Apple smart glasses may see an unusual launch strategy — here's when they could arrive

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Apple may be shifting gears with its smart glasses release plans

Apple Glasses
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Apple smart glasses are now back in focus, as the Cupertino tech giant is reportedly scrapping plans for its rumored Vision Air headset in favor of its first pair of smart specs that will rival the Ray Ban Meta AI glasses. In fact, we may see them as soon as next year

As claimed by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the long-rumored Apple Glasses are now taking priority as the company's next major head-mounted device release, rather than its lighter mixed-reality headset. Interestingly, the report claims that Apple is expected to announce its new smart glasses in 2026 — but their official launch won't be until later.

When will we see Apple smart glasses?

Apple Smart glasses

(Image credit: Josh Calabrese / Apple)

While there's no word on when in 2026 the Apple smart glasses will be announced, if they will appear at all, there's reason to believe we may get a peek at them during WWDC 2026.

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference focuses on software announcements rather than hardware, but it still revealed its Vision Pro headset back in 2023 — in part to talk about Apple's visionOS. With this in mind, it's expected that Apple Glasses will come with all-new software to power the smart specs.

Interestingly, Apple is also set to release a much-needed overhaul to Siri next spring, and with the smart glasses tipped to make AI its focus, this should give users full control to take pictures, record video, make phone calls and more via voice commands, it makes sense that the company will set the stage to debut its first smart glasses during its annual conference in June next year.

Of course, this is just speculation, as there's no telling when we may see these Apple Glasses arrive. At the very least, previous reports from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo stated that Apple's next head-mounted devices are planned to arrive in 2027. In any case, it will be a while longer until Apple's smart glasses make their debut.

While the lighter Vision Air headset may no longer be in development, we're still expecting to see the next Apple Vision Pro with an M5 chip soon, with an FCC leak pointing to a release as soon as October.

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Darragh Murphy
Darragh Murphy
Computing Editor

Darragh is Tom’s Guide’s Computing Editor and is fascinated by all things bizarre in tech. His work can be seen in Laptop Mag, Mashable, Android Police, Shortlist Dubai, Proton, theBit.nz, ReviewsFire and more. When he's not checking out the latest devices and all things computing, he can be found going for dreaded long runs, watching terrible shark movies and trying to find time to game

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