Apple is the world’s most valuable company largely because it entered smartphones harder than anyone and dominated for years. The next step is to push beyond the foundation Steve Jobs laid. Apple has to track and shape the next major shift, or leadership will drift elsewhere.
CEO Tim Cook’s comments show the same deliberate tone once heard before the iPhone and Apple Watch, now aimed at augmented reality. Before the iPhone shipped, Apple kept hinting it might enter phones. Before the Watch, it talked up wearables. Now AR is the refrain.
The market is moving that way
Apple is not wrong to look here. With Microsoft HoloLens and Google-backed Magic Leap in the mix, every major player is investing. It is easy to guess the next wave will form around AR.
In the near term Apple wants the iPhone to act as an AR platform, which means sensing the world better. Depth is especially important if virtual content must lock to physical space. The dual cameras on iPhone 7 Plus were a first step: two side-by-side lenses can estimate depth, though critics say they sit too close to do it well.
For richer scene understanding Apple can lean on PrimeSense, the Israeli sensor company it bought in 2013. New sensors in a future iPhone could make interacting with the room through AR much easier.
Design may be the edge
The long game for AR may be light glasses or even lenses that paint imagery on the eye. We are nowhere near that yet. Stuff a battery into today’s glasses and the hardware gets heavy and awkward, which clashes with Apple’s design bar. That problem has to be solved first.
Reactions to Google Glass also warn that society may not welcome AR glasses overnight. A similar backlash could damage a product years in the making.
Apple usually wins less by inventing a category first and more by shipping a cleaner interface and tighter hardware-software fit. So it may not race to beat rivals to market, while still refining AR quietly until it feels useful and elegant.
