Tim Cook on Augmented Reality: 'What It Will Be, What It Can Be, I Think It's Profound'

[citysnaps]

AR in a mobile phone will have such enormous potential ahead, across a wide variety of fields.

Especially when Apple's 3D depth-sensing camera makes its way to the back of the iPhone in the next year or so.

 

[elmaco]

Good to hear, AR will be a trillion dollar industry.

Who makes the first light weight device that you can wear all day without looking funny will transform the world the same way the personal computer and the smart phone did.

Hololens, Meta and Magic Leap are all doing it wrong. They started with the software and then they ended up with products that are too clumsy or expensive.

You need to start with the hardware.

What is the best hardware that you can use that is light weight enough so you can power and wear it for 24 hours, and not being too expensive for consumers. Once you know the hardware, you can write the software. It doesn't need to be fancy. Black and white without 3D could work for the initial version.

Just a heads up display that can provide you with subtitles, translation, teleprompter, SMS, notifications, time, temperature, heart beat, password/PIN, face recognition, view sharing, hands free photo shots etc.

Don't aim to high with advanced 3D: A simple overlay would be fine for a first generation product, but never compromise on battery or form factor.

 

[SashJ]

I am very critical of Cook, I've been anticipating his resignation for a few years now and I think he's more than a little clueless about what people will respond to, but in spite his endorsement of AR I think it is a worthwhile path for the company.

A lot of people here at MR keep looking for the next groundbreaking thing thats going to leave the market in the dust, and I think AR will be one of those things. Right now its being used for kitchen table battles and dinosaurs on playgrounds - basically the late 2010's version of the dancing baby we had almost 20 years ago, but think how far the internet and personal devices have come since then. Once we get past the "peanut butter jelly time" phase for AR, there will be some very cool uses for it. Games, wardrobe changes, home organization/DIY sound interesting but ultimately they are just gee whiz apps that will grow old quickly. When AR 2.0 comes around - specifically when we get portable, personal display technology that is easy to use and doesn't interfere with the person using it - AR will take off.

Those quarterly reports say the opposite. Cook is doing an amazing job and most definitely is not clueless. I believe Cook has a very good eye for the future.

 

[2013.1]

I would like to buy food in the supermarket with the help of an AR app that
darkens products with ingredients I don’t want to eat and
highlights the products with ingredients I do want to eat.

 

[citysnaps]

I would like to buy food in the supermarket with the help of an AR app that
darkens products with ingredients I don’t want to eat and
highlights the products with ingredients I do want to eat.

Sounds like an excellent idea for an app. I'd jump on it.

 

[lordofthereef]

I think the problem people are lacking is vision. Look at the example; a T-Rex on a basketball court. That isn't likely the sort of thing Tim considers to be "profound".

Some of the best real world augmented reality I have seen is on-site text translation. When i went to Japan it was helpful sometimes, but often it just wasn't great. I imagine this only getting better with time.

 

[GoldenJoe]

AR as it is now is next to useless. With vertical plane detection and MUCH more accurate location tracking, you could get somewhere with it, but as things are, it’s just a dumb toy.

 

[Stella]

Too early to tell which way AR is going to go. Needs to find its place.

 

[true god]

AR - what a profound waste of resources.

 

[nospamboz]

You would think that with a mock-up image, they'd at least get the dinosaur's shadow pointing in the right direction.

(In real time you'd have time-of-day, GPS, and compass, enough for a good shadow and shading.)

 

[kkamann]

I will know AR has made it when I can go to an American football game, put on non-goofy-looking glasses and see the yellow first down marker line (dynamically and accurately) wherever I am in the stadium.

 

[Will.O.Bie]

AR has it's own niche but not everyone will catch on with it and I have a feeling it will not go into the mainstream...sorry to burst your bubble Timmy. Ask the 3D movie industry how they're doing with their product.
[doublepost=1509678464][/doublepost]

You would think that with a mock-up image, they'd at least get the dinosaur's shadow pointing in the right direction.

Wow, didn't even notice that detail. Good eye my friend!

 

[ConfusedChris]

This seems to be a “the only limit is your imagination” product.
Or as Apple would say “we can’t wait to see what you guys will do with this.”
I’m not seeing a plethora of concrete examples of real-world uses of lasting appeal. Must be my limited imagination.
Of course. Animated feces. How silly of me.

 

[Larry-K]

It'll survive, they're using it to make Porn.

Satisfied Tim?

 

[citysnaps]

This seems to be a “the only limit is your imagination” product.
Or as Apple would say “we can’t wait to see what you guys will do with this.”
I’m not seeing a plethora of concrete examples of real-world uses of lasting appeal. Must be my limited imagination.
Of course. Animated feces. How silly of me.

I think the potential of AR has just been scratched. Imagination is important, but along with that is curiosity. They go hand in hand driving creativity. Apple is well-positioned and will go far with both an excellent platform and tools to tap into this immense potential.

 

[Macalicious2011]

AR is currently trash and was even trash 2-4 years ago. Most AR apps are just fun for 5min, then you forget about them.

 

[Applebot1]

AR is still in its infancy. With Apple pushing this technology it will become more evolved over time. I think ultimately Apple will expand more into ‘wearables’ and will see Apple Glasses which AR would have a more natural platform.

 

[actinide]

Good to hear, AR will be a trillion dollar industry.

Who makes the first light weight device that you can wear all day without looking funny will transform the world the same way the personal computer and the smart phone did.

Hololens, Meta and Magic Leap are all doing it wrong. They started with the software and then they ended up with products that are too clumsy or expensive.

You need to start with the hardware.

What is the best hardware that you can use that is light weight enough so you can power and wear it for 24 hours, and not being too expensive for consumers. Once you know the hardware, you can write the software. It doesn't need to fancy. Black and white without 3D could work for the initial version.

Just a heads up display that can provide you with subtitles, translation, teleprompter, SMS, notifications, time, temperature, heart beat, password/PIN, face recognition, view sharing, hands free photo shots etc.

Don't aim to high with advanced 3D: A simple overlay would be fine for a first generation product, but never compromise on battery or form factor.

If I were in your shoes, I'd start a company. You have figured it out.

 

[Regbial]

AR kills the already feeble batteries.. so.. no thanks Tim. Maybe focus on making better batteries or not making your devices a bit thicker without it being too noticable. I think all that space that could be added to hide the protruding camera might have a use.. just a thought.

 

[cableguy84]

Virtual reality and AI are the future

 

[throAU]

I just want wearable hardware to catch up. Hololens is a joke. We need a powerful device with a large field of view. I hope Apple engineers are hard at work on that.

hololens is a development prototype.

the eventual consumer gear will be smaller, better, etc. but hololens at least gives developers and early adopters some hardware to play with to test some concepts.

whether that hardware is from apple or microsoft.

 

[Keirasplace]

God, the people here would undoubtably have dismissed that new fangled invention, the motor car in 1900... Slow, breaks down, etc. Or even the net in the early 1970s, very slow, unreliable, why not just use the phone to communicate...

Apple by simplifying the programming and making a huge potential market available is providing the seed for that future genius invention of AR. That invention can't happen before Apple provided that opportunity. Like the Iphone then App store led to everything that followed.

Allow devs to experiment, test the market, test their skills and potentially make money will drive innovation.


There will be 99% idiotic apps in the next year, but 1% of them will be great and a few will be fantastic and the source of riches and inspiration for future use. That's how it has always been. This will lead to eventual explosion of the industry... I'd guess 2-3 years max as Android phones with the same capability also come on line in great numbers.

The fun thing is right now, nobody knows what will be the killer AR/VR app or function. If we knew, we'd build it and be rich. It will emerge organically in an unusual way as most of those techs do.

 

[Smartass]

AR is currently looking like the infamous 3D TVs couple of years ago... It's fun to look at, but it gets boring really quickly.

 

[Markoth]

Downloaded 2 AR games and stopped playing them after 48 hours.

Anyone else find it weird that Tim basically said all the current AR apps stink? "Not today, not the app you'll see on the App Store today, but what it will be..."

Because they do. AR's potential is quite obvious. Just as obvious is the fact that nothing today comes close to utilizing its full potential

 

[thisisnotmyname]

hololens is a development prototype.

the eventual consumer gear will be smaller, better, etc. but hololens at least gives developers and early adopters some hardware to play with to test some concepts.

whether that hardware is from apple or microsoft.

Don't get me wrong, the reason I was able to make that comment is that I have a couple for my developers to play with. My comment was a bit over the top but I meant that it is in no way ready for prime time and dev kit or not MS would really like us to deploy these things into the field. The incredibly narrow field of view (and inaccuracy of location tracking in our use cases) makes it useless for production. The problem is that the other solutions out there are in the same boat (although a competitor has a significantly larger field of view - about double - it's still not large enough to be useable and suffers from the same jitter and drift issues). In order for enterprise applications of AR to go wide we need better hardware to drive it. We'll get there but not today.

Now, what really is a joke, watch some of MS' promotional videos for Hololens, there are lightyears between the device's capabilities and what they imply in those videos =))