Apple targets WWDC 2027 for smart glasses but is still deciding on the camera question

Apple is currently aiming to unveil its first smart glasses at next June’s Worldwide Developers Conference, with a consumer release by the end of 2027, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. But the company’s engineering and marketing teams are still wrestling with a question that will define the product: whether its glasses should include a camera at all. The teams developing the device, code-named N50, within Apple’s Vision hardware group see privacy as the top priority, Gurman reported on Saturday.

That caution is a direct response to the backlash Meta created. Meta has sold more than seven million pairs of its Ray-Ban smart glasses, but the product’s camera has become a lightning rod for privacy complaints, with women being secretly filmed in public and Kenyan data workers reporting they were asked to review intimate footage captured by the devices. Apple executives are acutely aware that simply entering the same category risks undermining a privacy reputation the company has spent more than a decade building.

Apple is planning safeguards that go beyond what Meta and Samsung have offered. The company will favour on-device processing, eschew facial recognition, and avoid anything resembling Meta’s proposed “super-sensing” mode, which would continuously analyse a wearer’s surroundings without activating the recording indicator light. Apple also does not plan to follow Meta’s practice of having contractors review footage captured by its glasses, having already dealt with a similar controversy around its Siri voice assistant.

One option Apple executives have debated would include the full camera system but disable photo and video recording entirely, limiting the cameras to feeding visual data into AI tools that identify objects and places. Another prototype eliminates the camera hardware altogether, retaining hands-free Siri access, music playback, and phone calls without any recording capability. Both approaches would sacrifice what has made Meta’s glasses popular: effortless first-person video of holidays, children, and sporting events.

The privacy problem is not theoretical. Apple is entering one of the most important product cycles in its history, with the 20th anniversary iPhone, a second-generation foldable, camera-equipped AirPods, and new Macs all expected in 2027. Courtrooms across New York State have already banned smart glasses, Royal Caribbean has barred them from casinos, restrooms, and children’s areas, and Samsung has called the privacy situation an “industry-shared problem” requiring a collective fix.

The glasses were originally targeted for introduction later this year under the N50 code name, but Apple delayed the timeline partly to refine its privacy message. The company knows from experience that good intentions do not prevent misuse: its AirTags, designed to locate belongings, quickly became associated with stalking. Camera-equipped glasses will inevitably face similar problems, and Apple will likely spend years updating software and working with regulators to address them.