On Friday, Patently Apple posted a report titled “Google’s head of XR Android demonstrated a Prototype of their Android Phone Smartglasses Accessory at a TED Conference in Canada.” The report noted that  In June 2023, we posted a report that covered the news of the Samsung, Google and Qualcomm alliance for developing an XR headset. Then in 2024, the alliance spoke about smartglasses as an Android phone accessory. The alliance will deliver an XR Headset to compete with Vision Pro this fall. Their smartglasses is at present a moving target. It may be released this year or at least in the next year as an Android smartphone accessory.

This constant news of what Meta and the Samsung, Google, Qualcomm alliance will be releasing in terms of XR devices is getting under Apple’s skin. Mark Gurman, the official/unofficial representative for getting detailed information on Apple devices and software out to the public on a weekly schedule, shows us that Apple wants the news out that they’re continually working to develop new vision-related devices. Of course Apple patents on vision-related devices are published weekly. It’s clearly the number one focus regarding device patents.

This morning, Apple insider Mark Gurman reportedly revealed one of the focuses Tim Cook has in his Sunday Power On newsletter. Sources within Apple claim that Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has a new obsession which is focused on beating Meta to market with an industry-leading pair of AR smartglasses. 

That’s odd considering that Mark Gurman reported back in January 2025 that Apple was ditching a project to build AR lenses that would have competed with Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses. Then  again, true AR glasses are still a few years away, just as Meta’s Project Orion is.

Apple, much like Meta, Samsung and Google believe that XR is the future of computing. The company has been working on a pair of AR smartglasses for a long time. In fact the Apple Vision Pro was a compromise due to the technological limitations of today. Apple just wanted to get a foot in the door as other VR headsets like the Meta Quest 3 gained popularity.

Tim Cook is determined to make sure that Apple is the first company to publicly release a viable candidate for this AR future. If Gurman’s sources are accurate then Cook has made these glasses a top priority for Apple.

With that said, Gurman noted that Apple is continuing to work on Vision Pro 2 that will be lighter and less expensive. Gurman noted that "The idea is to create an ultra-low-latency system for streaming a user's Mac display or for connecting to high-end enterprise applications," said Gurman. "Some customers have been using the Vision Pro for things like viewing imaging during surgery or for flight simulators. Those are two areas where a user would want the least amount of lag possible — something that can't be guaranteed by a fully wireless system."

One of the key trends in Apple’s HMD patent applications of late is to not only make headsets lighter, but to offer a superior securement system to keep Vision Pro (and smartglasses) on comfortably over longer periods of time. Here are a few of the patents for possible future securement systems for version 2 of Vision Pro and future smartglasses:  01, 02, 03, 04.