Apple weighs expansion into digital glasses sector
san francisco — Apple is weighing an expansion into digital glasses, a risky but potentially lucrative area of wearable computing, according to people familiar with the matter.
While still in an exploration phase, the device would connect wirelessly to iPhones, show images and other information in the wearer’s field of vision, and may use augmented reality or (AR), the people said. They asked not to be identified speaking about a secret project.
Should Apple ultimately decide to proceed with the device, it would be introduced in 2018 at the earliest, another person said.The Cupertino, California-based company tests many different products and is known to pivot, pause, or cancel projects without disclosing them. Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller declined to comment.
Chief executive officer Tim Cook is under pressure to deliver new products amid slowing sales of the iPhone, which accounts for twothirds of Apple’s revenue. In July, he expressed enthusiasm for augmented reality after the rise of Pokemon Go, a location-based game that uses the technology. AR, as it’s known, adds images and other digital information to people’s view of the real world, while virtual reality completely surrounds them with a computer-generated environment.
The glasses may be Apple’s first hardware product targeted directly at AR, one of the people said. Cook has beefed up AR capabilities through acquisitions. In 2013, Apple bought PrimeSense, which de- veloped motion-sensing technology in Microsoft Corp.’s Kinect gaming system. Purchases of software startups in the field, Metaio Inc. and Flyby Media Inc., followed in 2015 and 2016.
“AR can be really great, and we have been and continue to invest a lot in this,” Cook said in a July 26 conference call with analysts. “We are high on AR for the long run. We think there are great things for customers and a great commercial opportunity.”
Apple has AR patents for things like street view in mapping apps. It was also awarded patents for smart
augmented reality can be really great, and we have been and continue to invest a lot in this
Tim Cook, CEO, Apple
glasses that make use of fullfledged virtual reality. Apple is unlikely to leverage VR in a mass consumer product, Cook suggested in October. “I can’t imagine everyone in here getting in an enclosed VR experience while you’re sitting in here with me, but I could imagine everyone in here in an AR experience right now,” he said during an onstage discussion in Utah. Apple’s challenge is fitting all the technology needed into a useful pair of internet-connected glasses that are small and sleek enough for regular people to wear. Google’s attempt to develop internet-connected eye wear flopped in part because its tiny battery ran out quickly.
Google Glass, as it was called, also suffered a privacy backlash and poor public perception of its external design.
After that disappointment, technology companies largely turned their immediate focus to VR and away from AR.