Apple can also be reportedly planning a “Vision Air” product, with manufacturing anticipated to begin in Q3 2027. Kuo says it is going to be greater than 40 p.c lighter than the first-generation Vision Pro, and that it’ll embrace Apple’s flagship iPhone processor as an alternative the extra strong Mac processor discovered in the Vision Pro—all at a “considerably cheaper price than Vision Pro.” The massive weight discount is “achieved via glass-to-plastic alternative, in depth magnesium alloy use (titanium alloy deemed too costly), and diminished sensor rely.”
True smart glasses in 2027
The Vision Pro (together with the deliberate Vision Air) is a totally immersive VR headset that helps augmented actuality by displaying the wearer’s environment on the inner screens based mostly on what’s captured by 3D cameras on the surface of the system. That permits for some neat functions, nevertheless it additionally means the system is cumbersome and impractical to put on in public.
The actual dream for a lot of is smart glasses which might be virtually indistinguishable from regular glasses, however which show a number of the identical AR content material because the Vision Pro on clear lenses as an alternative of by way of a camera-to-screen pipeline.
Apple can also be planning to roll that out, Kuo says. But first, mass manufacturing of display-free “Ray-Ban-like” glasses is scheduled for Q2 2027, and Kuo claims Apple plans to ship between 3 million and 5 million models via 2027, suggesting the corporate expects this kind issue to make a a lot greater influence than the Vision Pro’s VR-like HMD method.
The glasses would have a “voice management and gesture recognition consumer interface” however no show performance in any respect. Instead, “core options embrace: audio playback, digicam, video recording, and AI environmental sensing.”
The precise AR glasses would come later, in 2028.