Apple Considers Expanding into Wearables with Digital Glasses | Hacker News Reader

Apple Considers Expanding into Wearables with Digital Glasses

bloomberg.com

Apple considers making lots of things. Is there an Apple story generator where you just pick a random product and it generates an article speculating that Apple is considering entering that market?

Quickly, Apple is descending into a company flailing and thrashing at an attempt to recapture some imaginary magic moment as viewed in hindsight through rose-colored glasses.

Unfortunately, even if they start selling rose-colored glasses, it won't necessarily promote the perception of similar sentimental metaphors in their clientelle.

Apple sort of needs a quiet period, in my opinion. There's a degree of fatigue to their capacity to impress.

How many times can you say "wow" about a company before you stop meaning it?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe giving up any amount of inertia is death, for a large complicated organisation.

Whatever the case, I hate the idea of constantly being on everyone else's eyeglass cam, every time I step out in public. Apple's niche fashion accessory product angle isn't going to change my visceral reaction to that idea.

Well if it worked so well for Google, why not for Apple?

Some products are limited in when they can successfully be launched by the technology available. Google Glass launched in 2013 and was crippled by, among other things, horrid battery life. It ran a full phone/tablet SOC on a 45 nm process along with a high powered display. Apple glasses launched around 2018 would presumably use a lighter S-series chip built on a 16 nm or smaller process. They could also feature a more power efficient display technology. Apple has other big advantages (like hundreds of retail stores) but I think battery life is a feature a device like this lives or dies on.

Apple could do it, absolutely. Ever since I read Daemon by Daniel Suarez I have dreamed of AG glasses. I would have bought Google Glass if I'd had the money. Maybe Apple will fix the battery issues, make it better, and we will all be more reluctant to leave the house for fear of getting scanned by the glasses.

I am going to check my preconceived notion this is 1) A horrible idea/product 2) false-- and be opened minded. I ask the following questions of anyone knowledgeable of the space or otherwise having a strong bg in EE:

- Is it possible to power a device like this for > 8 hours?

- How difficult would it be to create a device like "promised". By that I mean, a fully fleshed out google glass, one that conceptually delivers things like object recog, nightvision, camera, HUD.

Google glass failed (imo) for 2 major reasons, and I only see one of them has changed.

1) The interface was terrible. Apple can solve this with a combo of offloading processor & peripheral interfaces with the watch & an iphone. The phone has a more robust processor & the interface is not voice, but potentially 2 different devices.

2) Hardware. As alluded to, interfacing with the device was painful, but the device itself didnt deliver due to HW limits. Apple can bypass some computing by offloading to a phone or secondary device, but battery life is still a limit...for both devices.

If apple shifts-- and they have; from the hub being a computer, to the cloud and now ultimately the phone; can they deliver the battery power? Not only will the phone be the brain of potentially 2 devices on top of its own functionality, but the conputing power, graphic processing power, networking and battery life need to increase both for the phone-- the hub, but all peripherals.

Can Apple (or anyone) deliver on this with current tech, or do we need better battery tech & smaller cpu / networking?

If they do this I will officially join the "Tim Cook doesn't know what he's doing." crowd.

He doesn't know what he's doing. I'll change my mind when I see their next innovative product.

I fully understand the appeal of VR Goggles; everybody wants to escape. What I don't get at all is Apple's fixation with Augmented Reality instead of VR.

If they can make the augmented areas fully opaque, as opposed to translucent, I might be sold. Otherwise, a lot of use-cases will actually be pretty annoying.

The idea of ghost-like knick-knacks covering my field of view isn't very appealing. It reminds me of pop-up windows, only for real life.

Tim explained his reasoning by professing that everything that's meaningful in computing is based on people. With that reasoning VR replaces reality; AR improves it.

Plus it aligns with Apple's message/direction.

Sigh, that sounds about right. The place is full of whip-smart people with convoluted strategies, almost all of which Tim Cook would do best to ignore! Apple's greatest successes have happened when they have gone simple. All the strategy in the world won't help you, if customers just want to buy an Oculus so they can zone out in GTA "Virtual Detroit" every evening.

I'm 32, and AR is the "killer tech" that I've been waiting for most of my life.

I think this can be boiled down to (hopefully without offending anyone):

AR = gaming "nerds" VR = "real" people

Apple has always targeted "real" people. It's very similar to Android vs. iPhone, where Android is preferred by people who like more control to tinker with their phones ("nerds") vs. iPhone users who want an integrated out of the box working solution.

did you accidentally write your labels the wrong way around?

I still am betting more on Aural Augmented Reality because the interface is less intrusive.

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