Apple plans to out-cool Ray-Ban and out-tech Meta with new camera glasses with four new designs

After the massive success of Meta's Ray-Bans, Apple leaker Mark Gurman has reported that Apple is working on four frame designs for its own Smart Glasses and says that his sources expect Apple to offer more than Meta when it comes to the tech.

When Apple first started looking at body-worn tech, it hadn't considered the concept pioneered by Meta's Ray-Bans – that is camera-equipped sunglasses that do not have their own display. They have, nonetheless, made our best camera glasses list.

Instead, Apple, which already had the Watch division, began a 'Vision Products Group' (according to Gurman's source), and it was concentrating on what became the Vision Pro, a mixed-reality AR device with a wireless controller and iPhone connection, and standalone glasses.

Only relatively recently has the 'N50' concept, as glasses with a built-in voice-assistant (or at least access to a voice assistant) been added to that list, meanwhile the device tethered to the iPhone was scrapped (perhaps another way of looking at it is that it has simply been replaced?)

That's because this new product will be tightly integrated with the iPhone as a means of outdoing Meta. Apple generally likes to enter a market with a distinct advantage, and here Apple won't be buying a frame brand from EssilorLuxottica SA (who own Ray-Ban and Oakley) or Warby Parker.

Apple will, if experience is anything to go by, want its designs to be recognizable, just as the iPhone and the Apple Watch stand out against competitors, even across generations. The four styles Apple is currently working on are, reportedly:

• Large rectangular frames presumably not so very far away from the Ray-Ban Wayfarers concept
• Slimmer rectangles that Gruman suggests might be along the lines of the 'Tim Cook Look'
• Large circular or oval frames
• Smaller circular or oval frames

Other big subjects of discussion in Apple-land at the moment are the possibility of delays to the foldable iPhone – which took 5% of the company's share price when it was rumored in Asia, but turned out not to have much basis.

Those who have not enjoyed Apple's recent efforts at AI will likely be pleased to hear that John Giannandrea's time at the company overseeing AI should be ending this week, too. He was hired from the outside (by Tim Cook, from Google).

Check out the best camera glasses you can buy today, and the best iPhones