Tim Bajarin on the potential evolution of Apple’s AR smartglasses

Apple has, for years, been carefully laying the foundation for their widely expected AR smartglasses, analyst Tim Bajarin explains for Forbes.

"Apple Glasses" designed by Martin Hajek for iDrop News
“Apple Glasses” concept designed by Martin Hajek for iDrop News

Tim Bajarin for Forbes:

Right after Apple introduced AR Kit and its new focus on AR at WWDC in June of 2017, I had the opportunity to spend about 20 minutes talking to Apple CEO Tim Cook… He told me that he saw AR as one of Apple’s most significant opportunities and then made a powerful statement about Apple and AR. He said, “I believe it could be one of Apple’s greatest contributions to the tech world,” and he was highly excited about AR’s potential in general.

Five years later, Apple has still not introduced an actual AR set of glasses or goggles, but they have done something fundamental in the meantime.

Instead of releasing any AR glasses or goggles, Apple instead started down the path of creating a lot of software applications that could be delivered on iPhones and iPads. These applications can now be translated for use on any Apple glasses they eventually bring to market.

Apple also created a support and service program for AR apps, giving them a solid platform to release AR glasses or goggles when they are ready for prime time… [O]nce Apple enters this market and introduces millions of its customers to their AR and Mixed Reality version, the market will start to take off.

MacDailyNews Take: Yup. Focused on developers at first, but the revolution will follow!

Apple has the custom silicon. Apple has the installed base. Apple has the ecosystem. Apple has the services. Apple will have the profitable portion of the mixed-reality headset market. And then, a few years later, Apple will take the profitable portion of the smartglasses (AR) market, too.

And some people will slap their foreheads and lament, “I could’ve bought Apple shares under $140!”MacDailyNews, May 24, 2022

Apple’s smartgoggles will be cool, but it’s the subsequent Apple smartglasses that will change the world.MacDailyNews, July 11, 2022

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

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6 Comments

  1. Apple services, AirPods, ear tracking, those little tracking disks — all of these are secondary devices built to facilitate the AR experience. Apple Car will use the glasses as a fundamental technology.

    As I told my son, imagine you have the glasses on and its VR and you go into a room with a tv. Imagine that tv let’s you play Fortnite in the virtual world. Do you need your XBox any more? No. Now imagine the tv can be as big as you want in that world. If you have these glasses do you need a tv? No. Now you look down at your wrist and can see time and all your Watch apps. Do you need an Apple Watch? No. Now realize it’s also AR. So it will project into your real world. So you can project an iPad into your hands whenever you need it. Do you need a physical iPad? No. Do you need a computer if it works the same? No.

    With excellent AR/VR glasses you can replace every item of tech that you own. And the tech “disappears” when you’re done with it.

    This will be a revolution like nothing you e ever seen or imagined.

    Btw, Tim Cook will stick around long enough to make it so.

  2. And the cynical BS-mongers will hate it all the same, mumbling some inanity that the walled garden now sits on your temples.

    If only they treated their bodies and brains like a temple they wouldn’t be bloated faps sitting in their underwear in their Mom’s basement fapping in outrage over something or other.

    Apple sucks! Biden… uh… erm… sqwerm… um… ah… yeah… eh… Biden rules!

    C’mon man. The Cynical BS twins know everything. Biden-like in their wisdom, they, ah… erm.. eh…. Uuuuuh. Yeah.

    Biden-levels of genius in those two.

    Meanwhile, smart people will get Apple AR glasses. Even Biden will get one, a special one with 100ft teleprompter text right in his eyesight and a special electrical zapper that will get him right in the temples when he stumbles.

    M’mon, can!

      1. Don’t worry, 99.99% here would pick an alternative over you every day of the week, even in a leap year.

        And it is your gate… you are welcome to live in your gated community.

  3. Apple is doing what it always does – getting all its ducks in a row.

    The clever thing is that Apple is doing it in plain sight, but hardly anybody is noticing. What appears to be random bits of technology and software will suddenly become an integrated ecosystem to support AR hardware when they introduce it.

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