Instant huge display with access to everything on your iPhone overplayed onto the real world, accessible hands free.
If you can’t see the potential for that you have no vision whatsoever.
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DigiTimes: Apple Has Temporarily Stopped Developing AR/VR Headsets, Team Disbanded in May [Updated]
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Instant huge display with access to everything on your iPhone overplayed onto the real world, accessible hands free.
If you can’t see the potential for that you have no vision whatsoever.
It's kind of hard even imagining a utility for this. VR will always and forever be an entertainment sideshow, but AR? Apart from navigation and perhaps real time translation (not even sure I can imagine how disruptive that would be even as I had fun using WordLens back in the day), what are we left with? Lego+ and MineCraft?
You need a LOT of killer applications to entice people to put on a set of glasses on their head every day. And I say that as a person who already wears glasses every day. Maybe if they could radically enhance our vision or something?
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That said I am glad they are putting serious R&D into it, if only for all the incidental innovation it brings forward into machine learning, photography and even driving the need for computing power forward.
You need a LOT of killer applications to entice people to put on a set of glasses on their head every day. And I say that as a person who already wears glasses every day. Maybe if they could radically enhance our vision or something?
'That said I am glad they are putting serious R&D into it, if only for all the incidental innovation it brings forward into machine learning, photography and even driving the need for computing power forward.
I understand the possibilities / fun / positive changes to life, but, like a call phone, I expect that many people won't want to use it all the time, and hide it.
Imaging such AR glasses in a car, or if you want to navigate through an unfamiliar busy city on a bike, identifying a jet overhead using Plane-finder AR, or simply looking for a date.... great, of course!
I don't expect that people wear them all day long. Imaging a party where everyone is showing off their AR glasses....
If they look anything like that awful mock-up, good riddance. That'd be like wearing cinema glasses for every day use!
I would love AR enhanced glasses with:
Of course the tech isn't there yet to do all of this with high fidelity, yet, but give it time
- Facial rec based on photo data/contacts on your device, pops up persons name and any important data, e.g. This is Bob, bobs birthday is today, Bob is due you money, or Bob is your nemesis...
- Song plays and the name and artist details pop up
- you look at a sign which is in a foreign language and it seamlessly translates
- you have an app enabled that makes everyone appear naked
- directions, messages, notifications pop up when received
- you can watch a movie on a virtual 80" display floating in the distance or pinned to a wall (like hololens)
- connect a portable bluetooth keyboard and work on virtual desktop display
- At work duding the big game? no probs, watch it on your private virtual display
Of course the tech isn't there yet to do all of this with high fidelity, yet, but give it time
Update: As noted by Jeremy Horwitz, more details are now available on DigiTimes Taiwan, which reports that Apple has "temporarily stopped developing AR/VR headsets." The report claims the team working on them was disbanded in May and reassigned to other product developments. Original story below.
Apple has reportedly "terminated" development of its widely rumored augmented reality glasses project, according to DigiTimes.
MacRumors concept of Apple Glasses
Multiple sources have claimed that Apple plans to release augmented reality glasses as early as 2020, including well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, and CNET, so the DigiTimes report if accurate reflects a cancellation of a major hardware project on Apple's roadmap.
DigiTimes preliminary headline
DigiTimes has a mixed track record in relation to reporting on Apple's future plans, but it appears to be citing another report in this case. However, the DigiTimes story is currently paywalled behind its "Before Going to Press" section, so we'll have to wait for specific details to be made public.
Kuo said Apple's glasses would be marketed as an iPhone accessory and primarily take a display role while wirelessly offloading computing, networking, and positioning to the iPhone. He believed mass production could begin at some point between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2020.
In November 2017, Gurman reported that Apple's headset would run a custom iOS-based operating system dubbed "rOS" for "reality operating system." At the time, he said Apple had not finalized how users would control the headset, but possibilities included touchscreens, Siri voice activation, and head gestures.
In April 2018, CNET said Apple was developing an augmented reality headset that features an 8K display for each eye and would be untethered from either a computer or a smartphone. The report claimed the headset would instead connect to a "dedicated box" using high-speed short-range 60GHz WiGig technology.
Gurman and other sources previously reported that Apple was working on several different wearable augmented reality prototypes under the umbrella code name of "T288," so it is still possible that a product of some kind could be released.
Apple has been exploring virtual reality and augmented reality technologies for more than 10 years based on patent filings. The company is also rumored to have a secretive research unit comprising hundreds of employees working on AR and VR, exploring ways the technologies could be used in future Apple products.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has talked up the prospect of augmented reality several times, saying he views AR as "profound" because the technology "amplifies human performance instead of isolating humans."
Article Link: DigiTimes: Apple Has Temporarily Stopped Developing AR/VR Headsets, Team Disbanded in May [Updated]
I heard Apple were developing 40k displays for each eye and a brain implant but the team was disbanded.
Easy for these analysts to come up with Apple vapourware rumours....
You need a LOT of killer applications to entice people to put on a set of glasses on their head every day. And I say that as a person who already wears glasses every day. Maybe if they could radically enhance our vision or something?
Exactly. Things like night time vision, zooming in on something or useful overlays like a heatmap, hazard warning (e.g. fast approaching object, slippery ground,... ), rear mirror, markers, grids and guides for drawing & construction,... are obvious use cases for ar-glasses.
I used to be more sceptical about the willingness of people for looking like a uniformed-cyborg before everyone and his aunt, including me, started wearing airpods. You‘d have to wear them in combination with the glasses, though, to experience a more holistic AR...
Asides from the practical (navigation, information about real world objects, art, facial recognition, real time translation ...) and dystopic (dating, advertising, facial recognition, photorealistic altering of the real world,...) applications, there are probably millions of use cases of AR in professional environments.
I think the potential is huge and society will probably sooner or later arrive at a stage were the borders between „virtual“ and physical reality will merge. And it won’t happen viewed through a phone held before your face.
But AR-glasses are a hard sell. Even VR - which is great for entertainment - hasn‘t reached the masses yet, partly because you have to try it to experience it. And most places where you could run into it today, like in airport malls or exhibitions, offer pretty bad experiences without interaction or sound - if they even work. It‘s like trying to sell a car by showing people a wheel.
Either way, I don‘t think the necessary technology is there yet, to make AR-glasses a mainstream consumer product. Screens and cameras/environmental scanners are neither cheap, good nor small enough, CPUs and GPUs still too slow, and all of that draws too much power for today‘s batteries to be integrated into a narrow frame. It‘s probably enough for a device like magic leap getting a foothold in professional niches, but not consumer ready.
Apple will do what they always do: Let others produce the clunky first-adopters devices, and when there has been some trial and error and some critical threshold has been reached, they‘ll use their experience, lessons learned in this field, vast resources and economics of scale to produce an innovative, peerless device that up-ends the market (still it will be a limited and underpowered first gen product for double the price than competing offers
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Apple stopped being a product company.
It has gotten so bad that Sir Jony Ive won't even associate his name with it anymore.
Sir Jony quit the world's most desirable design job because he is willing to call Applea client but not an employer.
Let that sink in.
#FIRETHEACCOUNTANT #HIREAVISIONARY
It has gotten so bad that Sir Jony Ive won't even associate his name with it anymore.
Sir Jony quit the world's most desirable design job because he is willing to call Applea client but not an employer.
Let that sink in.
#FIRETHEACCOUNTANT #HIREAVISIONARY
That's not at all what Apple does.Apple will do what they always do: Let others produce the clunky first-adopters devices, and when there has been some trial and error and some critical threshold has been reached, they‘ll use their experience, lessons learned in this field, vast resources and economics of scale to produce an innovative, peerless device that up-ends the market (still it will be a limited and underpowered first gen product for double the price than competing offers
Apple does not simply make copies of other products but make them better.
Apple starts and ends with the USER. Apple begins with a blank slate and imagines what the user needs, then gives exactly that to them and nothing more.
Any similarity to other products is entirely coincidental. iPod was not just a sleeker Creative Jukebox. You are confusing Apple with Sony.
NO, WAIT, I just woke up from a coma and thought it was still 2007. What year is it, and what visionless accountant has been running Apple?
Good lord, in 2019 copying other innovation but trying to give a signature sleek look and feel to it IS what Apple does. '
(Says here they are even trying to make TV shows and their money comes from reselling crappy third-party headphones? What?)
Forget everything. You are right.
Tim Cook's Apple definitely WILL wait for someone else to invent the category, then try to copy them in a thoroughly boring way that gets slightly better margins.
#FIRETHEACCOUNTANT
Huh? Microsoft is probably the only OS I know that can still work on older hardware heck they also keep them up to date if it was Apple a 3-4 year iMac would be discontinued already and no support for new OS. iPhone X I got it 3 months before it was discontinued out of no where and it was not even out for a year in the markets which was a first time to see any for of Apple hardware to discontinued so soon.
I still use Microsoft because Microsoft Office does not even compare to Apples iWork apps they suck deeply and as a accountant almost all Accounting software for bookkeeping or Tax programs are mostly for Microsoft.
Microsoft is still strong especially with gaming Xbox Apple was strong when the first iPod was out and iPhone than Tim Cook took over everything shifted especially hardware innovation which is where Apple was strong in. Just look how many things he scrapped one of biggest was the Airport devices instead of improvement he killed it and those who worked for that department was moved to driverless car development.
Now they are quitting in make AR and VR instead they still keep wasting on driverless cars does Tim Cook really think people want it? I could just see the cost of that car, the cost of a Apple Care for the car and forget the Mileage the tech parts will depreciate faster than the car itself.
Well there's the $999 monitor stand, and $999 for etched glass option for the monitor
Wrong. Digitimes IS NOT a reliable source. They have been wrong too many times for anyone to believe them. Fake news.
1) Miniaturisation is not there. 2) Battery is not there, 3) AR software is not there, 4) the demand is not there. 5) Why be innovative when you can continue to sell essentially the same iPhone for a decade?
The simple truth is this: Apple engineers know what is and is not possible with the current hardware technology, so there's no point in trying to second guess them.
Microsoft is working on AR hardware, and their biggest contractor is the military. That gives them a ton of options that you won't find in the consumer market. For example, it wouldn't be a big deal to require soldiers to carry around a mini PC system with battery that attaches to a helmet with a built-in AR visor. Good luck trying to sell that AR system to the general consumer market.
I doubt Apple has given up completely on AR, just like I doubt they have given up completely on self-driving cars. Rather, I think they are investing the money into the R&D for these areas, and they will act on them when the right opportunity presents itself.
Microsoft is working on AR hardware, and their biggest contractor is the military. That gives them a ton of options that you won't find in the consumer market. For example, it wouldn't be a big deal to require soldiers to carry around a mini PC system with battery that attaches to a helmet with a built-in AR visor. Good luck trying to sell that AR system to the general consumer market.
I doubt Apple has given up completely on AR, just like I doubt they have given up completely on self-driving cars. Rather, I think they are investing the money into the R&D for these areas, and they will act on them when the right opportunity presents itself.
While I get your point in general, the operative word you're missing is "bulky". People already carry a mini pc with them everywhere, it's called a smartphone, but to get AR to work well right for all-day type usage scenario now you probably need a relatively chunky battery somewhere too.
Google glass, being a HUD, potential solved some problems, and AR glasses has potential to solve many problems.
But it’s likely the tech just wasn’t able to make it look fashionable. I imagine the other huge issue was the camera on the glasses being pointed toward people at all times.
Exactly. This is good news. Apple should also stop wasting time, resources, and money on an Apple Car.