Will Apple Ever Make AR Smart Glasses?

[ipedro]

Apple AR glasses are coming. Count on it. Image processing will be handled in one's iPhone.

I'd go a step further. The glasses will be a completely wearable solution. Apple Watch's SIP is now where the iPhone was when the Watch needed it for processing and will soon be able to play that same role, but for glasses. Apple Watch for processing, Vision XR for a mixed reality overlay and optional AirPods for sound.

Apple has a patent on retinal projectors — projecting images directly into your eyes. Not needing a display for passthrough solves the weight, bulk and energy efficiency problems. Offloading processing to the Watch further lightens the weight, bulk and energy efficiency. The frames will just need to house the internal and external cameras for eye tracking and Apple Intelligence while an ultra wide band chip, which Apple has been perfecting in iPhones, will maintain a fast and steady wireless tether.

Meta's glasses will take 3 years at best to go from a media demo to being commercially viable. By then, Apple will have released another two Vision Pros and a Vision (entry level tier), producing a polished visionOS experience and an established app ecosystem. Then we'll see things really getting started with AR.

 

[Icehawk]

Totally a market for premium frames that give you AR, but it's going to be such a price point item. Anyone who wears glasses know they're gonna get dropped, sat on, etc. And there's only so much you can do to frames to make them sturdier. But people drop a lot on fancy sunglasses, so if you can keep the weight down, let's go.

 

[stealthytolkien]

Let it go already.

 

[Royksöpp]

Apple's mixed reality Vision Pro headset is struggling to take off, both due to the super high price and the heavy design that limits the amount of time it can be worn for most people.

What is the true purpose of the Apple Vision Pro if it remains prohibitively expensive and lacks the comfort needed for everyday use?

 

[citysnaps]

AR isn't the future, it's a silly detour. There's no interesting or compelling use case.

In the past I've listed two or three dozen so-called use cases for AR here. Many which exist today. For both personal and commercial applications. It's certainly the future for Apple.

 

[julesme]

I'm posting just to say kudos to Juli as this is a wonderfully written and thorough analysis of the current state and likely future of augmented reality headgear.

Personally, I see VR/AR tech going mainstream via a lightweight glasses form factor (as in traditional eyeglasses / sunglasses that can perform with the power of a smartphone or smartwatch while offering all-day battery life). Until then, it will remain a niche category.

 

[citysnaps]

I'd go a step further. The glasses will be a completely wearable solution. Apple Watch's SIP is now where the iPhone was when the Watch needed it for processing and will soon be able to play that same role, but for glasses. Apple Watch for processing, Vision XR for a mixed reality overlay and optional AirPods for sound.

Apple has a patent on retinal projectors — projecting images directly into your eyes. Not needing a display for passthrough solves the weight, bulk and energy efficiency problems. Offloading processing to the Watch further lightens the weight, bulk and energy efficiency. The frames will just need to house the internal and external cameras for eye tracking and Apple Intelligence while an ultra wide band chip, which Apple has been perfecting in iPhones, will maintain a fast and steady wireless tether.

Meta's glasses will take 3 years at best to go from a media demo to being commercially viable. By then, Apple will have released another two Vision Pros and a Vision (entry level tier), producing a polished visionOS experience and an established app ecosystem. Then we'll see things really getting started with AR.

I think using Apple's Watch might be a stretch today, considering the small size and energy capacity of the Watch battery. Maybe in the future.

The nice thing about recent iPhones, in addition to having a much larger battery, is having Apple's U2 UWB (ultra wideband) chip giving it the ability to provide robust high bandwidth low power communications for multiple video streams between iPhone and glasses (in both directions as glasses would also have a U2 chip) as well as providing useful spatial location/orientation.

 

[twolf2919]

I don’t buy the notion that AR glasses can’t be done well yet. Google Glass existed over a decade ago and there has been a lot of tech improvement since then. The problem
is Apple’s insistence on making their headsets/glasses standalone devices, thus requiring massive CPU, RAM, battery on-device. Apple could easily develop light, good looking AR glasses if it let the iPhone do all the heavy lifting! The glasses’ only job would be to display the reality overlay sent to it wirelessly from the iPhone and to send sensor data wirelessly to the iPhone.

 

[GrayFlannel]

All along AVP has been more like a Newton-type engineering investment…

Nonsense. In that case, what was the car after $10 bil?

 

[NT1440]

Nonsense. In that case, what was the car after $10 bil?

A metric **** ton of useful patents for things that could be used in a car, or elsewhere.

Back when places like Bell Labs was around we called these types of efforts Basic Research. It spawned most of the modern world. Today most companies do absolutely none of these or immediately scale it back when short sighted Boards don’t see a direct line to a product 🤷‍♂️

 

[Victor Mortimer]

In the past I've listed two or three dozen so-called use cases for AR here. Many which exist today. For both personal and commercial applications. It's certainly the future for Apple.

Nope. It's the joke case, not the use case.

It's not the future for anybody. It's a movie trope that will never be a mainstream thing.

 

[AstroRob]

I think that the many messages here suggesting that Apple should "just" make AR glasses may be missing the big takeaway from Meta's Connect rollout. The engineering for a device that needs to provide overlay images into your eyes in the form of lightweight eyeglasses just is not on the table now, or likely even in 5 years... at least not at any price point that makes any kind of commercial sense.

It's nice that we have a $10K number to associate with Meta Orion as it at least shows us just how damn hard this tech is, and how long it's going to be before it hits any kind of affordable consumer price point.

For the foreseeable future, AR is going to be VR with passthrough, and that will be fine for key applications and technologists. But this isn't something where Cook and his team can just snap their fingers and make magic happen. It's the silly narrative that silicon valley sells us, that any crazy idea just needs a "visionary, disruptive" startup CEO to chase away all the doubters to make it happen. But it's just not how actual engineering works.

 

[citysnaps]

Nope. It's the joke case, not the use case.

It's not the future for anybody. It's a movie trope that will never be a mainstream thing.

From what you wrote above, it looks like you really don't know what AR is about, how it has been used in the past over many years and over a wide range of applications, and what the potential is with Apple bringing AR to its customers.

 

[ChrisH3677]

Absolutely agree Vision Pro is just a stepping stone. It's such a intelligent and important development by Apple. It's never going to make them money, but the expertise in hardware and software development in VR and AR they gain is priceless.

One day - maybe 10 to 20 years - AR/VR "headsets" will look like a pair of stylish glasses. They will replace smartphones and laptops, and it will be our main form of personal technology.

Apple is building essential foundations with the Vision Pro that, along with Meta, puts them ahead of the pack.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Companies making AR Smart Glasses are asking themselves one question.

In a non-glasses scenario, do we have the ability/performance required to bring visual data in from the cameras to the screens such that motion sickness is minimized. Like in the 11-12 ms range? No?

Then we’ll do glasses. MUCH easier target to hit.

 

[GrayFlannel]

A metric **** ton of useful patents for things that could be used in a car, or elsewhere.

Back when places like Bell Labs was around we called these types of efforts Basic Research.

1. Bell Labs was a research laboratory.
2. Apple was producing a product.

Hard to see it any other way than a failure. It was scrapped, rebooted, and reimagined. It burned through $10bil ultimately reverting back to being merely an EV with driving assistance no different than Tesla. It would cost in excess of $100k with thin margins in a market already dominated by Tesla. And to top it off it was to have no steering wheel and to be Siri controlled. Think about that: Siri controlled.

 

[Le0M]

I think a lot depends on the type of work you do, and/or what AVP apps are available for it.
For instance, if you need many windows opened at the same time, I think there is nothing like AVP in terms of efficiency - given you have a keyboard.

 

[Le0M]

Didn't Tim Cook years ago used to say that he finds AR more interesting than VR? And then we end up getting Apple Vision Pro.

Tim Cook: Not Too Long From Now, You'll Wonder How You Led Your Life Without AR

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www.macrumors.com

AVP is in fact AR, cuz it manages to show you the surroundings.
What I think you wanna say is that AVP does not have see-through displays.

 

[Le0M]

Apple AR glasses are coming. Count on it. Image processing will be handled in one's iPhone.

Not sure.
For starter, the iPhone battery is way smaller than the one for AVP.
Secondly, the computing power on the iPhone is not enough. AVP has an M2 AND a dedicated extra processor. Not only, it has two cooling fans.

Will the iPhone be capable of that power and battery life? Sure. But many years from now.

 

[Le0M]

All of this shows how amazing google glass was in its time.

Though the tech isn't there yet, the reason I like the idea of meta's glasses, (or even my apple watch), is it helps me become less addicted to the phone screen, and leave it behind more often.

But that's gonna be an even harder addiction, cuz it's gonna be even less "perceptible".

 

[SoldOnApple]

Bit if a strange question, will they "ever" make them? They 100% will one day. Graphics chips and high quality tiny displays and cameras are getting smaller, better, and cheaper every day. Eventually if Apple doesn't make such glasses, they will bleed most of their customers to other ecosystems that do have these glasses. The glasses will one day be so cheap to make that even people who hate them will carry them on them, so they can slip them on when needed for work or to interact with a sign or answer an AR call, etc.

 

[goborgh]

As a big movie fan, there's nothing better than watching movies in a big-screen theater. But lately, I enjoy less and less going to the movie theater, on top of that, movies are super long now and you have to break to go to the bathroom, so I found my perfect use case and I'm very happy. Unfortunately, the app scene when it comes to video player apps is not mature yet and it has a lot of problems.
Also, I own a Quest 3 and I use it mostly for Supernatural. I thought Apple had a huge opportunity with their Fitness app to do something similar, or even better, and it pains me to see how much they wasted that.

 

[TheFluffyDuck]

The Apple watch was pretty garbage until about the third generation. It was slow, and it was way faster sometimes to just get up and look at your phone in another room than wait for it to load an app. Fantastic now, but those first couple of generations were undercooked.

I feel any glasses will be the same, running into the same issue as the OG Apple watch. How do you make something powerful enough to fit in the real estate of glasses which are already thin and light?

To compensate Apple will just market it as a fashion accessory. Like they did the OG Apple watch. This was a failure of an approach because the Apple watch is clearly a sports wearable. But a fashion angle could work for Glasses.

Although there is no way I will buy one for the first few generations. It will be underpowered and undercooked.

 

[Kevin2055]

fine, AVP is dead

 

[sunny5]

Both VR and AR are still in question in terms of usability unless it's specialized such as military and professional uses. For consumers, both techs are kinda interesting but not really that usable. That's why Vision Pro is suffering failures and Meta stopped developing a high-end version.

But even for cheap VR/AR devices, they are still failure as Meta proven themselves since consumers are NOT really using their devices a lot. Lack of contents is a great example and yet it's much harder to develop apps compared to regular apps due to how it works.

Since AR requires interacting with real world, it's already ironic and contradicting its uses. First of all, it's too dangerous to use AR devices while moving. Pass through based AR devices are highly recommended to avoid while moving due to the limitation of the camera sensor compared to human eyes. See through based AR devices or AR glasses might be better but still, you will be distracted by AR contents which makes you vulnerable and the FOV for see through is worse than pass through. What if you just sit and use? Well, then what's the point of AR? That's more sound like VR to me and Vision Pro is actually more VR than AR anyway.

At this point, why do we even need AR devices when it's too dangerous to use it while moving? iPhone or smartphones with AR features are quite useful compared to wearing AR devices. So far, nobody ever proven that wearable AR and VR are really the future for consumer markets. Literally none.