Apple’s first smart glasses have slipped to WWDC 2027 and may arrive with their cameras deliberately crippled, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman published on Sunday. The delay matters to Android buyers for one reason: Samsung’s Android XR glasses are supposed to go on sale before the end of this year, while Apple — on this report’s account — will not even unveil its pair until June 2027. Samsung gets a clear run at the category, and it also means Samsung is shipping into the same privacy backlash that reportedly pushed Apple’s timeline back.
This is a report, not an announcement. Apple has confirmed nothing about smart glasses, no product name exists, and Gurman’s reporting describes internal deliberations that can change. Treat the specifics below as what Apple is currently weighing.
What the Apple smart glasses report actually says
Gurman reports Apple now plans to unveil the glasses at WWDC in June 2027, with shipments by the end of that year. An earlier internal target had them arriving in 2026. The device is described as audio-first — speakers and microphones for music, calls and Siri, with no display projected into the lenses, the same basic shape as the non-display glasses Samsung showed at Unpacked last week.
The interesting part is the camera. Per Gurman, Apple has been weighing three options: ship the glasses with no camera at all; include cameras but disable photo and video capture entirely, so the sensor exists only to feed Siri’s visual features; or ship conventional cameras alongside a set of privacy protections. Bloomberg’s read is that the third path is the most likely one, but that a decision has not been locked in this far out.
On the protections themselves, Gurman reports Apple is prototyping hardware and software privacy features it does not currently ship on any product, including a mechanism that stops recording if the indicator light is tampered with. Meta’s glasses being named in a class-action privacy suit is the backdrop here, and Apple is reportedly planning to market the difference rather than just engineer it.
Why this matters for Samsung’s Android XR glasses
Samsung’s own privacy pitch, laid out by XR development head Choi Jae-in at a London briefing last week, is nearly identical in substance: an LED that lights when the camera is active, on-body detection that kills image capture when the frames are set down, and blocking of recording if the indicator is covered. We covered that briefing in detail. Two companies arriving independently at “block recording when the light is covered” is a decent signal that this becomes the category’s baseline expectation, not a differentiator either one gets to own.
What separates them is willingness to ship. Samsung still has not given a price beyond “the premium range” or a date beyond later in 2026, and did not let anyone at Unpacked wear the glasses. Apple, on the report’s account, looked at the same privacy problem and moved its launch out by a year rather than release into it. That is a genuine strategic difference, and Android buyers get to find out first whether Samsung’s safeguards hold up in the hands of people who aren’t Samsung employees.
The consumer-side caveat applies to both: an indicator light is a disclosure mechanism for the wearer, not a consent mechanism for whoever is sitting across the table. Apple deciding to drop photo and video capture altogether would be the only option on Gurman’s list that meaningfully changes that calculus — and it is reportedly the least likely one.
What is still unknown
- Cameras: not decided, per the report — three configurations still on the table
- Price: no figure reported for Apple’s glasses; Samsung has only said “premium”
- Markets: no launch-market list for either product
- Android compatibility: nothing reported, and Apple’s track record with cross-platform wearables suggests iPhone-only is the safe assumption
Nothing here needs acting on for at least a year. The near-term decision for Android buyers is still Samsung’s, and that one is unanswerable until there is a price, a date and hardware reviewers have been allowed to put on their faces.
