Forget Apple Vision Pro 2 – Tim Cook wants AR glasses more than anything, says report
Apple's CEO is reportedly firing on all cylinders to beat Meta and get proper AR glasses on the market first
🍎 Apple CEO Tim Cook has a mission: beat Meta to shipping AR glasses
📝 That’s according to a report from Bloomberg
🧑💻 Cook reportedly “cares about nothing else,” according to an engineer
🥽 Before it ships AR glasses, Apple will reportedly ship glasses that focus on voice commands and Visual Intelligence
📅 It’s unclear when Apple’s glasses could launch
Apple is rumored to be working on a successor to the Apple Vision Pro, but Tim Cook’s goal stretches far beyond that. According to a report from Bloomberg, the Apple CEO “cares about nothing else” besides shipping a pair of AR glasses and beating Meta to the punch. The glasses will have to be small enough to look normal while packing in high-end technology at an affordable price to have the impact Cook is looking for.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says that Apple is working on the Vision Pro 2 with a lighter build and cheaper price. It’ll be focused on extending your Mac’s display and make personal computing more personal on the go. But while the headset will be an important step toward the future, Cook’s ambitions go far beyond it and are steadily focused on shipping AR glasses as soon as possible.
The report says that Apple will apparently ship glasses without the AR component at first. They’ll come with cameras and microphones so you can interact with Siri and use Visual Intelligence to learn about the world around you, therefore serving as a direct competitor to Meta’s Ray-Ban AI glasses. It’s unclear how much they’ll cost or when they’ll begin shipping, but they’ll serve as more of an interim product until Apple can get its AR glasses right.
Gurman says Apple’s team is “hell-bent on creating an industry-leading product before Meta can.” Cook is apparently hyper-focused on making the glasses work and seeming to spend a majority of his time ensuring development goes well. There’s no indication when these glasses could be ready, given the immesne amount of work that needs to be done; the company has produce extremely high-resolution screens, a microscopic battery that lasts all day, advanced chips and modems, and more for them to function, then Apple has to manufacture them at scale.
It’s a tremendous feat, one that Cook is reportedly dedicated to conquering. In the meantime, we’ll be waiting for Apple to fix Apple Intelligence, which is a complete mess right now. The company was forced to delay the roll-out of the new AI-infused Siri until iOS 19 or later, while most of the features Apple promised would arrive with iOS 18 have yet to see the light of day. And the features that do exist, such as Writing Tools and smart notifications, aren’t enough to excite users and convince them to upgrade their phones.
Apple has a lot of work ahead of them, but one thing is clear: the company wants AI and AR glasses to work, and it’ll do everything it can to ship them in the near future.
Max Buondonno is an editor at The Shortcut. He’s been reporting on the latest consumer technology since 2015, with his work featured on CNN Underscored, ZDNET, How-To Geek, XDA, TheStreet, and more. Follow him on X @LegendaryScoop and Instagram @LegendaryScoop.