Apple pauses Vision Air development, and shifts focus to smart glasses to challenge Meta

Apple is recalibrating its ambitions in spatial computing. Rather than pursuing a scaled-down successor to the Vision Pro headset, the company is turning its attention to eyewear that looks and feels closer to ordinary glasses. The decision underscores Apple’s urgency to challenge Meta, which has been steadily advancing with its Ray-Ban smart glasses lineup.

The headset strategy isn’t disappearing entirely—Apple still intends to refresh the current Vision Pro with a faster M5 chip later this year, but engineers who had been focused on a lighter, lower-cost headset have been reassigned. Their new mission: bring Apple’s first generation of smart glasses to market.

These glasses are being designed less as futuristic goggles and more as everyday companions. The early version won’t have a built-in screen. Instead, Apple is planning a blend of cameras, microphones, and AI features delivered through a re-engineered Siri. The product is expected to work in tandem with the iPhone, while offering buyers choices in frame design and color to emphasize style as much as technology.

A separate model with an embedded micro-display is already on the roadmap, and development is being accelerated. That change in schedule follows Meta’s unveiling of display-equipped glasses capable of showing notifications, images, and information directly in one lens—a move that raised the bar for competitors.

Apple’s pivot signals that the real battle in wearables is shifting away from bulky headsets toward lightweight, fashionable devices that merge seamlessly into daily life. Where Meta currently leads with experience and iteration, Apple is betting its tight integration of hardware, software, and ecosystem services can redefine what smart glasses mean for consumers.