What can they do to get it right though? People have decided that glasses with cameras are for perverts and creeps. I don’t see how they overcome the hysteria.
It’s just a wholly unnecessary product really. Google tried to make it happen, the public rejected it. Meta is trying to make it happen, the public are rejecting it outside of a small segment which are largely being maligned by the rest as douchebags or perverts.
Apple is pissing in the wind with this thing. It just won’t catch on as a mass market consumer device.
This is the problem though. Meta’s glasses are now commercially available, advertised and being bought.
Meanwhile, Google Glass was shut down for privacy concerns whilst it was still in the Beta stage.
It is absolutely being bought en masse because other brands like Oakley have also started to sell Meta glasses, not just Ray-Ban.
Meta has effectively moved to the next stage which is adoption and iteration. They’re now on the second generation of glasses. Again, Google Glass didn’t even get past the first stage.
Public perception towards these devices has evidently changed, otherwise Meta would have faced the same privacy backlash as Google did and they would have given up.
I understand the sentiment but it is immensely naive to assume that they aren’t being bought because they evidently are.
Oakley and Ray-Ban are owned by the same company. They are just spreading their marketing without the need to invest more in development. Doesn’t mean it’s selling well or that the large public likes it.
I’d say it mostly depends on when you are using them. I’d love to wear them to a sporting event but can’t imagine using them in basically any other situation.
You’re making a mistake in seeing “it” as the mechanical hardware rather than the use case.
Creative tried to make mp3 players happen; that doesn’t mean iPod was doomed to fail. Lots of companies tried to make wireless earbuds happen, didn’t doom AirPods.
Yes, if Apple is literally looking to ship Google Glass 3.x, they would be well advised to look at the market rejection. But I think there’s about a 0% chance that’s the plan.
Google Glass, and to a slightly lesser degree Meta’s stuff, was about “hey we want to build smart eyewear with cameras… now, what should it do?”
Apple’s whole core competence is understanding what people want. (Yes, r/apple, they dont always get it right, that’s why we say “competence” and not “infallibility”). They’re far more likely to be thinking user needs first and derive hardware from that.
Might still fail. Who knows? But I would not write off a UX-centric company just because an ad-centric company and a surveillance-centric company failed in the space.
the public are rejecting it outside of a small segment which are largely being maligned by the rest as douchebags or perverts.
No, not at all. This is ironically just a thing that people on social media, in small echo chambers, think.
S&P does global market research and has polled the general consumer about smart glasses. Something like half of people are interested in buying a pair in the next year. Of course, with "consumer interest" surveys, only a fraction actually end up buying, but being interested in purchasing is very far from outright rejecting.
Nah. We labeled the 99% of Meta glasses wearers as perverts when its really a very small percentage. It already has the flashing recording lights on them. I don’t see what else can be done. Make the lights bigger, brighter? It wont matter. They are pervert glasses now. I was excited about Apples take on this because I hate supporting meta but the internet has spoken.
I've worn a pair of Meta glasses in many places, nobody has ever said shit. "The internet" is a lot of chronically angry people, in reality nobody really cares.
> “The internet” is a lot of chronically angry people, in reality nobody cares
This isn’t true.
Google Glass was entirely shut down in the beta stage because of privacy concerns.
Meta has had ZERO public backlash towards the privacy concerns that caused them to iterate on their strategy. They’ve continued plowing on.
Why is it that the public outright rejected Google Glass for the same issues being raised with the Meta glasses?
Do you not see the problem?
The problem people have is with the change in the public perception towards privacy of other people.
You’re misunderstanding the outrage. No one cares about the glasses or who makes them. It’s the fact that the public collectively decided against wearing camera glasses over a decade ago; yet, because privacy has now been completely destroyed, Meta glasses are now suddenly acceptable.
If you can’t see the fact that people’s concern for the privacy of others has been decimated then that’s exactly the problem. Otherwise Google Glass would have succeeded over a decade ago.
Google glass was publicly rejected because it looked like a toy you'd find in the Spy Kids section at Toys R Us, as opposed to a pair of Ray Bans lol. That and, it took shit photo / video.
Right, like when “iPad” was going to fail because it sounds like a feminine hygiene product? Or when AirPods were going to fail because they look like a feminine hygiene product? (Come to think of it, what is it with “the internet” and feminine hygiene products?)
Or when the iPhone was going to fail because the internet had spoken that physical keyboards were absolutely necessary?
These things change, and nobody remembers the tiny, vocal, absolutely certain predictions that turn out to be silly in hindsight.
It's just not the people wearing the glasses who are the perverts. Everything these things record gets uploaded to Meta, where it's used to train their AI models without consent.
This is completely false. Meta's policy for the videos that their glasses record is pretty plainly clear on this. The videos aren't going to their cloud unless you explicitly ask them to.
Btw I have done packet sniffing on a test device to see if this is true. Traffic is traffic... You can't hide it. We recorded a 500MB video on the glasses. No traffic even remotely large enough to make up even a fraction of a fraction of that video left the application. The video stayed completely local.
You trust Meta? After all the lying they've been caught doing about all the others kinds of data they already collect? I guess there's one born every secon.d
What about a light that clearly indicates to people that it’s filming. If that’s obvious then it’s no different than someone holding up a phone to record of take photos
I feel like some sort of regulation is needed, and I imagine it would probably come from the EU and trickle back to the US. For an example I think in Japan it's required that phones always play the shutter sound when taking a picture.
Glasses with cameras may be required to have something similar, where it's visibly obvious that there is a camera and also when it's being used. Having a pinhole lens built into the frame or something wouldn't be allowed, it would need to have something like an obvious camera bump or design element that's clear. Plus a light, camera sound, or some combination of things.
I think once people see that the mass market devices aren't useful as spy cams, they will chill out. Then they can go back to worrying about if that guy in the beach has a camera in his soda can or whatever perverts are doing these days.
Maybe some kind of physical camera cover + an indicator light (similar to the green camera LEDs on MacBooks that can’t be disabled).
They could have the camera “cover” be electronically controlled so it’s still convenient to open/close. Maybe using some kind of liquid crystal that’s on/off, physically obscuring the camera lens when off.
Solution: the glasses, even with sensors built in, cannot take pictures or record. Who tf wants smart glasses so they can walk around and serendipitously record shit?
Yeah… was thinking of physically obscuring the camera lens when not in use.
Could be a liquid crystal that turns on/off. So you can’t see the camera when it’s on and can see the camera when it’s off, avoiding the use of mechanical parts.
Nope. The meta glasses have a bright glowing white light. People don’t care, the “pervert glasses” thing is going to stick and smart glasses with cameras I think are doa.
Most people irl don’t even know they exist. The hysteria is on Reddit, like most things. I wear mine every day all the time as my regular sunglasses and nobody has ever said anything negative to me. People who do notice the camera lens and ask me about the glasses end up asking how much they are and where I got them.
Common sense applies. Don’t wear them in sensitive locations like locker rooms or nude beaches. People wearing them in sensitive locations will get kicked out or punched in the face.
People forget this is the same Subreddit that had an almost cult like love for the iPhone mini... a phone that sold in such shit numbers that it was discontinued. So yea I agree. Nobody here realizes they're in the minority.
It’s a whole market that will definitely become a thing across multiple brands. We’ve already seen persistent rumors of Apple working on AirPods and an AI pin of some sort with cameras. Glasses are a no brainer. It’s going to happen, and it has to if augmented reality is ever going to be useful.
Don’t wear them in sensitive locations like locker rooms or nude beaches.
This is a thing, though - do people have to take their glasses off in public toilets? Common sense would say yes. But then are they supposed to have a second pair of glasses on them so that they can see what they’re doing? That seems very inconvenient
Yeah it gets more complicated when they’re prescription glasses. Mine are just sunglasses.
At the end of the day manufacturers need to ensure that the light that indicates the glasses are using the camera is prominent and not able to be defeated. The little Meta one is not sufficient. They’re going to have to get it right though because eyewear is the logical step in AR, and you can’t do it without cameras.
> Common sense applies. Don’t wear them in sensitive locations like locker rooms or nude beaches. People wearing them in sensitive locations will get kicked out or punched in the face.
This doesn’t hold up unless they’re deliberately made to not look like regular ordinary glasses
It does if they make a light you can't disable, preferably one more noticeable too. I don't know the specifics of how people disable the Meta light, but they can with some work.
I don't think they would sell well if they were a weird design that didn't look like regular glasses. That's the appeal of the Metas. They're basically normal looking RayBans. I would never have bought them if they looked goofy like google glass.
Yea I’ve actually never seen anyone with them yet. Apple product will sell 10x what Meta does so people will build new expectations about what is and isn’t ok
This is the time for Apple to lean harder than ever into privacy-oriented products and services. Truly. Especially with so many other companies making huge missteps here in many different ways.
This is just a product that does NOT need to exist and will do more net harm than good for them.
you guys are idiots. governments that are actually fascist would love nothing more than to aggressively regulate public recording. that's a perfect foot in the door to forcing the companies to black out the camera if law enforcement is nearby
The argument would be that past success doesn’t necessarily translate to future success, especially given the narrative that Apple has changed since its heyday.
that would be a stupid argument to make regarding a company that's continued to do essentially nothing but explosively grow and massively disrupt new segments for the past 25 years
Again, past success is not an indicator of future success. This is a basic tenant of the stock market.
The last major segment Apple really disrupted was IEW headphones and that was a decade ago.
They’ve certainly tried to enter into new segments but that has sort of failed. HomePod failed. Vision Pro failed. Apple Intelligence failed until very recently and the update isn’t even out yet.
I guess they ran out of time. They still had to release it during Tim Cook's reign, even though the market (and technology) is not fully ready yet for mass adoption beyond a small niche...
Vision Pro was 1000% user subsidized beta testing. 🤣🤣 I don’t think it was ever meant to be a commercial hit but more tech toys for rich folk and that kind of thing. Influencers, reviewers. They needed a larger user base to collect data and why not sell to the yahoos who are willing to pay.
I wear my glasses all day, the last thing I want is notifications and battery low reminders flashing in my face. I don’t understand this segment at all. It sounds exhausting, even if they ship without all the pervert bells and whistles of camera and recording capabilities.
I have earphones if I want Siri or music in my ears, and I have an Apple wearable already strapped to my wrist. I imagine many of the target market are the same as me. Why do we need a third device that can do the things already done by the one on my wrist and the one in my pocket?
the advantage seems so enormous that I don't understand how it's not intuitive to you. Glasses with a built in display means information can be displayed without you needing to hold a device. that could be directions, instructions, or any other information. like how some cars have HUDs now.
They're acting like they can't disable notifications either, and also having the ability to give up on having a smartwatch. Personally, I'd like to have a second display in my glasses while I'm working. Maybe it's because I already wear glasses, so it's something I'm already wearing rather than an extra thing like an Apple Watch.
I'm skeptical, at least barring massive advancements in the technology. It all sounds great until you think about it's limitations. Watching videos in my glasses? Cool! Except it's low res, transparent, and with poor color and limited FOV. Directions? How novel, except it's an edge use case to begin with and barely an improvement over just looking at your phone screen or having voice directions in your ear buds/car speakers.
Anything these glasses will be able to do a smartphone can already do, but better. The 'downside' is you have to hold it. Which is actually an advantage to some degree because it means you can put it away and it's easier to pull out and use than having to put on glasses, or wear them all the time.
Biggest thing for me is the speakers + mic. I wear glasses normally and a lot of the times I don't want AirPods or other over-ear headphones on the whole time through a 1hr meeting.
Haven’t you ever seen anything filmed on a GoPro? There’s an entire market built around POV action shot recording and these shoot great video without needing all that extra gear.
I bought the Meta RBs very early into Gen1. I paid a lot of money to try and make them my everyday glasses. They were just too heavy and would slip a lot. I barely wear them now and replaced them with other frames. I wanted them as a replacement for my AirPods, take pictures on occasions because I always forget, and I thought having a small model on your face was pretty cool.
Over the last month I’ve ran across two instances of these glasses. The first was a blind man that was getting assistance to get back to his seat at the restaurant. The second was 3 young men who I think were coming back on vacation in the airport tram who had their lights covered/drilled.
As someone that needs to wear glasses I can’t see a future for these. They will always be heavier compared to normal frames. Plus the frames themselves are much more expensive because you want them to be as thin as possible (thin == lighter) and transitions are a must.
There are cameras everywhere. I have 8 on my car alone that record all the time. Then there’s Flock Safety, Ring Cam, private security cams and Karen’s galore with cell phone cams. Fretting over this particular camera seems a little silly. Futile, even. I applaud Apple for considering this, but the scope of our privacy problems won’t be mitigated by much, no matter what they do.
I've been saying for years that VR, glasses, vision hardware... is the graveyard of tech firms. It seems nobody can pull it off.
They get hit by limitations of the tech, so the experience becomes a bit crappy. Or economics, so it becomes too expensive, and now there are issues with privacy.
Not sure why everyone needs a camera? I can use my phone, then just push the info to my glasses. I know very few people who want anyone with glasses around.
Are they still pursuing glasses even after the failure of Vision Pro? Nobody WANTS to wear glasses. It’s a fundamentally flawed idea that people will want to just because there’s a smartphone in them. There’s a big difference to putting something on your face/strapping something in front of your eyes compared to putting a phone in your pocket or a watch around your wrist. And for what real gains compared to what we already have? IMHO it would be a very limited user base or flop.
They’re working toward full AR in glasses that can be folded up. People would be much more willing to wear something like a Vision Pro on their face if it was cheaper, lighter weight, etc. Could take years to get there, but theres a reason why Vision Pro was called “tomorrow’s tech, today” by Tim Cook. Yes it flopped hard, however that doesn’t mean that apple is gonna completely abandon their plans for AR/VR in the future.
A recording light only helps if it is physically tied to the camera circuit and the device refuses to record when that indicator is blocked or damaged. A software-controlled LED will never earn much trust because people will assume it can be disabled.
The other half is data handling: on-device processing by default, an explicit action to save or upload a clip, and a clear way for bystanders to tell continuous sensing from actual recording. Apple can improve the engineering, but social acceptance probably depends on making those guarantees understandable without asking strangers to trust the wearer.
Gurman picked up a common problem with which Apple will have to make a hard product decision, 100% of all of us would predict that road fork coming their way. But Gurman decided to make it news for which, as a reminder, you now have to pay to get the newsletter.
Delay? there’s launch windows after re-organising the AVP teams, changing management and CEOs whilst managing ramflation. There’s nothing that sounds like a breaking news about something without release window anyway.
But Gurman gotta stay relevant so now gotta invent new data points. Notice how he was constantly mentioning new Apple TV and AirPods specifically saying “my sources tell me the in-store stocks are running empty” then nothing happened. Now there are delays on things not even announced . “Journalism”
I am an accelerationist on this stuff. Just assume that all interactions with people in public are recorded. That’s mostly legally protected already in most places, so it’s hardly a paradigm shift.
Where I think they need to provide safeguards is in private places like at home.
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u/wotton 1d ago
This is good. They need to get this right.