Apple’s Next: AR glasses

Since the original iPhones launched 13 years ago. A lot of people have been waiting for Apple’s next big product category. Since then we’ve had the iPad ,Apple watch and ear pods. These have all sold well, but I think Apple’s next venture into augmented reality might be more interesting.

Augmented reality is a technology whose goal it is to augment or enhance one’s physical environment by adding digital elements. This new industry has started maturing and Apple stepping in with a pair of augmented reality glasses may be a game changer. The details of these glasses were recently leaked. So what can Apple bring to the space ?

We know that Apple has been exploring virtual and augmented reality technologies for more than ten years. The company has established a secret research unit comprising of hundreds of employees including members from companies such as Microsoft, Lytro, magic leap, oculus and Organizations such as NASA and Virginia Tech. They’ve also acquired a bunch of companies in the AR and VR space. From Google glass and snapchat spectacles to hololens, magic leap and Facebook’s upcoming AR glasses, many have tried and are trying to make this technology work and the landscape could Suddenly get very crowded very fast But so far, it’s mostly been in vain. There hasn’t been any mainstream success beyond the dedicated tech community and Apple may change it.

We know that there’s one thing that Apple is good at is making technology simple for the masses. In the 80s they changed personal computing by popularizing or stealing depending on how you look at it. Xerox is graphical user interface It changed computers from lines of text that were often Confusing frustrating and error-prone into a graphical interface that everyone could understand.

In 2001 they made portable music less of a chore to navigate and Of course in 2007 Apple made smartphones accessible. They took the clunkiness out of the user interface. Before the iPhone it was the buttons of a blackberry or the frustrating touchscreen of an LG Prada. capacitive multi-touch changed the game. All of this is to say having Simplicity at the core has proved to be a successful strategy for Apple and a new product category like augmented reality. Is the perfect arena to push the strategy further?

Lika John, Prosser says that these new glasses will be called Apple glass. He mentioned that the product will look similar to Ray Bans or the glasses that Tim Cook wears. He describes them as unintimidating a factor that I think will be very important The price is said to be $499 plus prescription fees, which is surprising for Apple for instance microsoft’s hololens 2 has a price tag of $3500.

Much of that cost comes from all the electronics needed to run the AR experience being built into the headset itself. On the other hand Apple glasses are said to be run from the phone much like the first generation Apple watch But we’ll get to this later . Each lens is said to have a resolution of 8k which puts it above most TVs. The release date for the glasses is said to be around 2022.

According to the leaks There’s going to be no cameras on the glasses for privacy reasons in the context of wearing glasses. Having a camera pointed at you when someone is looking at you will be off-putting to many and this problem was one of the main reasons why Google glass failed so if there’s no camera the question has to be asked how will Apple glass be able to see the environment to make all of the AR happen.

Well, that’s going to be done with a technology called LIDAR( laser imaging detection and ranging) It uses lasers to scan an environment and visualize distance and the shape of objects It’s similar to how bats use sound waves to quote see their surroundings. LIDAR sensors are also used in self-driving cars. Apple already uses this technology in their latest iPad pro in the iPad pro.

The LIDAR scanner is already good enough to create a detailed mesh of its surroundings. It can recognize furniture, people and more. The iPad pro and the next iPhone could end up acting like a development kit for the glasses sensors. Analyst Ming chiku expects the AR glasses to be marketed as an iPhone accessory and as mentioned the Computation processing networking and positioning data will all be offloaded to the iPhone.

The iPhone already has AR and computer vision Computation ships built right in so it seems like Apple designed these phones with the glasses in mind Offloading all the processing to the iPhone will allow the glasses to remain slim and lightweight.

According to a Bloomberg report there’s a new Apple patent that allows the streaming of information from your phone to your face specifically the glasses quote are expected to synchronize with aware as iPhone to display things such as text emails maps and games over the users field of vision end quote Apple also has plans for third-party apps and is considering a dedicated app store you could easily imagine navigation software or the enabling of home entertainment on a Reese callable virtual TV.

According to another patent, the system will be capable of identifying vision problems and automatically adjust the refraction of the displays and lenses to help a user see. This eliminates the need to wear prescription lenses beneath the augmented reality device . Bloomberg has also said that the glasses will run on ROS or reality operating system, is said to be based on iOS. There’s already code in iOS 13 indicating a stereoscopic software called star board. This takes a bit of its name from the springboard which is what the iPhones home screen interface is called IOS 14 is said to have support for a handheld controller remote.

There are displays in both lenses and the user interface can be controlled by performing gestures on the frames or by using your hands in front of them? Augmented reality apps and games have been available since iOS 11. AR kit has demonstrated that Apple already has all the tech to do this today and these software releases may have been in preparation for the glasses. Since the launch of this new product category and platform is still a while away, the details could be subject to change that being said the information and leaks are very interesting as someone who’s happy to see consumer tech progress. I’d love to see how Apple goes about tackling the AR problem. Their thoughts of simplicity and attention to detail when it comes to user experience could go a long way in pushing augmented reality into the mainstream……………………………………..