✦ Glasses & the Post-iPhone FaceThin moat

Vision Pro got its M5 refresh in October 2025 — faster, 120Hz, still $3,499, still 650 grams of magnificent niche¹. Meta's answer weighs 69 grams, costs $799, and has been on faces since September 2025². That contrast explains the pivot: Apple shelved the cheaper headset it had in development and redirected the effort toward true smart glasses — an iPhone-paired pair targeted around 2027, and a display-equipped model to answer Meta's aimed at 2028³.

The stakes are existential in slow motion. Glasses are the first credible candidate for the device that eventually absorbs the iPhone's jobs — the screen you glance at, the camera you carry, the assistant in your ear — and for once Apple is the one chasing an installed base rather than owning it. Its record when arriving late to a category it cares about is the best in consumer electronics: the iPod was late, the iPhone was late, the Watch was late, and each one ended the argument. Its record when a rival owns the habit first — see smart speakers — is mortal. Watch the ship dates above everything: a 2027 target that slips hands Meta a three-year, multi-million-unit head start in the one category Apple cannot afford to lose, and every quarter of slippage makes the eventual fight less like the iPhone's and more like the HomePod's.