Tamara Scott predicts that Apple won’t release their augmented reality product this year as they’re waiting for it to be perfect – or at least the model changes.
One of Steve Jobs’ legacies is perfection in the customer experience – or at least as close as Apple can get while actually shipping the product. While Apple can prepare for a suite of products that support AR or VR, they’re just laying the groundwork for a product that when it comes out, we’ll wonder how we lived without it.
Judging by past product releases, Apple is waiting to release its AR/VR headset as it has no interest in being the first to launch. OG Blackberry phone whose email is released in 2002, 5 years ago iPhone. Tablets have been around since 1987, but it wasn’t until release iPad in 2010 that the world realized the usefulness of the device. AR and VR devices have been around for now long enough for them to start gaining popularity, but few of us are brave enough to wear Google Glass in public, Snap Eyeglass have a distinctive enough shape but lack universality, and while many game and corporate training programs work in VR, these headsets aren’t exactly streetwear.
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Apple doesn’t seem to care about the importance of being ahead. They don’t care whether the word metaverse is part of their company name or not. Instead, they want to be the best. Because when a truly groundbreaking product that integrates technology with our lives is launched, FOMO will bring it to the market.
Disappointing Meta’s Vision
Meta’s Horizon Lab and Zuckerberg’s vision of ways we can use VR in our lives are groundbreaking. The super upside down meeting rooms they displayed at last year’s events were said to be provocative. They expressed a vision for the future of work and life. In this vision, location doesn’t matter – as long as you have internet access. It is a hopeful and beautiful prospect. But the product itself, the boardroom they showcased, was disappointing. It looks like being in a quarterly review meeting in the right universe for the Wii. Remember something body without legs? The jerky movements from the participants? It’s a vision that doesn’t feel it goes far enough – it really has no legs.
And to some extent, Horizon’s studios feel like the right course for those who spend a lot of time in animated worlds like Minecraft, Roblox, and other avatar-based experiences up until is still the mainstay of super products. We rely on graphics to take us to new places because that’s where our imagination finds its most freedom. There are also countless possibilities for consuming avatars, and NFTs have contributed to the popularity of limited edition online avatars and avatar accessories—but that’s another article entirely.
Apple won’t be stuck in the weird valley
The assumption that Mark Wilson makes in his Fast Company article, that Apple is preparing their mobile operating system for that AR world, feels right. While the illustrated Meta world is fascinating, it’s not likely to be as beautiful or useful as the AR world Wilson envisioned from Apple.
Our brains are trained to look for human shapes and faces. We recognize the human form in animations and illustrations (and sometimes Grilled or waffles), but what’s near perfect won’t be strange valley about people and avatars are better illustrated than ever. It will merge people with landscapes, applications and digital capabilities.
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Don’t hold your breath for AR from Apple
I predict we won’t see headphones from Apple in 2022. They’ll let Metas and other synthetic competitors build their fully immersive experiences. Facebook has the advantage of first follower back when MySpace dominated the landscape. Tom took a bit of brainpower and built one of the most successful social media platforms to date.
But Apple may be making a wiser choice by learning from the mistakes of Google, Snap, Meta and all the rest by waiting for the right confluence of technology. I anticipate — and I very much hope — this wait means they’re building a great tool that people and companies will want to invest in because it makes life a little bit better.
