Apple’s AR and VR future

Having kind of ignored VR for the last few years, Apple is going in for it in a big way in 2017. The new version of macOS has been optimised for VR use, and new Macs finally have GPUs capable of powering HTC Vive (which seems to be Apple’s preferred headset).

But that was all focused on desktop. On mobile, Apple is instead going deep into AR (augmented reality), even going as far as to create a super- easy framework for developers to include an extremely smart AR camera feed in their apps. And there are similarly easy dev tools for machine learning, meaning we saw one developer knock up in just a few days an app that could detect whether a dog was visible in the shot. Imagine what can be done in the coming months (not that we’re sure that app can be beaten, to be honest…).

We think both developments hint at possible future Apple products: a standalone VR headset made with iPhone parts seems a no-brainer (especially with Google getting into the standalone game with HTC later this year); and with the AR smarts Apple is building, a Google Glass (but good) product is possible.