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Behind Apple's AI Smart Glasses: Their Last Chance (and Greatest Hope) · In the Loop AI

0:00
Josh: Apple's brand new AI glasses just had a huge leak.
0:03
Josh: Now, a decade ago, Apple formed a team to build AR glasses. They've been doing this for a long time.
0:07
Josh: They plan to ship three different headworn devices by 2022. Now,
0:11
Josh: as a lot of us know, only one of these has been shipped.
0:14
Josh: It's the Apple Vision Pro, and by all intents and purposes, it flopped.
0:18
Josh: The device is incredible, but people didn't care.
0:20
Josh: Meanwhile, Meta quietly partnered with Ray-Ban and sold over 10 million smart
0:24
Josh: glasses. So Apple is now scrambling to catch up, and they're not alone.
0:28
Josh: We have Google, Snapchat, Samsung, and a slew of Chinese companies that are
0:32
Josh: all converging on the same thesis at the same time.
0:35
Josh: The next great compute platform is going to be on your face.
0:38
Josh: It's glasses. Everyone's building glasses.
0:40
Josh: This is the biggest land grab for hardware since the iPhone,
0:44
Josh: and it all revolves around this new AI platform that everyone's building.
0:47
Josh: So there's a lot to unpack here, starting with Apple and the brand new leak
0:51
Josh: that just came out yesterday on their entirely new strategy when it comes to glasses.
0:54
Ejaaz: Out of all the AI glasses that are coming out, this is the one that I'm most excited about.
0:59
Ejaaz: This leak from this week basically reveals that Apple is building a new pair
1:05
Ejaaz: of AI glasses and they're codenamed,
1:08
Ejaaz: N50. Here are some of the top takeaways for these glasses.
1:11
Ejaaz: They're going to be displayless, which means that in contrary to Meta's Ray-Ban
1:15
Ejaaz: displays, you're not going to be able to see some kind of AR projection on the lens.
1:19
Ejaaz: It's going to be completely displayless, which also means that the glasses are
1:22
Ejaaz: going to be slimmer and sleeker.
1:24
Ejaaz: It's going to come with maybe one to maybe two cameras, which is going to capture
1:28
Ejaaz: your entire surroundings.
1:29
Ejaaz: And the idea here is it's kind of a voice-based device where it links to your iPhone.
1:34
Ejaaz: It captures photos for you. It can capture video as well. And it feeds it into
1:38
Ejaaz: your core device, which is your iPhone.
1:40
Ejaaz: What I'm most excited about, though, is its integration with Siri,
1:44
Ejaaz: which is not something that a lot of Apple users typically say.
1:47
Josh: You're going to have to unpack that.
1:49
Ejaaz: Okay, okay. Like I am one of those people. I have Siri turned off on my phone.
1:52
Ejaaz: It is absolutely terrible. But what I'm most excited about is Siri 2.0,
1:57
Ejaaz: which they're also going to reveal and release around the same time as these
2:00
Ejaaz: glasses at the end of this year, which is an integration with Siri AI.
2:05
Ejaaz: Now, for those of you who haven't been keeping on track, Apple is releasing
2:09
Ejaaz: an AI-powered version of Siri, which is going to plug into Google's new Gemini
2:13
Ejaaz: model, and that's going to make it a hell of a lot smarter.
2:15
Ejaaz: But it's also going to make your phone and devices way more smarter because
2:19
Ejaaz: it plugs into the Apple ecosystem.
2:21
Ejaaz: So you can imagine asking Siri to do something, and it actually does it instead
2:24
Ejaaz: of getting the temperature wrong, Siri.
2:26
Ejaaz: So I'm most excited about that. And this is, of course, part of their three-pronged
2:31
Ejaaz: strategy where Apple is really leaning into AI-powered devices.
2:34
Ejaaz: The rumors are that they have three of them on the line here,
2:37
Ejaaz: these new AI-powered glasses, but also a pair of AirPods, which have cameras
2:41
Ejaaz: that sit in your ears, as well as a new pendant slash puck-like device,
2:45
Ejaaz: which sounds very similar to OpenAI.
2:47
Ejaaz: So I'm excited about Apple's push into this. I think they have the best shot
2:50
Ejaaz: at building the best AI hardware or whatever the form factor eventually looks
2:54
Ejaaz: like. And I think they're going to cook better.
2:56
Josh: Yeah, the three types of devices is really exciting to me because I would love
2:59
Josh: some AirPods with cameras on them, something that gives me a little bit more
3:02
Josh: of the visual AI context.
3:04
Josh: Now, in terms of timelines, we have some interesting information on this.
3:08
Josh: WWDC, which is the developer conference annually that's held by Apple,
3:11
Josh: that's where they originally released Apple Intelligence that flopped.
3:14
Josh: And that's where they're likely to release the new version of Apple Intelligence.
3:17
Josh: That is in the first and second week of June. I believe it starts June 8th,
3:21
Josh: which is when we'll get the keynote.
3:22
Josh: That's when we'll kind of understand what the new series is
3:25
Josh: going to look like what the new ai software stack is
3:28
Josh: going to look like and then in terms of the hardware when we
3:30
Josh: can expect to get these glasses codenamed n50 with
3:33
Josh: a consumer launch sometime next year and the way
3:36
Josh: it's going to act is that there's four flame frames currently in
3:39
Josh: testing these are four different glasses frames a lot of them that
3:42
Josh: we're familiar with like the wayfarer style rectangular the
3:45
Josh: oval kind and what's interesting is i believe
3:48
Josh: they're the first company that isn't partnering with an actual glasses
3:51
Josh: distributor so lixotica is the biggest in the world they
3:54
Josh: basically make everyone's glasses and they just whitelist them to whatever brand
3:57
Josh: they're selling to apple's planning to make their own using acetate
4:01
Josh: which is more durable and luxurious than standard plastic so
4:04
Josh: as always we can expect apple to do it better than
4:06
Josh: everyone else make them much more durable make them look
4:09
Josh: beautiful hopefully and the idea is
4:12
Josh: that you're just going to be able to take some of the sensors from your iphone
4:15
Josh: strap them to your face and go on your way and this is the first iteration of
4:19
Josh: these glasses right it's like we're getting the augmented sensor suite first
4:23
Josh: where you're just strapping cameras and microphones and speakers to your head
4:26
Josh: then eventually later on a
4:28
Josh: few years later we'll get the actual displays where it can augment reality
4:31
Josh: Over your eyes. So I suspect it's going to blow some people's minds when they
4:34
Josh: just suddenly see this new form factor released by Apple, because not a lot
4:38
Josh: of people know this is coming.
4:39
Ejaaz: Yeah, I just want to spend a quick moment on the integrated build that Apple
4:44
Ejaaz: is doing here, because as you mentioned, a lot of the other major companies,
4:48
Ejaaz: including Meta themselves, which is like trillions of dollars,
4:50
Ejaaz: they still rely on external partners.
4:53
Ejaaz: Now, Apple's main advantage, and they've done that with the iPhone and a bunch
4:55
Ejaaz: of other devices that they've built, is they build it in-house.
4:58
Ejaaz: And it is incredibly expensive and very hard to pull off.
5:01
Ejaaz: There's a reason why companies go with third-party vendors because spinning
5:05
Ejaaz: up the supply chain is incredibly hard.
5:07
Ejaaz: But the fact that Apple has been able to pull that off previously and currently is their moat.
5:13
Ejaaz: I saw an article or a headline this morning, Josh.
5:16
Ejaaz: Remember, we covered the MacBook Neo, which is like their cheapest,
5:18
Ejaaz: new, most powerful laptop.
5:20
Ejaaz: They revealed over the weekend that they were running out of a particular component
5:24
Ejaaz: to build that laptop. Come Monday morning, they've secured the capacity and
5:28
Ejaaz: they're spinning out an additional 10 million units.
5:30
Ejaaz: So no one has that weight to swing around, but Apple, they still dominate the
5:35
Ejaaz: majority of TSMC supply when it comes to like AI hardware as well.
5:39
Ejaaz: So although no one talks about Apple being an AI front runner,
5:42
Ejaaz: they very much have the supply chain mode and they're going to play that into
5:45
Ejaaz: these hardware glasses, which I'm really excited to see.
5:48
Ejaaz: The second thing is, I don't want anyone to forget that Apple has the distribution
5:53
Ejaaz: mode right now when it comes to hardware.
5:55
Ejaaz: And that is a very strong levered pull that they can play on any AI software
6:02
Ejaaz: product that they launch.
6:03
Ejaaz: Imagine if tomorrow they turn
6:04
Ejaaz: on Siri AI Assistant 2.0, three billion devices then get access to that.
6:09
Ejaaz: And overnight, they become like the biggest AI company in the world.
6:12
Ejaaz: So I'm pumped about these devices. I hope they actually deliver this time.
6:16
Ejaaz: Siri has been delayed for like well over a year at this point,
6:19
Ejaaz: but I'm going to remain optimistic for this one.
6:22
Josh: Well, this is their last chance. If they can't figure it out this time,
6:24
Josh: then they're in serious trouble.
6:25
Josh: I think to the point of the supply chain and Apple just kind of being the one
6:29
Josh: to move their weight around, we have another example that I don't think a lot
6:31
Josh: of people are aware of, which is the new foldable phone that's on the market for later this year.
6:36
Josh: Now, what we're seeing on screen here is a dummy rendering, or I guess it's
6:39
Josh: a real product, but it's a dummy unboxing of what the iPhone folds will look like.
6:44
Josh: And it is pretty cool. Now, Apple's always late, but when they do it,
6:48
Josh: they do it when the technology is right.
6:49
Josh: And this looks pretty interesting and exciting chances are
6:52
Josh: we're going to get this announced in september with the new iphone 18 pro
6:55
Josh: i believe that's what's coming this year and it's it's just
6:58
Josh: a nod to a new frontier of hardware that's coming that um
7:01
Josh: even though a lot of people have released i mean really good
7:04
Josh: intelligence really good foldable devices apple is the
7:07
Josh: one who is going to be the kind of late entrant but the
7:10
Josh: one who has all of the leverage in the world to make it great they make displays
7:13
Josh: now that have no bend in the middle so you don't see a seam anymore it just
7:17
Josh: it seems like it's finally ready for mass market and they're going to do it
7:21
Josh: um but of course they're not the first ones everyone other than apple has already
7:26
Josh: made a foldable phone yeah
7:27
Ejaaz: Hang on a second like i was going to say like the tech is already here josh
7:31
Ejaaz: like we already have a a frontier phone why would you buy this foldable phone
7:35
Ejaaz: when you have huawei purer x max dude like look at this yeah look familiar.
7:39
Josh: This this thing is kind of badass so huawei chinese company
7:43
Josh: some of the best engineers in the world in terms of manufacturing mobile
7:46
Josh: devices they basically took what i imagine were
7:49
Josh: the apple renderings and said we're just going to front run you and make this ourselves
7:52
Josh: and they pumped out something that looks gorgeous you'll notice
7:54
Josh: that the front facing screen is a little fatter than you're used to a
7:58
Josh: lot of the foldables that exist on the market today have that kind of
8:00
Josh: vertical orientation for the aspect ratio the reason is because if you unfold
8:05
Josh: this chunky thing into two it creates a aspect ratio that's more relatable for
8:09
Josh: video and widescreen applications you'll notice that it kind of looks like an
8:13
Josh: ipad mini and that makes it much more better for video content that's 16 by
8:17
Josh: 9 kind of wider i think it's going to have a lot of useful applications
8:20
Josh: I'm going to be a buyer of this one. I'm excited for a folding phone.
8:23
Josh: I think it's cool. I think the technology is exciting.
8:25
Josh: We'll see how it plays out. But Apple getting into foldables, pretty cool.
8:30
Ejaaz: Going back to the glasses, it is tying into a larger trend around people believing
8:35
Ejaaz: that the future form factor for AI and just any frontier technology or consumer
8:39
Ejaaz: technology within hardware is going to sit on your face, whether it's going to be a pair of mystery,
8:45
Ejaaz: earbuds that OpenAI is reportedly working on that have cameras and ingest all
8:48
Ejaaz: the information around the world.
8:49
Ejaaz: Or if it's a pair of glasses that either have a display or don't that sit on
8:53
Ejaaz: your nose and can pick up everything that you see and hear, we're kind of like
8:57
Ejaaz: working towards that kind of thing.
8:59
Ejaaz: We had Apple Vision Pro, which was like this thick, very expensive device that had to sit on your face.
9:03
Ejaaz: They're kind of winding that down and spinning up a smaller,
9:06
Ejaaz: sleeker, thinner version of that, which is going to be glasses.
9:09
Ejaaz: So we're trending in that way. And I believe in the first half of 2025,
9:13
Ejaaz: the market share or the market for AI glasses kind of doubled.
9:17
Ejaaz: And we're seeing similar accelerations at the start of this year as well.
9:21
Ejaaz: Now, of course, we can't mention AI Glasses without mentioning Meta and that
9:25
Ejaaz: sounds like a positive reinforcement. It isn't necessarily that,
9:29
Ejaaz: but Meta has, for better or worse, taken the lead in AI Glasses for now.
9:35
Ejaaz: Their Ray-Ban displays have been pumping out millions of units.
9:38
Ejaaz: I think they're on track to deliver about 30 to 40 million units by the end
9:41
Ejaaz: of the year, which I have no idea how they're doing that because their launch
9:45
Ejaaz: demos, I think two out of three failed.
9:48
Ejaaz: Apple is going head to head with Meta and they think that they can win primarily
9:52
Ejaaz: because they're building everything in-house.
9:54
Ejaaz: They have the supply chain to be able to pull off a sneaker design and they
9:57
Ejaaz: have the ecosystem to support it.
9:59
Josh: Yeah, this is going to sound ridiculous, but I really, I believe that the Apple
10:02
Josh: Vision Pro is like the most impressive consumer hardware device ever made in
10:05
Josh: terms of technology that's baked into a single product.
10:08
Josh: It's just expensive and there's no developer support and there's not many good
10:11
Josh: use cases, but the technology is incredible.
10:13
Josh: So it's really just a ticking time bomb until they're able to compress that
10:16
Josh: into something that's wearable on your face that doesn't weigh 10 pounds,
10:20
Josh: that doesn't give you marks on your face, the whole thing. And it's
10:23
Josh: Kind of weird that right now Meta is the leader. I mean, like you mentioned,
10:27
Josh: the glasses market is up or wearables, at least, is up 110% year over year.
10:32
Josh: AI power glasses specifically are up a two and a half times multiple and Meta is the leader.
10:37
Josh: So what we're seeing on screen now is the Ray-Ban displays that,
10:40
Josh: like you remember, leave a lot to be desired.
10:42
Josh: They're this like kind of augmented interface that sits on top of the glasses
10:47
Josh: that sits on the real world.
10:49
Josh: It doesn't have tracking. It's static imagery.
10:51
Josh: It's not great. think one of the more interesting things that meta has been
10:54
Josh: doing is the peripherals to this device like they're the neural band which was
10:58
Josh: that uh the emg wristband that reads your electromagnetic signals
11:02
Josh: From your muscle pulses as you move your hand around so they're working on this
11:05
Josh: unique way of interfacing with these glasses i think is
11:08
Josh: interesting but still it's it's so early and they're
11:11
Josh: so bad that the fact that this is the market leader it
11:14
Josh: really is reflective of the fact that the form factor isn't there
11:17
Josh: yet but it's coming soon and powering these devices with the next generations
11:22
Josh: of ai that we're going to have is going to be that next iphone level hardware
11:27
Josh: it's this is certainly what the next form factor is going to look like along
11:31
Josh: with many others but this is one of the more important ones that I certainly
11:34
Josh: think we're going to see.
11:35
Ejaaz: I'm hoping it doesn't all look like this demo that I'm showing on screen here,
11:40
Ejaaz: where you have the CEO of trillions of dollars worth of a company,
11:44
Ejaaz: you know, messing up on stage where like he tries to call his friend and it fails.
11:50
Ejaaz: And this was like one of like three demos where it just didn't work.
11:53
Ejaaz: The point that is being made here is you could have all the money in the world,
11:56
Ejaaz: but it's still hard to pull off a really good piece of hardware and then scale it, right?
12:01
Ejaaz: We've seen this play so many times where I think Snap, I forgot what the original
12:06
Ejaaz: Snap capture device that they had, where we were talking about this before we
12:10
Ejaaz: started recording, Josh, where you could get this from a vending machine.
12:12
Ejaaz: The Spectacles, right? They were incredibly hard to scale and get into everyone's
12:16
Ejaaz: hand. And so it just hyped up and then just crashed because no one could get
12:21
Ejaaz: their hands on these things.
12:21
Ejaaz: And the similar thing is being seen with Meta AI, where everyone wants to use
12:26
Ejaaz: this thing, but they're still struggling to scale to even 30 million units.
12:29
Ejaaz: But the demand is still there. And that's great.
12:31
Ejaaz: And like you mentioned, they're working on a suite of different devices.
12:34
Ejaaz: And that is not just working on spectacles. They're working on these different types of wristbands.
12:38
Ejaaz: But they are behind when compared to hardware giants such as Apple,
12:42
Ejaaz: who have spent a lot of time thinking about the design UX of these different
12:46
Ejaaz: things and have the hardware pipeline to back it up.
12:49
Ejaaz: So listen, I'm going to remain optimistic somewhat on Meta being able to pull this off.
12:56
Ejaaz: We've said this on previous episodes and I'll say it again, hardware alone doesn't win.
13:01
Ejaaz: You need the software mode and Meta is a social media platform.
13:04
Ejaaz: I don't know of anyone that uses apps outside of Facebook, Instagram,
13:09
Ejaaz: and WhatsApp, which are huge apps in itself, but doesn't have an operating system
13:13
Ejaaz: or operating suite behind them.
13:15
Ejaaz: And I think Meta is going to fail when it comes to that personally.
13:18
Josh: And what's interesting is Meta is not the only social media network that
13:21
Josh: is pivoting to glasses i mean snap you mentioned the
13:23
Josh: spectacles but they're actually working on a iterative version
13:27
Josh: on top of the old spectacles which are this this
13:30
Josh: mammoth of a pair of glasses that it's funny
13:33
Josh: you asked me if this was real and i said i don't think so and
13:35
Josh: then there's a picture of evan spiegel actually wearing these this is
13:38
Josh: what they actually look like and this is the current state of hardware so
13:41
Josh: it's interesting seeing incumbents like snap or meta
13:44
Josh: focus on this clearly they think that owning the
13:47
Josh: hardware stack is going to be important but again they're
13:50
Josh: at odds with what their company is actually good at when you think about
13:52
Josh: a company like apple and listen i respect meta and snap
13:55
Josh: for doing this in public for actually sharing their prototypes because that's
13:58
Josh: very much what it feels like they are uh even the the meta glasses
14:01
Josh: they don't feel like they're really refined products versus apple
14:04
Josh: who's just kind of doing it all behind the scenes but it's not
14:07
Josh: good and you could kind of see the current state of the hardware based on these
14:10
Josh: photos of evan spiegel the ceo using them they're just big they're clunky they
14:15
Josh: don't work well the technology is not quite there and i guess the question i
14:19
Josh: have for maybe you or anyone who's listening is How long does it take for the
14:23
Josh: technology to get good enough and who's actually going to be capable of doing it?
14:26
Josh: Like when Apple releases these classes next year, are they going to be something
14:29
Josh: worthy of people wanting to actually go out of their way and purchase them and
14:32
Josh: put them on their face when all the sensors are currently in the phone sitting in your pocket?
14:36
Ejaaz: I personally think that there are two players in this game that can win it.
14:40
Ejaaz: Apple is the obvious one that you just mentioned.
14:43
Ejaaz: The other one is probably some formation of Google and their Android investment, at least.
14:49
Ejaaz: We have an example here where we're looking at an Android XR display, glasses from Google.
14:55
Ejaaz: Now, Google glasses was famously very, very early, but definitely too early.
15:01
Ejaaz: It was this ugly contraption.
15:02
Ejaaz: Everyone kind of like tried it out. It failed in the consumer world.
15:06
Ejaaz: It kind of got adoption in the enterprise world and then slowly petered out
15:09
Ejaaz: and died. That was back in 2013.
15:11
Ejaaz: But now, Demis Sissibis referenced, I think, in Davos recently,
15:16
Ejaaz: that they're working on Google Glass or Google Lens 2.0.
15:20
Ejaaz: So we're going to get another form factor.
15:22
Ejaaz: Now, this example that you're seeing on your screen is not exactly that.
15:26
Ejaaz: This is in partnership with Warby Parker, Samsung, and Android.
15:29
Ejaaz: So you've got a bunch of different partners kind of feeding into this to build
15:32
Ejaaz: a hardware and software component.
15:33
Ejaaz: And I have to say, it looks sleeker and slimmer and, dare I say,
15:38
Ejaaz: sexier than any of the other glasses that I've seen. certainly better than the Meta Ray-Bans.
15:42
Ejaaz: Now, I don't know how well it is or how good it is functionally.
15:45
Ejaaz: And I am still marred by the experience or the review and feedback that happened from Google Glass 1.0.
15:53
Ejaaz: I'm convinced now is not a coincidence that we have like, what,
15:57
Ejaaz: six companies, six big companies working on this particular form factor.
16:01
Ejaaz: It also tells me that that's a signal that the hardware components are now good
16:05
Ejaaz: enough to fit into a slimmer device.
16:07
Ejaaz: My hot take on this is you need some form of display on the lenses, Josh.
16:13
Ejaaz: And I don't know whether you disagree with me here, but you,
16:15
Ejaaz: like, if you're feeding all this data into your eyes, you kind of want to be able to do things.
16:19
Ejaaz: And in order to do things, you can't just, like, speak to Siri.
16:22
Ejaaz: You want to be able to see your screen.
16:23
Ejaaz: I don't want to be pulling out my phone every now and then, like,
16:25
Ejaaz: staring at a screen. You might as well put the screen on the lens.
16:28
Ejaaz: Now, I don't know if that hardware component is good enough yet.
16:31
Ejaaz: It still leads to chunkier glasses like we saw with Snap.
16:33
Ejaaz: So that's, like, that's where I'm at odds right now.
16:35
Josh: It will need a screen, but I really like the suite of devices angle because it allows you to
16:41
Josh: like kind of choose your own adventure when the core of
16:44
Josh: it really is that ai now google's glasses these look the best by
16:46
Josh: far um these are these are certainly the best performing
16:50
Josh: glasses they're not publicly available yet but i i believe that
16:53
Josh: the suite of devices that apple is going with like
16:56
Josh: the airpods the perhaps pendant and
16:59
Josh: the glasses is the right one because you you are going to
17:01
Josh: want that interface right like you're going to want some sort of visual component
17:04
Josh: to engage with the outputs of this ai but we have
17:07
Josh: to ask the question is like why is everybody building this why why is they're
17:10
Josh: the sudden race for glasses and it seems like everyone just wants to own the
17:14
Josh: platform in which the ai is interfacing with the end user where there is a clear
17:19
Josh: world in which there's going to be this resistance away from being hooked on
17:24
Josh: your cell phone maybe 12 hours a day like a lot of people are
17:27
Josh: And owning the stack in which you can, I mean, get the answers from the AI that
17:31
Josh: you want and ask questions and have it understand things about you.
17:34
Josh: And it's not only unbelievably valuable as a customer who you can monetize,
17:38
Josh: but also just in understanding the preference stack.
17:41
Josh: And when you think about Meta and Snap and what they're selling,
17:44
Josh: a lot of it, I mean, we talked about Meta last week in the episode on the new model.
17:48
Josh: A lot of it is just understanding the preferences of its users.
17:50
Josh: And if it has something strapped to your face 24 seven, that is collecting information
17:54
Josh: about you, they can just sell much more interesting and novel things.
17:57
Josh: That's kind of why I imagine a lot of these companies are really shifting focus to it.
18:00
Josh: And we have the same thing that's happening with OpenAI too,
18:02
Josh: where they're working on this suite of mystery devices as well.
18:05
Ejaaz: Yeah. I mean, we've seen several leaked clips, but I don't know if it's real.
18:10
Ejaaz: Josh had an experience over the weekend where he thought he spotted a bunch
18:14
Ejaaz: of people wearing the OpenAI buds.
18:16
Ejaaz: But I mean, you got to retell the story, but...
18:19
Josh: I was walked... All right. So I'm walking down the street and there's
18:22
Josh: this group of people who are speaking what i believe is
18:24
Josh: chinese they didn't speak a lick of english and i'm just kind of like passing
18:28
Josh: by them because the street was kind of crowded and this woman and her friend
18:32
Josh: had the cuffs like the ear cuffs that we saw from the open ai teaser and i was
18:37
Josh: like no way and i should have stopped to ask them i was a little intimidated
18:41
Josh: by the fact that they did not sound like they spoke
18:43
Josh: english but it was interesting and it put me down a rabbit hole that led me
18:46
Josh: to find the xiaomi sorry, the Huawei free clips, which are these earbuds that
18:53
Josh: look exactly like the leaked earbuds from the
18:57
Josh: uh scans guard super bowl there
19:00
Ejaaz: He is alexander scars guard for those of you who don't know scars.
19:03
Josh: Yeah i always get these names wrong but some
19:07
Josh: it's funny because we still don't really know the origin or what open ai is
19:11
Josh: working on it could be a troll campaign it could be a real leak we don't know
19:15
Josh: we do know that they're working with johnny ai that we do know that they're
19:18
Josh: working on these hardware products that are going to be offered soon and i just
19:21
Josh: cannot wait until we get those answers.
19:23
Josh: Because in terms of software, OpenAI has the best software AI suite by far.
19:29
Josh: And when it comes to building an AI-first operating system, they have the advantage.
19:32
Josh: I hope they can deliver those hardware. And we'll just have to wait and see on that one.
19:36
Ejaaz: Yeah. So in terms of how all of this plays out, Josh, here's my take. And I want to hear yours.
19:42
Ejaaz: I think we're getting close to these hardware AI glasses becoming a reality,
19:48
Ejaaz: being sleek and slim, not being embarrassed enough to put one of these things
19:51
Ejaaz: on your face, basically.
19:52
Ejaaz: I think that we're probably going to see the first versions of these or the
19:56
Ejaaz: sexy versions of these. I'm excluding meta from this debate.
19:59
Ejaaz: By the end of the year, or maybe early 2027, I think the best leaders are going
20:04
Ejaaz: to come from Apple to start off with.
20:06
Ejaaz: But I think a similar number of different startups are going to compete with Apple.
20:10
Ejaaz: I know there's a bunch of other startups such as Sesame that is working on this
20:12
Ejaaz: and I think physical intelligence as well.
20:15
Ejaaz: So the point is glasses are going to become a popular form factor.
20:18
Ejaaz: And the second thing is, this race in particular is important because Apple
20:24
Ejaaz: showed you that hardware distribution is the actual moat when it comes to any
20:28
Ejaaz: kind of software technology revolution, which might be a hot take,
20:32
Ejaaz: but you need some kind of hardware bridge or component.
20:34
Ejaaz: A lot of the AI nerds think that it's purely going to be humanoid robots.
20:38
Ejaaz: Apple's betting and Meta's betting that it's going to be a suite of devices.
20:43
Ejaaz: So I think those two things are going to play out. And I think we're going to
20:45
Ejaaz: get it by the end of the year.
20:46
Ejaaz: I'm hoping so. So Google Glass 2.0, some form of Xiaomi or Huawei's copycat
20:52
Ejaaz: from Apple's product, and then Apple's product itself.
20:56
Josh: And there's also this one last underrated venue here, which is the prescription glasses marketplace.
21:01
Josh: I had no idea that prescription eyewear is a quarter trillion dollar industry annually.
21:08
Josh: Wow. Like $250 billion of the eyewear market is prescription.
21:13
Josh: And that's only 70% of the total eyewear market. So the eyewear market in general is huge.
21:18
Josh: The amount that is prescription is gigantic. dick and i
21:22
Josh: really believe that even if you
21:24
Josh: don't deliver on a fully augmented reality experience just
21:28
Josh: creating a beautiful set of glasses with a novel feature
21:31
Josh: set that actually works is probably pretty powerful and powerful enough to get
21:34
Josh: a lot of people to start buying these things we've seen that with meta um i
21:38
Josh: think we're going to continue to see that with a lot of other companies so that
21:41
Josh: is an interesting thing but then there is the like the new platform wars right
21:44
Josh: it's like if meta has their glasses am i going to want to buy them because
21:48
Josh: Now I'm constrained to Instagram and WhatsApp and Facebook, and I just don't want to use their stuff.
21:53
Josh: So it's like we have the platform we're sitting in one side.
21:57
Josh: We have the hardware distribution where almost everyone depends on these Qualcomm chips.
22:01
Josh: Apple's really the only one that builds their own internal chips.
22:04
Josh: And Google perhaps might be doing the same too. But there's a lot of these different factors.
22:09
Josh: Everyone's kind of competing from their own unique advantage angle.
22:11
Josh: And the question is who's going to win and who's going to deliver the best product
22:15
Josh: to market first that we're actually going to buy. I remember,
22:18
Josh: Ijaz, you were kind of excited about the metaglasses.
22:20
Josh: That excitement faded away quickly. There is no real good hardware that people are excited to buy.
22:24
Josh: And whoever is able to deliver that is going to unlock a huge market opportunity
22:28
Josh: for this new AI-first operating system hardware integration.
22:32
Josh: And I'm really excited to see how it plays out.
22:34
Ejaaz: Yeah, OpenAI team, the hardware team specifically, Johnny Ive,
22:38
Ejaaz: if you happen to be watching this video randomly.
22:40
Josh: Give me that device.
22:40
Ejaaz: Give me that device. I'm rooting for you, all right? I want to try these glasses
22:44
Ejaaz: out or earbuds or whatever the hell you're building. Let us play with them.
22:47
Ejaaz: I can't wait to test out some of these new hardware products.
22:50
Ejaaz: But until then, we are going to be sitting here and reporting on it, Josh.
22:54
Ejaaz: We're going to be speculating about it and I can't wait to get these things on our faces soon.
22:58
Ejaaz: But I believe that is the end of the episode and that is basically the state
23:03
Ejaaz: of play on all things AI hardware or glasses to be specific.
23:07
Ejaaz: I'm excited about Apple's upcoming release. I think Meta is doing a good job
23:11
Ejaaz: for now and I think there's going to be a bunch of startups that eventually
23:13
Ejaaz: catch up. Josh, do you have any parting thoughts?
23:17
Josh: That's it other than the fact that i'm just excited for someone to deliver
23:20
Josh: something great i just want a product that i can use i'm kind
23:23
Josh: of sick of my old stuff i want something new but it needs to
23:26
Josh: be good and so far there is nothing good so hopefully if it's
23:29
Josh: not this year it's certainly going to be next year where we get
23:31
Josh: the first good products you could put on your face and enjoy them
23:34
Josh: i would love to know which products you are most excited about of
23:37
Josh: all the companies we discussed today whose glasses product
23:40
Josh: are you going to buy or whose peripheral product are you going to buy
23:43
Josh: are you going to get an apple pendant are you going to get the airpods
23:46
Josh: with the cameras um i'm just kind of curious how
23:49
Josh: everyone's orienting themselves around this new paradigm shift that would
23:51
Josh: be fun the second ask is just to share this with your friends as always to rate
23:54
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23:57
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24:01
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24:04
Josh: friends we have a newsletter you could subscribe to and yeah just like thanks
24:07
Josh: for being here on the mission we have been doing so well numbers are going up
24:11
Josh: and to the right we're just having record week after record week and it's all
24:13
Josh: thanks to the support from you people listening.
24:16
Josh: So thank you for tuning in like every single day. We publish these four times a week.
24:20
Josh: Just appreciate it. And we have another really packed week planned.
24:23
Josh: So I'm excited to keep chugging along, getting this content out the door and
24:26
Josh: yeah, doing it together.
24:28
Ejaaz: See you guys tomorrow.
24:29
Josh: See ya. Yeah, see you guys tomorrow.