Apple is building what it can, not what the market wants yet. Smart glasses ship first because the hard parts are solved — optics exist, four in-house frame designs are in testing, consumers accept cameras on their faces.
Full AR overlay — digital content rendered across both lenses in daylight, at normal glasses weight — is unsolved by everyone. Meta's Ray-Ban Display puts a single micro-LED projection in one eye at $799. That is a notification screen, not augmented reality. Gurman puts Apple's full AR target at 2028 to 2030 — the same window every other company is working toward.
Apple ships when the problem is solved. Vision Pro launched uncompromised at $3,499 and took the sales hit rather than ship something lesser. Smart glasses in 2027 follows the same logic — ship the version that works, develop the version that doesn't until it does.
The foldable iPad is the counterargument. Also a Ternus priority. Multiple people who worked on it told Gurman it may never ship. Apple kills products when they aren't good enough. That's Steve Jobs' DNA still in play.
If you want lightweight AI glasses with cameras now, Meta and Samsung are shipping. If you want Apple to get AR right before it ships, clear your schedule through 2030.