Well, Apple might be Cooked (pun very much intended). Tim is apparently very focused on AI glasses, but here is Meta with display-enabled glasses a year before Apple is planning to release anything.
If Apple launches a similar product it already comes with a huge brand advantage, although Tim Cook has been working to squander that reputation recently. Regardless, an Apple version would like be local-first and come with stronger privacy controls than anything Meta releases, and that alone is a huge advantage for glasses that will be worn into the bathroom.
We all love to say this, but everyone forgets: Apple has never beaten competitors by being the first – they’ve beaten them by being the best.
Personal computers? Apple wasn’t first.
Smartphones with screens? Apple wasn’t first.
Tablets? Not first by a mile.
True Wireless Earbuds? Nope, not at all first.
Smartwatches? Hell no, not first.
And yet, Apple’s a category leader in every single one of these areas.
I don’t think it matters if Meta releases something first; Apple wins by doing it way better. Arguably, Vision Pro was way too early, even though it’s an incredible experience.
I think it's a "yes but" here. AI is the first transition point since the smartphone. Apple knows how to make hardware, and knows how to make software. I am extremely unconvinced Apple has a clue about what to do with AI.
You can't just jump in, the lead up to getting this stuff going is a 5 year+ horizon, and Google, Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic are still moving exceptionally fast. Apple has shown they are nowhere near. They missed the boat on buying Anthropic, OpenAI was never going to sell with Musk behind it. There's no path forward for them, let alone catching up.
There are a lot of AI companies that don't have a clue about what to do with AI. I would argue almost no one really knows what to do with it, which is why it's being shoehorned in everywhere.
I think Apple is being smart by sitting out this "light barrels of money on fire" phase, because we have no idea where it ends or whether it'll be worth a damn. Apple has a big enough warchest that once real solutions do start to coalesce out of the fog, they can just acquire what they need to build actual products.
To be fair, Meta is also not the first company to launch smart glasses with a display.
But the reality of it is that it's probably still to early to say if these devices will have mainstream appeal. I see a lot of people saying "well, i no longer need to take the phone out my pocket", but that has been the case for a couple of years with smartwatches, for example, and it has not meaningfully changed our dependency from the smartphone or the smartphone market dynamics that much.
What does wins even mean, then? Apple doesn't dominate a market. They make competitive hardware that integrates well with its ecosystem. If there's a market for smart glasses they'll probably use the same strategy.
VR in general was a flop. Airpods and Apple watch I'm fairly sure are way ahead of the rest in sales. Airpods on their own are bigger than most tech companies in sales.
"better" is subjective. Competitors might offer advantages in a narrow scope, but clearly as an overall package, consumers think the Apple product is best since they choose to buy them over the alternatives.
People keep saying this, but it is absolutely not true.
Apple was first to the personal computer. First to the smartphone. First to the tablet. First to wireless earbuds. The vast majority of the company's revenue comes from segments where they had a multi-year head start over their competitors.
In fact products where they play catch up are more prone to failing (Vision Pro, Airpods Max, Homepod, Maps, MobileMe, Ping, Music Connect, AirPower, Airport).
They were first in phone with touch interface and no keyboard. In terms of other capabilities/apps there were other phones much more powerful and capable.
Not the first to personal computer. maybe first mass produced with a GUI with Lisa. We can always narrow a definition and find a first. Not first to the smartphone, but first to combine desktop quality browsing with mobile touch screen etc.
They absolutely were not first to the smart phone, that was blackberry. It's just that blackberry sucked. They were first to PC but I don't think they were first to laptop.
They just removed the physical keyboard. Pretty much everything else about a modern phone was either added in later years or already existed. The first iphone was extremely basic.
Aside from maybe the personal computer, they were not the first to any of those. BlackBerry/Palm/Windows Mobile devices all existed prior to the iPhone; the LG Prada was announced prior to the iPhone and had a similar form factor. Many tablet PCs existed before the iPad. Many Bluetooth earbuds existed prior to the AirPods.
They did a much better job of integrating each of these into a cohesive experience, but they absolutely had predecessors in each category.
No- they beat them by squatting on the most generic logical human friendly style so that other companies can't copy the most natural conception. They're copyright colonialists.
Source: https://www.macrumors.com/2025/05/21/apple-smart-glasses-eve... or some other Mark Gurman leak