We're Finally Getting a Clearer Look at the Future of Wearables

""The promise of glasses is to preserve this sense of presence that you have with other people," he said earlier this month, appealing to a general feeling of smartphone malaise and adding that he thinks "we've lost it a little bit with phones, and we have the opportunity to get it back with glasses." iPhone designer Jony Ive, who recently teamed with Sam Altman at OpenAI, pitched his new AI hardware as an antidote to the "unintended consequences" of his previous invention."

"In the tech industry's first telling, the post-smartphone world is a simple question of what and when: glasses? Watches? Pins? Armbands? Implants?It's portrayed as a simple matter of progress - in consumer technology, things must be replaced by newer and better things - but also as a reaction to the burdens and distractions of the previous great gadget, from which new gadgets will set us free."

"A survey of the post-phone landscape as it exists, though, reveals a complication in this consumerist liberation story. Someday, a new gadget may usher us into the post-smartphone world; in the meantime, the industry will have us trying everything else at once: on our faces, in our ears, around our necks, and on our appendages. Our phones - and the always-on, data-and-attention-hungry logic they represent - aren't being replaced. They're being extended."

Mark Zuckerberg and other tech leaders position glasses, headsets, and AI hardware as pathways away from smartphone dominance after major investments in wearable technology. Wearable displays and AI devices are pitched as ways to restore presence and remedy the unintended consequences of past inventions. Major companies like Apple continue developing AR headsets and slimmer glasses alongside other wearables. The industry's narrative frames a linear replacement of phones, but the present reality shows simultaneous experimentation with many form factors. Smartphones and their always-on, data- and attention-hungry logic remain central as companies add cameras, microphones, screens, and wrist accessories.

Read at Intelligencer