Will Apple Ever Make AR Smart Glasses?

[Hank001]

And Apple Watch had celebrities, wear it, and it was featured in fashion magazines,so it became acceptable as an accessory. Google glass for example was only worn by nerds and it became the opposite of acceptable. That was the whole fashion strategy, not to make the Apple Watch a fashionable item, but to make it acceptable.

Excellent point. And Apple had no hesitation to pay out Angela's previous employer the 70 mil just to get her to promote the watch. Well, that, and redesign their stores.

 

[knowsuchpeace]

But why would I charge, carry and wear glasses for these 3 basic uses that I already have on my phone?

I simply do not understand the practical use of AR in a pair of glasses that have, at best, 3-4 hours of battery, and which I'd need to wear all the time. And if I only carry them and put them on occasionally, what' the point when I already have my phone?

I own and love my AVP. But I use it for 3-4 hours at a time on very specific work projects. I never use the AR aspect of the AVP; there's simply no point to overlay onto the real world.

So many of you keep saying "give me small glasses" but for what? Nobody has been able to describe a compelling, day-long use case for AR. Think of how often you use your phone to take a picture, or provide directions. For me, that's maybe an every other day use case. Why would I wear glasses every day all day for such small use cases? Especially when it provides very little advantage over the phone I already carry.

AVP, on the other hand, gives me use cases that I can't do anywhere else.

i agree. AR glasses directly compete with smart watches and with smart phones, and thats a hard fight to win. They might win out in the distant future, but thats an uphill battle and the tech is nowhere near ready for that.

 

[nylonsteel]

would have been cool if aapl did the rayban/meta collabaration before meta came out with it

 

[Timo_Existencia]

He would have focused on AR glasses that look stylish, sleek and that would want to be worn by the general population. The first editions would probably just have basic functions like mirroring notifications from your iPhone and getting Apple Maps directions, but over the years tech would keep improving and they would become a standard piece of tech that everyone uses.

I simply do not understand the appeal of glasses you'd wear all day to simply give you notifications and driving or walking directions, or take photos that would be subpar to what your phone already gives you.

Because I own the AVP and have access to AR functions, I already know that AR provides me almost zero use. Meanwhile, the VR function is extremely useful to me.

The "give me AR glasses" crowd, in my view, has simply not really thought this out. Why would you charge and carry a pair of glasses for the minimal uses that you'd have which is already sufficiently provided by your phone?

 

[ipedro]

Big difference between the watch, Macintosh and Vision Pro. Watches are fashionable, can be worn all the time, and are unobtrusive. The Macintosh was a computer and isn't even the same league, plus anyone in the household can use it.

The AVP, is isolating, for a single user only and can't be worn out and about without looking like a tool. I'm currently sitting in an airport terminal waiting on my flight, and have been in multiple since it was released. I've seen zero.

The one person I knew with a Vision Pro sold his after not touching it for two months.

Huh? Just because you've not seen one in the wild is somehow evidence that there must not be any in use? I was the only person I knew who had an Apple Watch for the first 2 years but I didn't assume that I was the only one using one or that it was going to fail. I just knew it was still niche and but that it had potential.

There was no routine use for a Macintosh in the home aside from a word processor that got infrequently used after the initial wonder. Very few people had personal computers at home and the world wasn't built around them. Everyone were happy to go about their lives not thinking about computers. Then the world caught up and they became impossible to ignore. Paradigm shifts do not happen overnight and it seems that a lot of people have trouble thinking outside of their current paradigm.

Anecdotes aren't evidence and looking at a new device category in its current state as if it will always be this way, is myopic. There's a world outside of your perspective view and a future outside of your present reality.

 

[Weaselboy]

On a side note, it would be great if in the Top Rated Comments section the commented article (which opens the forum thread) could be truncated at some point. To be honest, I would disable the ability to quote the original post altogether—I'm not sure why some people quote the entire thing when it's abundantly clear which article they are commenting on. Cheers!

When I see those, I edit the quote out for the reason you mentioned. If you run across this, please report the post and mods will do the edit.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

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.

You’re right. I mean, show me a wireless system where images can be transmitted to, processed, then sent back to be displayed on high resolution screens in 11 ms or less. Heck, show me a WIRED system that can do that currently! Like when Apple went 64 bit only (first successful 64 bit only CPU), they have raised the bar beyond where anyone expected it to be in 2024.

Apple currently has what no one can touch, a portable, battery powered system that runs relatively cool and that puts all the technology close to the cameras and the screen such that it can mimic see through AR AND completely close off the world and do VR. Their main focus will be to make it smaller, more powerful, and more efficient (a future reality processor and support chips built into a future Apple Silicon variant making the motherboard cooler, smaller, more compact), NOT to separate the critical parts away from each other.

 

[gjpinc]

I have a pair of the Meta glasses and I really like them. I hope Apple would move in such a direction. There are definite improvements that could be made in the style and functionality. For as crappy as the camera is in comparison to one on a phone, the pictures aren't all that bad, even low light photos are decent. The ability to listen to music or use the AI to identify things or translate text works pretty well. I am sure Apple could take the idea to the next level. I paid $300 and am pretty impressed and happy would would pay $500 with the right feature set and a camera that takes landscape pictures. I don't really need augmented reality but if they do it, they could mimic the old Google Glass idea.

 

[Lynxpoint]

I simply do not understand the appeal of glasses you'd wear all day to simply give you notifications and driving or walking directions, or take photos that would be subpar to what your phone already gives you.

Because I own the AVP and have access to AR functions, I already know that AR provides me almost zero use. Meanwhile, the VR function is extremely useful to me.

The "give me AR glasses" crowd, in my view, has simply not really thought this out. Why would you charge and carry a pair of glasses for the minimal uses that you'd have which is already sufficiently provided by your phone?

My only desire for AR glasses has been to provide training data such as pace, power, HR, etc in real time. I currently have it spoken to me, but this has limitations (how often do you want to be told x,y, or z?).

While such glasses exist, I have not made the jump yet, because of one serious reason - sweat. I have enough issues with sunglasses getting sweaty (and I don't even sweat profusely), that I can't imagine trying to read the HUD while running. On a bike though, there it would work fine, but glancing down at an Edge is easier than looking at a watch. Are HUD glasses really a solution at all for sports training?

So I agree with you that perhaps this tech sounds enticing, but is not fully thought out.

 

[spaxxedout]

You can routinely find them on eBay selling for 50% of original cost.

My buddy finally sold his a couple weeks ago after having not powered it on for two months, and was pretty disappointed with the selling price.

I get that a) it’s not been well received and b) it’s advantageous for media outlets to echo that sentiment in order to drive engagement, but to say that most people people are dissatisfied is a bit declarative. The world “many” would be more appropriate.

 

[chris1958]

Vision Pro is rather a Newton than an iPod.

 

[ILoveCalvinCool]

Tech geeks and companies dominated by tech geeks (Google, Apple) often fail to appreciate that ideas which thrill tech geeks (spending time in VR spaces, for example) do not necessarily appeal to the general public. Most people don't want to be isolated in VR spaces when they are in public (not to mention other factors which often seem irrelevant to tech geeks, like physical comfort and self-consciousness). Non-introverts don't take to social isolation because they draw energy from human interaction. A successful VR/AR solution of the future will have to account for this somehow. I don't know how, but I do know I don't want to cut myself off from the world around me when I'm around other people.

 

[840quadra]

Big fan of Apple, use and collect many devices both new and old. That said, there are a few products I have 0% interest in owning / trying due to size, design, and respective limitations.

- Airpods Max
- iMac
- Macbook Air
- Vision Pro

My preferences are personal, but I can't see myself wearing a VR headset so large, especially with the somewhat large wired external module. Fully a non-starter for me.

 

[Cloudyskies22]

Yeah I tend to agree and was on team "let the iPhone do the processing" before the Vision Pro came out, along with half of the people working on it according to rumors.

The communication tech may be there, but the power tech isn't. How long is that iPhone and headset going to last doing that kind of work without a power source?

The iPhone would last long. We are talking about a device that isn’t even in the same universe as a Vision Pro in terms of power consumption.

A Vision Pro uses astronomical power because it is driving 2 displays with ungodly pixel counts and brightness. It is driving insane computation to do the full-instantaneous real-time camera view.

Smart Glasses use a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the power. The displays are either transparent and small, or they are projections onto the lenses from the arms. It is doing no computation aside from taking minimal camera data and sending it off to the iPhone. And the iPhone isn’t doing tons of hard witk either because again this is mostly a passive experience and not a drawn reality which is somewhat how the Vision Pro has to work.

See the Vision Pro has only displays. You can’t see through them passively so every millisecond it’s on it is doing ungodly compute and having the cameras run and translating it all back with very very very high frame rate.

 

[MichaelAdam]

It’s not a question of will they but when they … no one cares about the Vision Pro or for a cheaper version … we want smart glasses linked to our phone iPad or Mac.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

I get that a) it’s not been well received and b) it’s advantageous for media outlets to echo that sentiment in order to drive engagement, but to say that most people people are dissatisfied is a bit declarative. The world “many” would be more appropriate.

I never said any such thing, and I don't know who you meant to quote.

All I said was the my buddy couldn't find a use for his and sold it, for well bellow what he bought it for. They don't seem to be holding their value like other apple hardware.

 

[Cloudyskies22]

Describe for me the use case that would justify wearing AR glasses. Or carrying them with you wherever you go? I get that many people fantasize about such glasses, but I simply can't understand the appeal. Directions? What advantage do AR glasses give over a phone in your pocket?

I own the AVP, and I love it. But my use for it is not mobile. I never use the AR aspect of the AVP. I simply don't understand what the fantasy for glasses is, other than it is a smaller form factor.

You’re an electrical engineer and AGI exists. You are wearing AR Glasses that send the camera data to your phone and the phone sends the data to the AGI cloud and you get it back almost instantly. The phone sends the response to your glasses as the AGI literally draws into your vision where it thinks you should set the 480V 3-phase panel, and how it think you should wire for maximum efficiency. It talks to you as well, through AirPods or tiny speakers on the arms right by your ears.

It increases your productivity massively as it paints the picture of what to optimally do in any given situation on your vision.

This goes for any job in existence and anything else one might imagine.

You’re playing a video game with the glasses on and the AGI is watching as you play. You ask, wait what do I do now? And of course it knows because it’s far more intelligent than you. It could give you hints or just bluntly tell you.

You’re playing Call of Duty and it watches and analyzes your play over hundreds of games and determines your strategy and tells you what might be useful to work on.

I mean the possibilities are so beyond my imagination in 1 instance trying to come up with, it’s insane.

At the end of the day what you need to remember is this:

It’s not about the glasses. It’s about AGI in harmony with the glasses. It’s your vision being sent to a virtual god-like intelligence that then talks to you and augments your vision in the displays on the lens in realtime.

It’s so far beyond the smartphone it’s not even funny. See you can’t just hold a smartphone camera up constantly. You need these passive glasses so it’s always seeing in a comfortable manor and you have both hands free to do anything.

 

[Cloudyskies22]

I simply do not understand the appeal of glasses you'd wear all day to simply give you notifications and driving or walking directions, or take photos that would be subpar to what your phone already gives you.

Because I own the AVP and have access to AR functions, I already know that AR provides me almost zero use. Meanwhile, the VR function is extremely useful to me.

The "give me AR glasses" crowd, in my view, has simply not really thought this out. Why would you charge and carry a pair of glasses for the minimal uses that you'd have which is already sufficiently provided by your phone?

Read my latest comment and you’ll learn how wrong you are.

VR is near-useless

AR is radically transformative

 

[subjonas]

I would love to buy a VP because I have two extremely valuable potential use cases for it. However, the VP can’t currently execute them due to software, not hardware.
One use case is using Virtual Mac display for reference while drawing on a pen tablet display. But using Virtual Mac display apparently turns off all physical displays connected to the Mac, making it impossible to draw.
The other is using VR animation software like Quill for Oculus. As far as I know nothing like that exists for VP.
I don’t know if either of these will change soon if ever—my needs might be too niche.

 

[pianophile]

It'll be a while, but I have my heart set on dynamic focal glasses. Whatever else they have will be a bonus, but leaving behind static, hard lenses forever will be a little slice of heaven...

 

[blocsapp]

Describe for me the use case that would justify wearing AR glasses. Or carrying them with you wherever you go? I get that many people fantasize about such glasses, but I simply can't understand the appeal. Directions? What advantage do AR glasses give over a phone in your pocket?

I own the AVP, and I love it. But my use for it is not mobile. I never use the AR aspect of the AVP. I simply don't understand what the fantasy for glasses is, other than it is a smaller form factor.

Simple, everything you do with a smart phone.

 

[FattiesGoneWild]

No, the interest was NOT high in February when it released. Glad it bombed and continues to.

 

[CarAnalogy]

The iPhone would last long. We are talking about a device that isn’t even in the same universe as a Vision Pro in terms of power consumption.

A Vision Pro uses astronomical power because it is driving 2 displays with ungodly pixel counts and brightness. It is driving insane computation to do the full-instantaneous real-time camera view.

Smart Glasses use a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the power. The displays are either transparent and small, or they are projections onto the lenses from the arms. It is doing no computation aside from taking minimal camera data and sending it off to the iPhone. And the iPhone isn’t doing tons of hard witk either because again this is mostly a passive experience and not a drawn reality which is somewhat how the Vision Pro has to work.

See the Vision Pro has only displays. You can’t see through them passively so every millisecond it’s on it is doing ungodly compute and having the cameras run and translating it all back with very very very high frame rate.

I see what you mean. That would be good but it is more of an accessory then. Which I think is what a lot of us want, but it didn’t sound good to the Apple sales and marketing departments. They wanted it to be its own standalone platform. That seems fundamentally opposed to smart glasses.

 

[Plutonius]

We saw similar doubters against the Apple Watch that took a few generations to start taking off, and now you can't turn your head in a city without seeing Apple Watches on every wrist.

I don't think the Apple watch and the Vision Pro are comparable.

There is a big price difference and many people don't have that much disposable income in the current economy.

 

[Nuno Lopes]

The general criticism seams to be that it gets uncomfortable. Mind you, this is a recurring theme amongst this kind of devices.

That is a big problem. One that gets magnified by its price tag.