Apple to launch Smart Glasses in 2026
Hopefully, this will fix the underwhelming performance of the Vision Pro.
Apple is now working on smart glasses to compete with the Meta Ray-Bans. Recently, Meta has come out with glasses that have a display built in and use AI to assist in tasks and everyday things. Apple is supposedly halting their work on a Vision Pro successor to build these new glasses.
At first, the glasses will almost certainly take a similar approach to the Apple Watch – being a fashion accessory with smart features. They have to cram speakers, displays, batteries, and chips into tiny frames, so it would be difficult, expensive, and heavy to build it all in and impossible to make it look anywhere near polished.
That is why Apple is planning on building most of the processing into the iPhone. This means you will need an iPhone to use them. It will be necessary to power all of the AI features like voice control using Siri (which will be closer to what Claude and others are like) and live translation. And yes, this means that the glasses will mostly be voice control powered, since reaching up every time you want to do something is straining and annoying.
They will also come in different styles and materials just like normal glasses to blend in to look like just a normal pair of glasses.
Supposedly, according to MacRumors, the current rumored features are:
- Take photos
- Record video
- Play audio, including podcasts, music, and audiobooks
- Offer directions
- Answer questions
- Describe your surroundings
- Identify plants, animals, landmarks and more with Visual Intelligence
- Make phone calls
- Send messages
- Translate languages
We don't know all of the features yet, but these features are already seen on other products like the Vision Pro, so it wouldn't be surprising if they make their way into Apple's Smart Glasses.
Cost is still up in the air, since the Vision Pro costs so much, but the new Meta Ray Bans cost $799. Release date is also still unknown, but it seems like Apple is ramping up progress on them, so they could be here as soon as 2026.
The Apple Smart Glasses will be a great pair of AR glasses, with lots of great features and services. We will have to wait and see what Apple does soon.
