Opening thoughts. Snap Inc.’s smart glasses are coming. It’s a more important question of when and not what. CEO Evan Spiegel recently said something that many of us have been thinking about.
“I think Meta needs to partner with (Essilor) Luxottica because the Meta brand, I think, is not something people want even close to their faces,” Spiegel said during a podcast with David Cenara. Clearly, Meta’s reputation precedes anything it does – including the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses. In fact, Spiegel referred to this partnership as “far more damaging to Luxottica than Meta.”
In fact, a few weeks ago, I noted Meta’s discomfort with living life wearing AI glasses. “…to be fair, no one really knows where this data is going” – my exact words. Actually, staying true to my word, I haven’t reviewed the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 glasses (this is a habit, fortunately or unfortunately).
Editor’s Corner Apple’s new era, looking for @100
It was in the works, but no one really expected it to happen in the near future.
Tim Cook Apple Inc. He is stepping down after 14 years as CEO of Apple Inc. (and 28 years at Apple) – a tenure punctuated by record iPhone sales, $100 billion in services revenue alone, and a market capitalization of more than $4 trillion. He hands over the reins to Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternes, the brains behind some of the most exciting Apple products in recent years – the MacBook Neo and the iPhone Air, both of which are exceptional in more ways than one.
Cook leaves Apple in a perfect position to build Turnus, both financially, in terms of product portfolio and with the momentum of its diversification efforts.
Ternus understands the hard work that goes into every product, the hours and hours it takes to recreate things in engineering labs to get everything right. Johnny Sruzzi, who most recently served as senior vice president of hardware technologies, will take on an expanded role leading hardware engineering, which John Ternus most recently oversaw, as well as the hardware technology organization.
Ternes has an engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and he joined Apple in 2001. He oversaw Apple Silicon efforts, which marked a significant transition from Intel processors to Apple’s own M-series chips in Macs and iPads. He oversaw Cook’s vision with the entire AirPods line-up, and long before that, was instrumental in bringing the original iPad to the world. The Apple Vision Pro, iPhone Air, and MacBook Neo also exist because of him.
He knows how to conduct adventurous experiments better than anyone. Not to forget the reliability of the famous Mac, iPad and iPhone – a metric that certainly doesn’t weigh heavily on consumers.
In late 2025, Turnus was given oversight of Apple’s design teams – making him the first executive since Jony Ive to unite hardware engineering and product design. It’s safe to say that the next few years at Apple will be interesting. I think there will be a sense of continuity because not much needs to change, with some bold experiments involved.
Tech Spotlight | Stuffcool Jetset Pro and Giga Max
Those of you who read Wired Wisdom every week will have figured out by now that I’m a bit of a sucker for antique travel accessories. After all, this is not the time when you should be struggling with devices to charge your phone, laptop or tablet.
Stuffcool’s latest travel-focused charging accessories lead the way in simplicity and versatility. Jetset Pro Universal World Travel Adapter ( ₹2,999) and Giga Max 25,000 mAh Power Bank ( ₹5,299; Although I generally avoid carrying power banks through airports) fast-charging, convenience and value tick the checkbox.
The Jetset Pro is not your regular travel adapter that lets you switch between EU, AUS, USA and UK plug types for your laptop or phone’s charger. It does this and then adds three USB Type-C ports as well as a USB-A port, while also claiming to be the smallest device of its type ever. These ports are well spaced around the sides, allowing some flexibility depending on the length of the cable and ease of placement of the device being charged. These aren’t universal sockets as well as cursory options, with the C1 port maxing out at 75 watts (C2 and C3 at 20 watts each). In short, you have a laptop, smartphone, a smartwatch, and a few other gadgets to charge while traveling.
Equally impressive is the Giga Max, which Stuffcool says is India’s “smallest and most portable high capacity powerbank”. I wouldn’t necessarily argue with that, given how compact it really is – the massive 25,000 mAh capacity provides perspective. Its battery capacity is 96.25 watt-hours, which is within the standard airline safety limit of 100 Wh (which is typically around 27,000 mAh). It also has a display that shows the remaining battery percentage and charging specifications of connected devices. It has a Type-C port with a rating of 100 watts and a USB-A with a maximum power of 18 watts (ideal for smartwatches, headphones, etc.).
In short, you need to divide the 25,000 mAh capacity with your phone’s battery specifications, and calculate how many times the Stuffcool Giga Max can charge it – from full discharge to full charge. Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max with 4,823 mAh battery can be fully charged five times. Xiaomi 17 Ultra has a 6,000 mAh battery, four times more. The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra’s 5,000 mAh battery is almost five times that.
For convenience, there is also an integrated USB-C cable that is rated at 100 watts. This is enough to power even a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air for long periods of time.
Second thought The realism of AI as a creative partner
First and foremost, it’s a good change. A subtle change from what AI companies including OpenAI, Nvidia, and Anthropic keep telling the world is that AI will replace humans in creative workflows. It’s heartening to see that creative platforms including Canva and Adobe don’t think this way.
Canva co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins calls the new Canva AI 2.0 developments a “true creative partner” and “with the tools to transform ideas into fulfilling results.”
David Wadhwani, president of the creativity and productivity business at Adobe, says this is “a new era of agentic creativity, where you direct how your work takes shape and your vision, voice and taste become the most powerful creative tools”. It seems that humans are back in the limelight.
I’m particularly impressed with how Canva’s approach to AI has been over the years – also because it’s a platform that’s oriented to a very broad demographic of users. Unlike a very successful Adobe, which already had a large group of enterprises and professionals who were and still are recurring customers, Canva appealed largely to the masses at first, and that appeal has been tremendous since then – a different, but ultimately successful approach.
Here are some numbers for reference. The 13-year-old visual creative platform, which is now taking a sensible step towards a broader vertical, has more than 265 million monthly active users, of which more than 31 million are paying subscribers – up from 24 million last year. They also report $4 billion in annual revenue, of which over $500 million comes from the growing B2B business.
US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) says Canva is behind only OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Gemini in the global AI usage hierarchy, and ahead of DeepSeek, Grok and Cloud. Data from A16Z and YpitData shows that in terms of customer spend year-over-year, Canva leads globally with 101% growth in customer spend, ahead of Replit (78%), Vercel (72%), HubSpot (63%), Box (60%) and Figma (47%).
Look at Canva’s approach to investing in in-house AI development, and it has led us to three very distinct models that are frugal compared to the competition. Two important results. Cameron Adams, Canva’s co-founder and chief product officer, calls this a “really important unlock.” And even more important, as co-founder and chief operating officer, Cliff Obrecht, explains, “It allows us to power a larger portion of our workspace for free users”.
Canva AI 2.0 – An Analysis
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