Over
the last few years, Microsoft has staked out an interest and position in
augmented reality (AR) as opposed to virtual reality (VR). As the name implies,
“augmented” reality is about showing the user additional information or cues
over and above what they can see in the real world, while virtual reality is
used to project an entirely different environment from wherever the user is
actually standing. Microsoft’s HoloLens is one of the first high-profile AR
headsets, while games like Pokemon Go have become smash hits in the real world
thanks to the way they leverage augmented reality to project virtual Pokemon
into every day life.
Apple
has stayed out of either market to-date, but that may be about to change. In a
recent interview with the Washington Post, Cook was asked what he thought of
augmented or virtual reality. He responded:
I
think AR [augmented reality] is extremely interesting and sort of a core
technology. So, yes, it’s something we’re doing a lot of things on behind that
curtain that we talked about.
What’s
interesting about this isn’t the fact that Cook is aware of or interested in AR
— plenty of companies undoubtedly are, especially after the success of Pokemon
Go — but that he’d describe it as a core technology when Apple, to date, has
done absolutely nothing with the feature.
Apple
and interfaces
Apple’s
greatest strength, historically, has been its ability to capture new interfaces
and adapt them for easy use. Apple didn’t invent the mouse or the modern GUI,
but it popularized both with its initial Mac 128K in 1984. The iPhone wasn’t
the first smartphone or the first device with a touchscreen, but it was the
first smartphone to treat touch as the primary means of interacting with a
device without a need for a stylus or keypad.
Augmented
reality has the potential to rewrite the rules of interface design like few
products before it. AR has been a mainstay of science fiction for decades — a
tricorder is an AR device with a sophisticated sensor package that can scan a
local area for a wide range of measurements, then report those measurements
back to the user. While Star Trek rarely showed precisely what the user saw as
output, multiple Star Trek episodes feature the device being used to scan for a
general anomaly before honing in and following it in a specific direction. Deep
Space Nine established that the bridges of Jem’Hadar warships don’t have
forward-facing viewscreens — they have wearable devices that project a heads-up
display to each individual. While this isn’t exactly the same as AR technology,
there’s nothing about the system that implies it can’t be used to communicate
other information as well.
But
— and this is key — in order for AR to become more than a minor feature, it’s
going to have to evolve and grow up. This has significant ramifications for
every aspect of system design (and a few for the real world as well). Pokemon
Go already has a reputation as a battery killer, precisely because it leverages
multiple sensors and devices within your smartphone at the same time.
We
don’t know how Apple envisions its AR system working or whether its part of the
company’s car project or if it would roll out on an iPhone. But integrating AR
into software is difficult, and demonstrating its use case is even trickier.
Niantic had a hit with Pokemon Go because it was able to trade on an
established game franchise and use expertise gleaned from its previous AR
title, Ingress. Any push to bring AR into the real world as a general use case
will have to learn from previous high-profile attempts that have gone awry.
It’ll
probably still be a few years before we start to see AR showing up in devices
and software as a rule, but it’s not too early to plan for it — and Apple has
good reason to try and position itself to catch that wave. That’s probably what
Apple had in mind when it bought AR software developer Metaio last year as well
as Media in January 2016.
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