As Apple is expected to enter the smart glasses market belatedly, its release schedule has been delayed.

Bloomberg reported that Apple plans to unveil its first smart glasses at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June of next year.

Apple's smart glasses are scheduled to go on general sale late next year.

Initially, Apple planned to showcase the smart glasses late this year and launch them early next year, but the schedule was pushed back as concerns over privacy issues grew.

Following the release of Meta's smart glasses, an increasing number of people have been voicing anxiety that they might be secretly recorded in public places such as restaurants and workplaces.

In fact, places like New York and Pennsylvania have decided to ban bringing smart glasses into courts, and voluntary measures to ban their use for privacy protection are also following in schools, gyms, and hospitals.

In response, Apple even considered developing smart glasses that feature a camera system but do not allow photo shooting or video recording.

In this case, the camera would be used solely to capture the user's surrounding environment and provide that data to AI to identify objects or places.

In addition, smart glasses without a camera at all were discussed, and it is known that even prototypes of smart glasses without camera functions have been built.

However, pointing out that such products would halve the advantages of smart glasses, Bloomberg noted that the possibility of Apple releasing a product without camera functions appears small.

Smart glasses are the market drawing the most attention from major IT companies recently, with Big Tech firms such as Meta, the frontrunner, along with Google—partnering with Samsung for a launch in the second half of this year—and Snap jumping into the competition one after another.

Amid the stumbling block of privacy controversies, competition among major IT companies to seize market dominance is expected to intensify gradually.

Reported by Jung Da-eun | Video by Ahn Jun-hyeok | Graphics by Lee Su-min | Produced by SBS Digital News