Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
The coming year will be critical for Apple Inc. Consumers should expect its most impressive hardware rollout in some time: The iPhone is due for its first major update since 2017, including 5G support, a much beefier processor, and a rear-facing 3D camera. The latter will give the phone a better sense of where it is in physical space, improving the accuracy of object placement in augmented-reality apps, which overlay virtual images on the real world. That could make it easier for users to model, say, the placement of pictures on their walls.
Such applications are central to Apple’s long-awaited AR glasses, which are expected to have holographic displays in their lenses. Apple has targeted 2020 for the release of its AR headset… The glasses are expected to synchronize with a wearer’s iPhone to display things such as texts, emails, maps, and games over the user’s field of vision. The company has considered including an App Store with the headset, as it does on Apple TV streaming devices and the Apple Watch. It’s hiring experts in graphics and game development to establish the glasses as the leader in a new product category and, if all goes perfectly, an eventual successor to the iPhone…
Apple plans other revamps for later next year, too: a Watch with sleep-tracking features and Macs that might run on custom processors, which would likely have greater efficiency and lower battery drain.
MacDailyNews Take: Augmented Reality won’t hit its stride until we’re freed from having to hold up glass slabs in order to experience it. Once AR graduates to mainstream smart eyewear from Apple, the killer AR apps will come in a deluge – and Android phones will become even less desirable as they already don’t work with Apple Watch, Apple Arcade, Apple Messages, etc. Soon Android phones will become outcasts from the Apple Glasses revolution, too, leading to iPhone becoming even more coveted by the hoi polloi!
AR, which seems like a gimmick today, will become very, very important sooner than later.
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
I have no doubt these will be VASTLY superior to what Google produced… and will be very useful.
But I also wonder – why would people accept these when there was such a backlash against Glassholes?
I agree PD. From early reports, some maybe disappointed with the initial release. It may be relatively “tame,” as it will be greatly dependent on the iPh. From what I understand it will augment the phone…will be largely “subservient” to the iPh, initially.
Imo, I love the sound of the initial release. It sounds like it’s true to Apple’s way…conservative and solid initially…with features/functionality being added, when ready.
There’s no reason to release the Fold, when it can’t fold.
Per the backlash, such a device has an inherent creepiness and security issues. With that said, Apple’s taste and concern for security (at least proclaimed), I’m confident, it will be embraced more readily.
One critical issue to consider – how will Apple ensure that its AR products work for people with corrective lenses, particularly glasses?
Am I the only one that thinks that this is not going to happen. I just don’t see any market for AR glasses…
I’m near retirement age and don’t travel for business or recreation anything like I used to. If I did, I’d snap this up in a second. I think the idea is BRILLIANT (especially well-executed as it will be by Apple). Imagine touring around London with the glasses telling you as much or as little as you want to know about the amazing historical buildings surrounding you… or inside the British Museum — or the equivalent for any other city.
Imagine the glasses telling you what plants you are looking at in the forest – or the bird at your feeder – or the animal chasing you on the trail. 🙂
Okay … so the narrative is now gong to be that its these AR glasses which have been holding up the Mac Pro …? /s
They’ll need to smart looking as well otherwise most people won’t be interested.
Not to be a downer, but if the quality of the OS rollouts this year are any indication, we should not urge Apple to rush out anything. Apple just isn’t very consistent with software or hardware anymore.
It stems from a leadership problem. Timmy isn’t a product guy. It’s like he doesn’t use 90% of what Apple makes, and he doesn’t bother pushing his hundreds of VPs to have personal accountability for product quality focused on the user first and foremost. No, Apple only cares about max quarterly income now. If Timmy’s past history is any indication, these Applehole specs will come in only the 3 most common lens prescriptions. There will be two sizes and the bigger size will cost 30% more with no additional functionality. They will be white plastic, they will have a proprietary connector/charging thingy incompatible with any other Apple product you already own, they will require a monthly subscription, they will require mandatory OS updates for all other devices, they will have partial performance out of the box, and they will come without an instruction manual so you will need another device to locate it somewhere on Apple’s website. The only method of interaction will be Dumbass Siri or a further miniaturized scroll wheel from ancient iPods/Watches that few users can get to work reliably with dry fingers — forget it with a speck of dirt or water on your hands. The pathetic mic placement will explain all the Apple fanboy repetitive mumbling in the near future, but they all will tell you that if you buy two or three pair, the sound quality from the speakers is quite good for its size. Despite requiring an iOS device in order to use them, the Apple MeToo Glasses will themselves require a dedicated new SpectacleOS with yet another corralled store, so any apps you already purchased on the iPhone will have to be rewritten for yet another screen resolution and repurchased. They will cost more than Google Glass and to justify the obscene pricing, but they will be marketed as being somehow more private without actually explaining why that would be so in an attempt to justify it. An A-list Hollywood actor will gush about how great they are when reading their lines in front of a camera, or how now they don’t even have to remember their lyrics when singing a song onstage. Silly weak humans won’t have to use their memories for anything! Then Timmy will show all the artificial emojis that you can have dancing in front of you like sugar plums in an xmas poem, so the kids will definitely be excited for game in-app purchases. Next year’s grand innovation will be more colors and more emojis, and in 3 years there will be a Beats Apple Glasshole Pro version in a different color plastic with metal weights inside to make it feel more substantial. Then MDN will paste every favorable article about them for 6 months until they lose interest and go back to unsubstantiated rumors and politics.
I would be more optimistic, but it’s been that kind of decade with Apple. Still waiting for that new Mac Pro Timmy promised.