
Apple Considers Expanding into Wearables with Digital Glasses - ceterum_censeo
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-14/apple-said-to-explore-smart-glasses-in-deeper-wearables-push
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jccalhoun
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?

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ulysseus
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.

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

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Steko
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.

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Overtonwindow
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.

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vonklaus
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?

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

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charlesism
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.

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r00fus
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.

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charlesism
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.

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

