Call this a hunch…
I’m hearing the brilliant improvements Apple is making, but just like when it made its move to 64-bit chips, I keep hearing an echo in the background.
I can’t hear what the echo is saying, but I can hear it there.
In the background.
If you feel that then beyond the context and content of what Apple is saying, it feels like the company is laying the ground for something that’s to come.
AR. VR. AI?
Something else?
I’m not sure, but I do think Apple has a 2020 vision. And will set a few more building blocks toward that vision before the end of 2019.
MacDailyNews Take: 2020 vision sounds perfect for Apple Glasses.
Still being a Glasshole but done right? I was hoping they meant “2019 Mac Pro.” Silly me.
Belly Laugh of the Day Award for the MDN Take.
If Apple wants some steady revenue then they should be looking toward the enterprise as Microsoft and Amazon are doing. I’d like to see Apple acquire a cloud computing business instead of only depending upon consumers to buy their products. It’s a darn shame Apple doesn’t design any ARM servers to sell. Apple’s A-series SoC would probably have been a fine starting point for a powerful ARM server for cloud use. Those servers would likely bring in a lot more revenue than some AR glasses which I find difficult to believe consumers will be buying in significant numbers.
I don’t imagine consumers taking to any type of glasses. I do like the idea of Apple Tags but as usual, a person has to have an iPhone to use them. I can’t decide whether building up a hardware ecosystem around the iPhone is a good thing or not but Apple seems to be set on doing it. Again, these are just my random thoughts as I’m sure Apple has things well enough in hand without my input.
Maybe Siri will be assisted by the Neural Engine? Please.
iGlasses will sell millions for one use-case only: Virtual Meetings. That sounds boring, but I mean “meetings” in the broadest possible context.
I mean meetings, like you want to hang out with a friend who is 1000 miles away. Turn on your HomePod camera, put on your iGlasses (which will have headphones built in), and BOOM! there they are. Sitting there. Standing there. Occluding what’s behind them. You’re suddenly in the same place.
I mean meetings, like a virtual classroom where you put on your Apple Glass and all you see is the classroom that is 50 miles away. There’s the professor teaching. Which seems just like normal until she whisks you and everyone else away to ancient Mesopotamia to show you from 10,000 feet the Asyrian Empire and then draws you closer to watch the end of a great battle which sealed the end of the empire.
I mean meetings, like going to church with 2 million other people at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome while actually home in your underwear.
I mean meetings, like board meetings, staff meetings, one-on-ones with salespeople, employees and bosses. Meetings like watching the Presidential Debates or Hamilton from front row, center. Meetings like anything you would ever do where you’re in a place with other people using your eyes and ears.
Forget whether you’ll wear them to the gym to glasshole other people in the locker room. Yeah, they’ll probably be banned there. But they’ll sell 100’s of millions of them anyhow. You won’t have to ever drive with them, walk the mall with them, or even be seen with them for the product to be a world-changing, world-beating, Trillion dollar business all by itself.
Me, I’m just hoping they’ll use Liquidmetal for the frames because it’s super light and super strong and I own the stock. But whatever it is, the product is a slam dunk… if Apple can get them right. They need to be powerful (offshoot processing to iPhone or Mac probably). They need to be light (the lighter the better). They need to be truly excellent in the screens–like virtually indistinguishable from reality. They need to be cheap enough for people to buy them.
If they get the above correct—and of course they won’t release the product until they have—then just like Apple Watch they’ll own the industry.
It’s hard to imagine this not happening eventually. 20/20? Maybe.
glasses will sell in billions if they invent glasses with self regulating automatically adjustable prescription based on the focus distance I need. This is 19 century product with no improvement.
You know when you go visit your ophthalmologist and they put your chin on that machine and everything is in focus on it’s own.. without anyone intervention. This needs to be scaled down to a wearable pair of glasses. Then you can add all kinds of gimmicks on top of it, but this would actually be a real invention
And hopefully by 2025 your solar-powered contact lenses will be able to do the same thing. If someone can come up with the implants or lenses that will allow a return to normal vision for most of the focus-impaired, they’ll own the future. Then again, if the tech allows for super-human vision (zoom, dark, etc.), then they’ll be gods.