Quick thought. Why are people excited about Apple's future AR glasses?
Quick thought, why are people excited about Apple's future AR glasses? At the start of 2020 before COVID-19 I was able to attend MIT reality hack. A really cool part of the event was the many of the device manufacturers were there. I love being a fly on the wall and watching people's honest reactions to the devices. Most people walked away and said "It's good... But..." After trying out the devices myself, I came to the conclusion. There are three major things to look at when evaluating augmented reality devices.
One:
Wearability. Do they look good? Is the device comfortable to wear?
Two:
Battery life. It will be very important someday to have a device that can stay powered for our waking hours or at a minimum work like air pods with the ability to be charged on the fly.
And finally, the third thing to look for:
Performance or how powerful a device is. I believe these three things form a triangle of dependence. For instance, if you increase how powerful device is it will reduce battery life and possibly decrease how wearable the devices is. If I had to make picks on the devices from MIT reality hack, I would pick NReal Light as the most wearable, since they look almost like regular sunglasses. However, the field of view was weak, which for me, made them less powerful. The most powerful device I saw was the Varjo XR-1. This headset has a large FOV and extremely high pixel density. According to some folks at Volvo, it's so powerful. You can even drive a car at over a hundred kilometers an hour wearing the headset. Scary! In terms of looks, it looks like a traditional VR headset, not something you want to wear out in public. And for battery life? Well, there is no battery and it has to be tethered to a very powerful computer. For Apple glasses, we shouldn't speculate on battery life or looks. However, the thing I'm most excited about is the possibility that the glasses may be able to render blacks. Take a look at US Patent Number 8,890,771. Which is for an Apple HMD that can mask pixels to create black pixels. Why I'm most excited about this is because we go from a world of holograms to a world of true immersion. I've tried commerce demos with AR headsets, and none of them increase my confidence to buy a product because they all look like I'm buying something out of Star Wars. Of course. So just patents and patents don't define product roadmaps or timelines, but there's hope. Anyway. I think most people are excited about the upcoming Apple headset because they're never first to market and get it right most of the time on their first-generation devices. Hope you like this quick thought about Apple AR glasses. If you have any thoughts on Apple AR glasses. Send me a message on Twitter @mikkoh. And if you haven't subscribed, it would be so nice if you did.