So Apple is finally getting serious about AI wearables. According to Bloomberg, they’re accelerating development on three products: an AirTag-sized camera pendant, smart glasses codenamed N50, and AI-powered AirPods. The smart glasses could enter production as early as December, targeting a 2027 release.
Here’s what strikes me about this whole thing. Apple spent years perfecting the Vision Pro, a $3,500 headset that basically nobody asked for, while Meta was quietly shipping millions of Ray-Ban smart glasses at a fraction of the price. Now Apple’s playing catch-up in a category where being first actually matters.
The Pendant Nobody Asked For
An AirTag-sized camera you pin to your shirt. I’m trying to imagine the pitch meeting for this one. “Hey, remember Google Glass? Let’s do that, but make it even weirder.” The form factor screams “proof of concept” rather than “product people will actually wear.”
I get what they’re going for. Always-on computer vision, ambient computing, capturing life moments without pulling out your phone. But we’ve been down this road before. Snap’s Spectacles, Google Glass, even Meta’s first Ray-Ban attempt. The graveyard of camera wearables is already pretty crowded.
The difference this time might be the AI angle. With modern multimodal models, a wearable camera could actually provide useful context-aware assistance instead of just recording awkward first-person videos nobody wants to watch. But that’s a big “might.”
Smart Glasses: The Real Play
The N50 smart glasses are where this gets interesting. Bloomberg describes them as “more upscale and feature-rich” than the pendant or AirPods, with a high-resolution camera. Production starting December 2026 for a 2027 release means Apple thinks this market is about to explode.
They’re probably right. Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses are actually selling, which proves people will wear camera glasses if they don’t look ridiculous. Snap is launching Specs later this year. Every tech giant suddenly believes that glasses, not headsets, are the right form factor for ambient computing.
But here’s the thing about glasses. Battery life is brutal. Heat dissipation is a nightmare. And you’re competing with fashion, not just function. Apple knows industrial design, sure, but they’re entering a product category where Meta already has distribution deals, brand partnerships, and actual users providing feedback.
The timeline is also telling. Starting production in December 2026 for a 2027 launch means these won’t ship until late 2027 at the earliest, possibly 2028. That’s a lot of time for competitors to iterate.
All Roads Lead to iPhone
Every one of these devices connects to the iPhone with Siri as the “critical component.” This is classic Apple strategy: use accessories to lock people deeper into the ecosystem. But it’s also a limitation.
Running AI models on-device versus in the cloud is the fundamental architecture question for wearables. If everything routes through your iPhone, you’re tethered. Your glasses are just a fancy webcam and speaker combo. The actual intelligence lives in your pocket.
Meta’s betting on a different approach with their standalone Quest headsets and increasingly capable glasses. They’re willing to sacrifice some quality for independence. Apple’s approach is more conservative, which makes sense given their track record. But conservative doesn’t always win in emerging categories.
The Siri dependency is particularly worrying. Let’s be honest, Siri is still years behind Google Assistant and Alexa in natural language understanding, and it’s not even close to what ChatGPT or Claude can do. If Siri is the “critical component” of these wearables, Apple has a lot of work to do on the AI side before the hardware even matters.
I’m curious whether Apple will actually ship all three of these products or if some are just hedges. The pendant feels like an experiment. The AirPods refresh is inevitable. But the smart glasses? That’s the real test of whether Apple can still define new product categories or if they’re just following where others have already proven the market exists.