Report: Apple Glasses Using apple Watch Strategy
Mark Gurman reported for Bloomberg over the weekend about what he’s recently learned about Apple’s strategy to marketing its still-in-development smart glasses.
The product is purported to be released late next year, according to Gurman.
“The far bigger prize is traditional eyewear. Following the watch playbook, Apple is aiming for the broader glasses opportunity,” Gurman wrote in the latest Power On newsletter on Sunday. “The idea is to compete with products sold between roughly $200 and $500, a segment that includes EssilorLuxottica SA (Ray-Ban, Oakley, Persol, Oliver Peoples and Chanel), Safilo Group SpA (Tommy Hilfiger and Hugo Boss) and Warby Parker Inc. How is Apple going to approach this enormous market? I’m told that the company believes its strong brand, industrial design and iPhone integration will lead people seeking new regular glasses to spring for an Apple pair instead.”
Mirroring the Apple Watch is smart. I recall Jony Ive saying in the introduction video Apple spent a considerable chunk of its research and development period with the watch talking to horological experts because they were interested in, and appreciative of, the historical aspects of telling time. For the glasses, I staunchly believe Apple’s ace in the hole will be, as ever, accessibility. While the Blind and low vision community have embraced Meta’s Ray-Bans for its assistive technologies, specifically for the robust Be My Eyes integration, an Apple competitor to those glasses would (a) integrate closely with the iPhone; and (b) presumably run some sort of stripped-down version of visionOS—because glasses with an integrated display are still years away from becoming technically feasible—that focused on audio-visual experiences like VoiceOver, Magnifier, and Voice Control. I’d imagine the myriad detection modes in the aforementioned Magnifier would be adapted for the glasses as well. The salient point is simply that, for people like myself and others, Apple does accessibility like none other; what it means is Apple’s smart glasses should be a blockbuster product sheerly on the basis it’s accessible and obviously plays nicely with the other Apple devices in our respective ecosystems. What Gurman addresses in his reporting is the mainstream, mass market ramifications—which is important, but equally important to Apple is the idea that their products aren’t merely usable by the most people. It wants all of its products, including these in-the-works smart glasses, to be usable by everyone—disabled people included. The mainstream tech press glosses over this aspect in their coverage—because of course they do, frustratingly—but accessibility will be a vital part of “Apple Glasses” story, even if I’m one of the five journalists to cover it that way.
As Dr. Victor Pineda told me in 2024, we disabled people have long been technologists.
