It's 2006 and nobody has invented Uber yet. The iPhone will be revealed by Steve Jobs next year and the match for developers' imaginations has yet to be struck.
We're pre-XR days still.
Once Extended Reality glasses are out there, the killer app ideas will flow and we'll wonder how nobody thought about them before, like Uber which is so obvious today but just wasn't possible without an always connected pocketable computer and the App Store ecosystem.
I can imagine multiple applications for extended reality glasses. Some are already obvious in light of 15 years of iPhone use: Maps with superimposed directions and information about businesses, seamlessly available at a glance without having to actively pull out your phone to orient yourself. An Uber app that highlights your car as it approaches; no squinting at license plates. An active Shazam picking up what song is playing as you walk around the mall, unobtrusively highlighting the soundtrack of your life.
Others are harder to imagine without using the glasses day to day but can be inferred: a meal planner that can identify foods at the market and estimate their nutritional values while you shop. Again, useful information seamlessly available without sucking you into your phone. Another: A Tinder app that can identify other Tinder users in the bar/park/library with their profile info hovering over them. You silently express your interest in that girl over there. She had noticed you earlier and had liked you. You matched. You go over and introduce yourself. A LinkedIn XR that surfaces info about people at a conference. Oh that's the founder of that startup that makes that widget I need for my own startup idea. Let me go talk to him.
Done right, without overwhelming the user with information, these glasses have the potential to fix the one thing Steve Jobs regretted about the iPhone: how it sucked people into their own world, staring into glowing screens in their hand as they sit, walk... and even drive. The Watch has started to fix this, allowing you to remain connected and notifying you of things important to you without pulling you into your phone. With the right user interface, XR Glasses have the potential to superimpose useful information while allowing you to look out into the real world. Others like Meta and Google will no doubt take the overwhelming the user with data approach but ultimately, customers will feel the difference.
Ultimately, I suspect that a lot of the doubtful comments in these threads about the XR glasses are going to look like the infamous iPod thread which contrary to the unimaginative complainers' doom predictions ended up revolutionizing the company (and the music industry) and was the precursor to the iPhone that changed the world.
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