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

Apple is currently planning to introduce its first smart glasses at the Worldwide Developers Conference next June, which will make them available to consumers by the end of 2027. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. But the company’s engineering and marketing teams are still grappling with one question that will define the product: whether its glasses should have a camera at all. Gurman said on Saturday that the teams developing the device, codenamed N50, within Apple’s Vision hardware group, made privacy a top priority.

This warning is in direct response to the backlash caused by Meta. Meta has sold more than seven million Ray-Ban smart glassesbut the product’s camera has become a lightning rod for privacy complaints, with women being secretly filmed in public and Kenyan data workers reported being asked to review intimate images captured by the devices. Apple executives are well aware that simply being lumped into the same category could damage the company’s decade-plus reputation for privacy.

Apple plans security measures that go beyond what Meta and Samsung offer. The company will prefer to work on the device, avoid facial recognition and avoid anything similar to what Meta offers.super feeling” mode will continuously analyze the user’s surroundings without activating the recording indicator light. Apple also does not plan to track. Meta’s experience reviewing images for contractors Siri has been overtaken by its glasses, which are already engaged in a similar controversy surrounding the voice assistant.

One option discussed by Apple executives would include a full camera system, but turn off photo and video recording entirely, limiting the cameras from providing visual data to AI tools that identify objects and locations. Another prototype removes the camera hardware entirely, retaining silent Siri input, music playback, and phone calls with no recording capability. Either approach would sacrifice what made Meta’s glasses popular: effortless first-person video of holidays, kids, and sporting events.

The problem of privacy is not theoretical. Apple is entering one of the most important product periods in its historyA 20th-anniversary iPhone, second-generation foldable, camera-equipped AirPods and new Macs are expected in 2027. New York State has already banned smart glasses from courtrooms, Royal Caribbean has banned them from casinos, restrooms and children’s areas, and Samsung has announced that its privacy policy “a shared problem in the industry” requires collective correction.

The glasses were originally slated to launch later this year under the codename N50, but Apple delayed the timeline in part to refine the privacy message. The company knows from experience that good intentions don’t prevent abuse: its AirTags, designed to locate items, were quickly linked to stalking. Camera-equipped glasses will inevitably face similar issues, and Apple will likely release software updates and work with regulators to resolve them.