All AR glasses seem to have to choose between two or more of the following problems: big and heavy, terrible battery life, require wired tether, have extremely limited AR functionality, and/or cost a crazy amount. And I don’t see all of these problems being overcome in one product in the near future (I would bet not in the next 8 years minimum).
Besides the obvious hurdle of size/weight/performance/battery/thermals/latency(all connected), there’s apparently another very basic hurdle of AR devices not talked about for some reason, and that is simply a clear view of the real world. So far it seems all AR devices (whether glasses or headsets) only give you a significantly degraded view of the world—some combination of darkened, low res, blurry, some weird polarization, or badly superimposed with reflections. To me, the whole idea of augmented reality, what makes it uniquely useful from virtual reality, is that it’s supposed to only add to your real world, not take away. Taking away (and replacing) is VR’s job. A mechanic using AR to help him build an engine will be impeded in his work if his view of the engine is darkened. Also if AR glasses are to be worn by everyone all the time, of course they need to be crystal clear! You don’t want even the smallest visual impairment all through your day. To have true AR, I would far rather add only crude AR functionality and see my world clearly, and let small improvements in AR functions come over time, than have a lot of AR functionality now at the expense of seeing my world clearly. At that point, I’m heading down a path toward the basic function of VR.
So that’s another crucial hurdle that needs to be worked out, but one that I think has slightly more hope. In the case of Vision Pro, it might be solvable very near future just by using really amazing cameras for pass through, which I’m sure has its cost and technical challenges, but it seems doable. For glasses, I have no idea what technology is needed, and I suppose that’s why I’m naively optimistic about it.
If Apple eventually does come out with AR glasses (meant to be worn all day every day), I‘m pretty sure they will adequately solve the clarity problem, and it won’t be overly big and heavy. If they release it in the near future, they will have had to make compromises in other areas though. The virtual elements probably won’t be opaque. It will be expensive of course. It will almost surely be more limited AR than VP—I don’t think you’ll have unlimited apps/windows, probably two or three max, and they’ll probably disappear if you look away from them too long. But they’ll be resizable like in the VP. But I think they’ll only be usable while stationary because Apple wouldn’t want people walking around with big windows blocking their vision. Apple may make a small window available on the move, maybe iPad Mini size or smaller. Maybe it won’t have occlusion and you’ll have to navigate some indirect way. It will probably require a wired tether at least partially. Maybe it will be a thing where you will have the option to run wireless AR on battery at moments throughout the day in short bursts, and if you want to do more than that then you can attach a Magsafe cable from the glasses to your iPhone, which will supply power as well as remove any latency. I have a Viture with a magnetically attached cable and I actually really don’t mind the wire. It’s kind of like back in the day having wired ear buds coming out of your pocket up to your ears—it wasn’t a big deal.
