Tim Cook’s biggest mistake was making Apple an enemy of Mark Zuckerberg. This blood feud began when Apple made cross app tracking less effective with the iOS 14.5 update in 2021. The true target of Apple’s privacy initiatives was always Google and Meta ad revenue.
Meta Connect 2026 signaled Mark Zuckberg’s revenge on Apple.
Computer: AI Glasses vs iPhone
Assistant: Muse vs Siri
Health Tracking: Muse Charm vs Apple Watch
Future Computing: VR Glasses vs Vision Pro
Computer: Meta AI Glasses vs Apple iPhone
Meta’s smart glasses have had negative press attributed to their front-facing cameras.
In response, Meta now has audio only glasses.
The micro-trend in San Francisco this year has been voice first. Early adopters are experimenting with talking instead of typing as a default.
There’s a contingent of people that use speaker mode on their phones in public. These same people are likely to talk to their LLMs through AI connected smart glasses. I’m not advocating for this, it’s just something I foresee.
Audio only glasses represent an entry point for Meta to become the default hardware touch point (instead of phones or laptops).
Assistant: Muse vs Siri
Siri is Apple’s default personal assistant. But it can also be viewed as a less sophisticated AI agent.
Enter Meta’s Muse.
Muse takes requests and does things. That sounds like what Siri is supposed to do.
Muse will be integrated with Meta’s glasses. The purpose of Muse is to replace Siri.
Health Tracking: Muse Charm vs Apple Watch
The Muse Charm device does not require a smartphone.
You can talk to your charm and it will also have health tracking features. This puts it in direct competition with an Apple Watch in terms of value proposition.
Future Computing: VR Glasses vs Vision Pro
Meta’s VR glasses come in at $1,299 compared to $3,499 (up to $3,900) for the Apple Vision Pro. They weigh 100 grams compared to 650 grams of the Apple Vision Pro.
I don’t see VR adoption growing significantly but it’s a sign of things to come in terms of more advanced hardware undergoing miniaturization.
The Big Picture
Smartphones are not going anywhere and Apple is the clear market leader. Apple also has access to the market in China.
Apple is at a $4.92 trillion market cap compared to Meta at $1.92 trillion dollars. But I expect this gap to get smaller over the next decade. Mark Zuckerberg is not a dog you want to back into a corner.