Why ‘iPhone 12’ could spark the next big thing for Apple

Apple U.S. patent application illustration
Apple U.S. patent application illustration

Apple’s next-gen iPhone line will include new capabilities that will provide the foundation for other augmented reality hardware products, including Apple Glasses, in the not-so-distant future.

Lisa Eadicicco for Business Insider:

Apple’s 2020 flagship is expected to include technologies and features that will be about much more than just taking better photos in the dark or enhancing performance… Among the biggest changes that’s expected to come with Apple’s 2020 iPhones is the introduction of a more sophisticated three-dimensional camera, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and Debby Wu. Such a camera system would include a laser scanner to create 3D replicas of the real world, boosting the iPhone’s augmented reality capabilities. With the new 3D camera, the iPhone would be better at placing virtual objects in augmented reality and would offer enhanced depth perception…

Apple’s next smartphone could also help lay the foundation for what may be Apple’s next big hardware product — an augmented reality headset [Apple Glasses]… Augmented reality aside, Apple’s 2020 iPhone is also expected to come with another update that’s critical to the iPhone’s future: 5G support.

MacDailyNews Take: AR, which seems like a gimmick today, will become very, very important and useful much sooner than many think!

As we wrote earlier this month:

When looking at Apple Tagged objects while wearing Apple Glasses, the U1 chip will be invaluable!

Grocery and every other retail store that wishes to remain in business will be full of Apple Tags. Imagine golfing while wearing Apple Glasses with an Apple Tagged golf holes. Or shooting pool. Or driving past Apple Tagged road signs. Or holding a baseball card. Or touring a city or museum or hiking a wilderness trail. Or running a 5K. Or looking at vehicles on a car lot or rideshares as they arrive to pick you up. Or, through crowd-sharing, precisely locate where that last remaining Cabbage Patch doll is within 25 miles of you on Christmas Eve. “Hey, Siri, find me a Cabbage Patch Doll for sale with 25 miles of me! Buy it and hold it for me, on on my way!” Extrapolate from there.


The Apple Glasses will be the key as holding up slabs of glass as “windows” is suboptimal. When we’re running in a race, for example, we don’t want to have to hold an iPhone or even glance at an Apple Watch, but with a pair of Apple Glasses constantly overlaying time, pace, splits, etc. it’ll be ideal!MacDailyNews, September 6, 2019


The impact of augmented reality cannot be overstated. It will be a paradigm shift larger than the iPhone and the half-assed clones it begat. — MacDailyNews, August 4, 2017


Someday, hopefully sooner than later, we’ll look back at holding up slabs of metal and glass to access AR as unbelievably quaint. — MacDailyNews, July 28, 2017


Augmented Reality is going to change everything.MacDailyNews, July 21, 2017

6 Comments

  1. AR Glasses are a cute idea and they will sell a lot. More potential, however, lies in addressing specialized features, like medical. PulseOx for those with asthma, blood glucose for diabetic. These types of advances are features that will not only sell well to Apple consumers but will PULL non Apple customers into the Apple environment. The Watch would become “Step One” in moving to Apple, with the iPhone next.

  2. Or virtual reality for individuals with sensory impairments, blindness or visually impaired. Apple could make a forray into the field of hearing disabilities with the airpods and the phone as a powerful processor for the sound input so that it could be tailored for your specific hearing frequencies. Theres a huge market. I see patients who are not esp helped with standard earpieces and have hard time with changing those small batteries.

  3. Am I the only one who doesn’t want to wear glasses? I put up with gas-permeable contact lenses for a reason. And look at all the people who undergo LASIK.

    Are they going to spark a secondary market of clip-on sunglass lenses for them?

    Guess I’m turning into an old Luddite…

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