Apple sidelines lighter Vision Pro to prioritize smart glasses

Apple is speeding up work on smart glasses that would compete with similar offerings from Meta and halting plans for a lighter Vision Pro headset, Bloomberg reports. The company is apparently working on at least two different versions: a pair without a display that it could reveal next year and launch in 2027, and a pair with a display originally planned for 2028 that the company wants to “accelerate development” on.

Like Meta’s smart glasses made in partnership with Ray-Ban and Oakley, Apple’s glasses will have speakers, cameras, come in multiple styles, and “will rely heavily on voice interaction and artificial intelligence,” according to Bloomberg. The version of the glasses with a display “could challenge” the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, which have a display in the right lens. Apple is also working on a chip specifically designed for its smart glasses, Bloomberg has previously reported.

With its glasses, Apple will be late to the game. Meta just announced a bunch of new glasses of its own, including a second-generation version of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses with much better battery life that are available now, a new pair of Oakley-branded glasses designed for athletes launching this month, and the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, which my colleague Victoria Song called the best smart glasses she’s ever tried. 

As for the lighter Vision Pro headset, Apple had been rumored to launch the product in 2027, but the company told staff that it was pulling people from that headset to help with the glasses. Apple has reportedly scaled back production of the original Vision Pro, but regulatory filings spotted this week revealed that a new version is in the works, which Bloomberg called a “modest refresh” that could launch “as early as the end of this year.”