We have been hearing rumors for a long time about the —already budgeted as safe— Apple glasses. A device that could arrive in the coming years and that, surely, will be Apple’s first major landing on a massive level in augmented or mixed reality.
Context is vital, as always, but more so here. With Meta investing huge amounts of money in the construction of its Metaverse, presenting the Meta Quest Pro recently, how Apple can position itself before a new sector with the opportunities that this may bring is something that will largely define what we call the metaverse in a few years. or if we stop naming it.
It does not seem that among Apple managers this term is one of their favorites, but leaving any meaning aside, in the end what seems to be preparing is a battle to see who dominates this new board. And in fact it could be the great project of Tim Cook, who has just completed a decade at the helm of Apple.
Until now, Apple’s biggest foray into AR remains the 2017 release of ARKit, which is now in its version 6. This software proposal uses the cameras and sensors of iPhones and iPads to superimpose images in space when the device points to a certain area. It is the technology which, for example, allows simulators like Ikea or some games like Pokémon Go to work.
Since ARKit, Apple has taken other smaller steps forward with AR apps for the iPhone. In May 2019, it introduced its Augmented Reality app for the Statue of Liberty, with Cook tweeting: “The Statue of Liberty app is just the beginning of how AR will transform the way we connect with the treasures of our world.”
In addition to Tim Cook’s constant cheering for technology, hThere are other signs that Apple is moving toward a future where AR could have a lot of weight as a product. Apple’s hiring of Nat Brown, ex-Microsoft and promoter of the Xbox; the publication of dozens of mixed, augmented and virtual reality patent announcements; acquisitions, including Metaio in 2015 and SensoMotoric in 2017, both augmented reality; and the rumors about the glasses themselves are not misleading.
Augmented reality glasses: Tim Cook’s iPhone?
The information about the glasses has been incessant during the last years. The most recent point to a device of about 300 grams, which should be linked to an iPhone, and which would have a more wearable than other approaches we have seen, such as the Facebook-Meta Quest, the HoloLens or the failed Google glasses.
The risk of generating rejection is still there. Seeing a person with a device at eye level is a very important leap in terms of the denaturalization that it entails with respect to a mobile phone or a smartwatch. But surely it is also the next frontier in the form of a gadget to conquer.
Of course, it should not be surprising that Apple is taking its time to manufacture this augmented reality hardware. Apple has always been known for patience when it comes to launching new products, and Cook probably doesn’t want Apple to repeat the failure of Google Glass. Also, because it can be the great innovative element of his time as CEO.
Cook has spoken on several occasions of the game-changing potential that harnessing augmented reality could be. In September 2021, he came to declare “number one fan of RA”always putting it above virtual reality in potential.
But before, he had already done it. Specifically, in 2016, she already clearly exposed his vision of him:
There is virtual reality and there is augmented reality: both are incredibly interesting. But my opinion is that augmented reality is the greater of the two, probably by far.
I think a significant portion of the population in developed countries, and eventually all countries, will experience AR every day, almost like eating three times a day, it will become such a big part of you, many of us live in our smartphones, the iPhone, I hope, is very important to everyone, so AR will become a really big thing. I think VR is not going to be as big, compared to AR. I’m not saying it’s not important, it’s important, but it won’t mark so many changes”.
Cook in a 2016 interview on good morning america
That’s one of the many times in which Cook has named AR as a vector of innovation that he really trusts. And, also, a different focus on the metaverse, more linked to virtual reality, proposed by Meta; in a new clash between the visions of the technological future that both companies have.