Apple's Secret Weapon: This AI Could Power Its Smart Glasses

Right now, Apple’s Vision Pro is more like a glorified monitor you can wear on your face. It has its uses, and it is a technological marvel, but it doesn’t do much at the moment. Plus, its size and price mean it’s not something you can use every day. However, Apple has plans for a future pair of smart glasses, and this is the AI model that could run on it.

Meet Apple’s new AI model for its smart glasses

It’s not surprising that the Vision Pro hasn’t become mainstream. Like we said, the size and price put it out of reach for most people. If Apple wants something that can be adopted by the masses, smart glasses are the way to go. But smart glasses aren’t smart without software, which is why, according to a report from 9to5Mac, they speculate that Apple’s new FastVLM AI model could drive the device.

According to Apple’s description of the AI model, “Based on a comprehensive efficiency analysis of the interplay between image resolution, vision latency, token count, and LLM size, we introduce FastVLM—a model that achieves an optimized trade-off between latency, model size, and accuracy.”

The AI ​​model’s core is the FastViTHD encoder, which was specifically designed for “efficient VLM performance on high-resolution images.” This helps to process information locally. This means that any AI processing is done on the device itself instead of sending it to a remote server. This approach enhances speed, privacy, and suitability for real-time results. However, it also limits the possibilities more to the capabilities of the hardware.

The model has also been designed to output fewer tokens, 85 times faster time-to-first-token compared to other models, according to Apple. This makes FastVLM more lightweight and speedier.

Apple’s vision for the future

We have been hearing rumors that Apple is looking to put together its own pair of smart glasses. These glasses are rumored to be Tim Cook’s “grand vision” for the company. Not only will it use its own AI models, but Apple is reportedly developing its own chips for it as well.

We’re not sure when we will see Apple’s smart glasses hit the market. Last we heard, Apple could launch it as soon as 2026. That seems a bit optimistic, so we’ll have to wait and see. Until then, if you’re keen, you can check out Apple’s new FastVLM model on GitHub here.

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