In case you didn't know, it seems Apple is busy coming up with a pair of augmented reality glasses - dubbed Apple Glass - which, if all goes well, might revolutionize the implementation and usage of AR in our daily lives.
AR is a technology which seeks to blend digital elements as convincingly as possible into one's real-world surroundings, via the use of an app on a mobile phone, for example. Many are familiar with it thanks to the mind-blowingly successful Pokémon GO , which brought fans of the franchise as close as was possible to actually being able to catch 'em all in real life.
But in many ways the AR scene is still pretty untapped. And now it seems as though Apple is moving in. Well, turns out they moved in more than ten years ago and have been researching this stuff since then.
There seems to be a track record of similar AR spectacle endeavors that simply haven't caught on commercially, so presumably Apple is seeking to change that. And if anyone could do it, they sure would be strong candidates given their outstanding ability to popularize certain technology in the past.
A particularly appealing thing about their proposed design is that they look like perfectly normal glasses from the outside. They don't immediately come across as some overly-bulky, futuristic version of Pygmalion's Spectacles that would make you feel kinda silly walking around in public with them perched on your nose. Apple developers describe them as "unintimidating."
Rather, the most they can be accused of being is overtly hipstery, but that's hardly an intrinsically bad thing, is it?
Surprising no-one, Apple Glass is said to require an iPhone to function. Everything is apparently run from the phone, thereby bypassing the need to have a whole lot of tech strapped to one's head. But each lens still has 8k resolution, putting it ahead of many contemporary TVs, so that's not too shabby.
The glasses won't include any cameras (privacy bonus, check), instead using laser-based technology to scan the surroundings and therefore identify where to place its digital objects. The latter would be anything from emails and texts, to weather reports, to games. It also apparently takes vision impairment into consideration, being able to automatically adjust itself to accommodate those who normally require prescription glasses.
At this point, the pricetag is apparently set at $499, which is certainly cheaper than what the current generations of iPhone are going for, and compared to Microsoft's HoloLens' (somewhat incomparable) starting price of $3000 it seems like a steal.
With the proposed release window sitting at 2022 all of this is still subject to change, but it's all sounding very exciting. Guess you could say Apple Glass is definitely something worth keeping an eye on.
Source: Cold Fusion