Apple And Google Eye The Future Of Ai Glasses

Can they hit Meta? In nan short term, astir apt not.

Apple and Google cognize that smart glasses will switch nan smartphone arsenic nan main instrumentality group usage nan most, according to caller news. And nan 2 starring smartphone level makers don’t want Meta to ain nan early of mobile computing, but they cognize Meta is starring nan title truthful far. 

Meta is nan existent and astonishing leader successful AI glasses that don’t show a surface to nan user.

The champion unsmooth estimates are that Meta has shipped 2 cardinal Ray-Ban Meta glasses and earned $600 cardinal successful revenue. This is mini potatoes compared to smartphone sales, but acold up of immoderate different subordinate successful nan market. 

Competitors fearfulness that Meta will grow its lead successful non-visual AI glasses for illustration Ray-Ban Meta glasses and past leverage that lead into AR glasses. 

Meta is reportedly moving connected a fewer smart glasses pinch displays integrated into nan lenses. One, code-named “Hypernova,” is expected to beryllium an precocious type of nan existent Ray-Ban Meta glasses, featuring a surface successful nan correct lens, specifically successful nan lower-right quadrant. This show will show a location surface akin to nan Meta Quest interface, allowing for apps and notifications. These glasses could costs betwixt $1,000 and $1,400 and could motorboat successful nan second half of 2025. They’re expected to see an upgraded camera and will almost surely connection sound and multimodal entree to Meta’s AI assistant. 

In summation to sound commands, users mightiness beryllium capable to power nan glasses via capacitive touch sensors connected nan sides and a “neural wristband” for manus gestures. A second-generation model, code-named “Hypernova 2” is planned for merchandise astir 2027, pinch displays successful some lenses. Meta is besides processing Oakley-branded smart glasses designed for diversion use, which mightiness see a display. 

According to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, Apple CEO Tim Cook is “hell bent” connected launching existent augmented reality glasses earlier Meta tin get there. 

Gurman’s reporting suggests that Cook has made nan clobbering of Meta successful this marketplace his apical priority, spending astir of his clip connected it and seeing it arsenic nan company’s future. In different words, Cook has an obsession coming pinch AR that his predecessor, Steve Jobs, had pinch nan iPad successful nan early 2000s.

Apple’s imagination is clear: lightweight, all-day wearable glasses that overlay integer accusation onto nan existent world. This merchandise could 1 time switch nan iPhone arsenic nan company’s flagship device. 

Unfortunately, Apple is still years distant from delivering specified a product. Several cardinal technologies —l ike ultra-high-resolution displays, powerful-yet-efficient chips, and mini batteries that past each time — are simply not yet ready. 

Apple is besides moving connected 2 new versions of its pricey Vision Pro headset, a benignant of stop-gap merchandise to pull users and developers while Apple makes nan existent AR product. 

Meanwhile, Google has re-entered nan speech astir AR glasses successful a large way. At TED2025 successful Vancouver past week, Google’s caput of Android XR, Shahram Izadi, took nan shape wearing a prototype of the company’s caller AI-powered AR glasses. The demo was impressive: nan glasses translated spoken Farsi into English successful real-time, scanned a book screen for contextual information, and moreover helped nan wearer find a mislaid edifice cardinal paper utilizing a “memory” characteristic powered by Gemini, Google’s latest AI assistant. 

Unlike nan original Google Glass, these caller glasses look for illustration regular eyewear, pinch a lightweight framework and a small, embedded display. All nan dense processing is offloaded to a connected smartphone, which keeps nan glasses comfortable and stylish. 

Google’s attack is to make nan glasses a earthy hold of nan phone, streaming information backmost and distant and giving users entree to Android apps and Google services without ever looking down astatine a screen. 

According to reports from TED2025 and The Korea Economic Daily, these glasses are being developed successful business pinch Samsung. Samsung will grip manufacturing and marketing, and a full merchandise is planned for 2026.

If you return nan projections astatine look worth (which you shouldn’t), Meta will beryllium first, and Apple will beryllium past successful getting to marketplace pinch AR glasses that tin beryllium worn each time successful public. 

The difficult reality is that Meta, Google, and Apple each look nan aforesaid method barriers that person slowed advancement for years. 

According to Bloomberg, Apple’s engineers are still struggling to shrink high-resolution displays and batteries down to a size and weight that group would really want to deterioration each day, while besides making nan glasses powerful capable to tally precocious AI and AR features. 

Because of these method barriers, nan instrumentality galore Silicon Valley insiders opportunity will switch nan smartphone will dangle wholly connected smartphones to usability for nan foreseeable future. 

Building glasses that are light, stylish, and comfortable capable to deterioration each day, while besides packing successful high-res displays, cameras, microphones, speakers, and a artillery that lasts, is simply a monolithic engineering challenge. 

At slightest for nan adjacent fewer years, specified glasses tin beryllium affordable aliases powerful and appealing to wear, but they can’t beryllium both. 

Still, nan caller flurry of news, demos, and leaks show that nan manufacture is much superior than ever astir making AR glasses a reality. Apple is pouring billions into R&D, Google is betting connected AI and partnerships, and Samsung is gearing up for a awesome hardware launch.

The adjacent fewer years will beryllium critical, but nan nirvana of slipping connected a brace of glasses and seeing nan integer world blend seamlessly pinch nan existent 1 remains, arsenic always, conscionable retired of sight.