Apple Wagers Years of Delay on Smart Glasses Privacy

Apple will reveal its first smart glasses at WWDC in June 2027 and ship them before the year is out, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Part of what took so long, Gurman reports, is privacy: getting the engineering and the messaging right before stepping into a category Meta already dominates, and is already being sued over.

That patience carries a price tag. By the time Apple’s glasses reach shelves, Meta’s manufacturing partner EssilorLuxottica will have sold more than 7 million camera-equipped Ray-Ban Meta glasses in 2025 alone, nearly tripling the year before, with the broader smart glasses market on pace for roughly 13.4 million units in 2026. Apple is betting that arriving late and clean beats arriving first and controversial.

Apple Finally Puts a Date on Its Smart Glasses

The device carries the internal codename N50, according to Gurman’s Power On newsletter, and it was originally targeted for a reveal as early as late 2026. That slipped to next June’s Worldwide Developers Conference, with a retail launch expected in the final months of 2027.

Reported pricing sits between $200 and $500, in the same general range as Meta’s current glasses lineup. Apple is designing its own plastic frames rather than partnering with an established eyewear brand the way Meta leans on Ray-Ban.

The first version will reportedly skip a full in-lens display. Instead, the glasses are expected to lean on hands-free Siri for calls, music, navigation and real-time translation, similar in spirit to what Meta already ships today.

The Features Apple Is Reportedly Leaving Out

Gurman’s reporting frames the delay as deliberate rather than accidental. Apple has spent more than a decade selling privacy as a defining feature, and a poorly received entry into camera glasses could undo that positioning fast.

The company has spent more than a decade making privacy one of its defining product messages. Simply entering the same category as Meta risks undermining that reputation, regardless of how Apple’s approach differs.

Gurman wrote that assessment in his Power On newsletter, as The Verge’s Terrence O’Brien reported over the weekend. The specific choices Apple is said to be weighing follow from it:

• On-device processing – sensor and photo data handled locally rather than uploaded to Apple’s servers by default
• No facial recognition – a contrast with Meta’s in-development Name Tag tool, which would identify strangers by matching their faces against Meta’s own databases
• No always-on recording – skipping anything resembling Meta’s tested feature that captures a photo every few seconds plus continuous audio
• No AI training on customer footage – recordings reportedly will not feed Apple’s model development pipeline
• A possible camera-less option, or one limited to sensing rather than capturing photos or video, similar to what is rumored for Apple’s AI-enabled AirPods

Each item on that list describes a feature Meta already ships, is actively building, or is currently fighting a lawsuit over.

What Meta’s Two-Year Lead Looks Like

Meta is not waiting around while Apple gets its story straight. EssilorLuxottica, the Ray-Ban maker and Meta’s manufacturing partner, told investors in February that smart glasses sales nearly tripled in 2025 to more than 7 million units. Industry trackers of the augmented and virtual reality headset market put the category’s first-quarter 2026 growth at 167 percent year over year, with Meta holding roughly 69 percent of that quarter’s shipments alone.

Here is how the two companies line up heading into 2027.

Apple will spend its first year in the category chasing a company that already controls three out of every four glasses sold worldwide.

The Backlash Apple Is Timing Its Launch Around

Meta’s lead has not come free. The glasses have picked up an unflattering nickname in tech coverage this year, dubbed pervert glasses, after a string of privacy controversies piled up in quick succession.

A Face-Matching Tool Timed for Quiet Season

The New York Times reported in February that Meta has been developing a facial recognition tool internally called Name Tag, which would let wearers identify strangers in real time by matching faces against Meta’s own databases. An internal memo from May 2025, cited in that report, described launching the feature amid what it called ‘a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.’

The plan drew a fast response. Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office opened an inquiry, and the American Civil Liberties Union organized an open letter in April signed by 75 advocacy groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Access Now.

A Recording Light That Learned to Switch Off

Then came the lawsuit. A class action filed in March by plaintiffs Gina Bartone and Mateo Canu accuses Meta and Luxottica of routing footage captured on the glasses to contract workers in Kenya without disclosure, after reports that those workers reviewed sensitive footage involving nudity and bathroom scenes.

Weeks later, reporting on Meta’s newest prototype found executives were weighing whether to disable the glasses’ recording indicator light during always-on capture, a response to what internal discussions called LED fatigue. That same indicator light was the subject of a separate Meta update meant to stop people from disabling it themselves. The prototype, still in testing, would snap a photo every few seconds and record audio continuously so its AI could answer questions about a wearer’s day later. Glasses that record every moment by design are precisely what Gurman says Apple wants to avoid building.

Even Meta’s marketing has hit friction. Musician Lorde dismissed the glasses as not sexy from Ray-Ban’s own stage, and Meta’s pivot toward a Kylie Jenner line that dropped Ray-Ban entirely has become its own flashpoint in the consent debate.

Apple Has Bet on Delay Before

Apple’s caution here is not new. In March 2025, the company confirmed it was delaying the personalized version of Siri promised the year before at its own developer conference, features like onscreen awareness and deeper app actions that simply were not ready.

‘It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features,’ Apple said at the time. Bloomberg later reported that executives described the episode internally as ‘ugly’ and ‘embarrassing,’ and the delayed Siri work was still rolling out more than a year later.

That history cuts both ways for the glasses bet. Waiting bought Apple a Siri rebuild that shipped without the personalization features breaking in public. It also cost the company a full product cycle of AI headlines it spent watching rivals claim instead.

The Actual Cost of Waiting

Every month Apple spends refining its privacy story is a month Meta spends signing up new wearers, onboarding developers to its glasses platform and normalizing camera glasses as an ordinary, everyday object. Meta and EssilorLuxottica are reportedly discussing doubling manufacturing capacity toward 20 million units a year, with some internal targets reaching past 30 million.

Apple is not just delaying one product, either. The company’s wearables roadmap has stretched at nearly every step this decade, from the Apple Watch’s cautious first-generation feature set to the years-long run-up before Vision Pro shipped. Smart glasses fit that pattern more than they break it.

Apple is wagering that the wait reads as discipline once the dust settles, letting Meta absorb the lawsuits, the regulatory inquiries and the pervert glasses jokes before it enters with a cleaner product. The alternative, that Apple spent another cycle watching a category form without it the way it did with AI chatbots, is the risk built into that bet.

Will Apple’s Smart Glasses Even Have a Camera?

Most likely yes, but possibly not on every model. Gurman reports Apple has explored a version with no camera at all, or one whose camera can only sense its surroundings rather than capture photos or video, an approach that mirrors what is rumored for Apple’s AI-enabled AirPods. No final decision has been reported.

The idea addresses the exact complaint driving Meta’s backlash: that camera glasses let people record others without clear consent. A camera that can sense but not capture sidesteps that problem entirely, at the cost of a feature plenty of buyers actually want.

What we know:

• Reveal date: WWDC, June 2027, per Gurman’s reporting
• Launch window: the final months of 2027
• Price: reportedly between $200 and $500
• Core features: hands-free Siri, calls, music, navigation and real-time translation, with no full in-lens display in version one

What’s unconfirmed:

• Whether a camera-less or sensing-only variant ships alongside a standard model
• Final frame colors and styles
• The exact wording of Apple’s privacy policy for recordings and on-device data

Frequently Asked Questions

Could Apple’s smart glasses launch slip again?

It is possible. Apple’s related mixed-reality headset, a lighter version of Vision Pro known internally as Vision Air, has already slipped from its own earlier target into 2028 or 2029, according to Gurman’s reporting. Apple’s wearables roadmap has a recent history of moving later rather than earlier.

What will Apple’s smart glasses look like?

Multiple frame styles are reportedly in testing, including larger and slimmer rectangular options and both larger and smaller oval or circular shapes, with color choices said to include black, ocean blue and light brown. Some prototypes reportedly use vertically oriented oval camera lenses rather than the round lenses common on Meta’s current glasses.

Will Apple’s smart glasses eventually add augmented reality?

Not at first. Gurman reports the first version skips a full in-lens display entirely. Over time, Apple reportedly sees the glasses evolving into a health-monitoring device, and eventually incorporating augmented reality that could improve how people actually see, though that capability is reportedly still years away.

How much is Meta scaling up glasses production?

Meta and EssilorLuxottica are reportedly discussing doubling manufacturing capacity to around 20 million smart glasses a year, with internal targets reaching past 30 million if demand holds. That range would put Meta’s annual output at roughly three to four times its 2025 sales volume within a few years.

What happens to footage from Meta’s always-on prototype glasses?

Under one proposal described in reporting on the prototype, Meta would not store or give users access to raw audio and video captured in always-on mode. Instead, the system would extract metadata from what the glasses capture and upload that summary to Meta’s servers so its AI could answer questions about a wearer’s day.

Does skipping these features mean Apple’s glasses will do less than Meta’s?

In some ways, yes. Meta’s glasses already ship with cameras capable of full photo and video capture, while Apple’s first version reportedly skips an in-lens display and may limit or omit the camera entirely on some models. Apple appears willing to trade capability for a cleaner privacy story, at least in generation one.