligence. The glasses and camera-equipped AirPods are expected to overlap, but Gurman notes that’s intentional; “There is a sizable group of consumers who don’t want something in their ears all day.”
Having Visual Intelligence available without needing to fumble with your iPhone is intriguing, but we’re not sure if Apple is trying to solve a problem that few people actually have.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
