Quick thought. What if Apple's building a spatial computing platform without most people knowing?
Quick thought. What if Apple's building a spatial computing platform without most people knowing? Spatial Computing might be a term you haven't heard before. Without going into much detail. Think about it as a computer everywhere. Augmented reality is a part of spatial computing where you render computer generated graphics in the real world. But spacial computing goes beyond just rendering graphics in the real world. Spatial computing is sensing your environment and being reactive to that environment. Apple has been for a long time writing software for spatial computing, but did you know they've actually been slowly rolling out specialized hardware for this? In 2016, when the first AirPods came out, I was shocked that they had accelerometers built into them. Granted, these are used for detecting taps on the AirPods to control music. However, traditionally accelerometers have been used to determine rotation of devices. So already in 2016, your AirPods could actually determine what direction your head was turned. Now, finally in 2020, they've announced 3d audio for AirPods. If you're watching a show on Apple TV, plus it feels like you're in a movie theater. Check it out. Things get really interesting though. When you start to know where someone is in a room. Currently, if you want to know how a person moves through space, you need to use augmented reality. This is painful because the person has to actively hold their phone. But Apple just announced the Home Pod Mini with Ultra Wide Band technology. Ultra Wide Band in some sense is the next version of Bluetooth. One thing that Bluetooth has previously been used for is determining how far you're away from things. Problem with this technique though, was that it wasn't super accurate. Ultra Wide Band fixes this and is more accurate. In fact, it can determine what direction and how far you're in that space too, around 10 to 30 centimeters or less than a foot. Let's say that you own a Brick and Mortar Store and you put the shiny new Home Pod Mini in it. Your customers walk into your store and using the Home Pod Mini and Ultra Wide Band. You could determine precisely where they are in that space. As the customer's walking around the store, you could tell them about products they are gazing at via Air Pods based on their head orientation. But I think there are other pieces of hardware that could enable spatial computing. For instance, with the Apple watch first came out. I figured they'd use the four LEDs and sensors of the sit against your wrist to determine what direction your hand was pointed. If that was added to our imaginary store scenari o, Your finger could become a magic wand that you could use to point and purchase things. If you can think of some cool hardware or software Apple has out there that could enable spatial computing, send me a message on Twitter @mikkoh. And if you haven't subscribed, it would be so nice if you did. This is Mikko Haapoja. Thanks for listening to my quick thought.