Apple is rumored to be working on a smart glasses product and I have questions
A glasses-wearer weighs in on what might be the next big product from Apple
Apple’s revenues are currently very closely wed to the success of the iPhone. That’s an enviable problem to have given the enormous success of the iPhone over the last thirteen years, but it’s also impressing upon Apple the need to find future products to succeed the iPhone once the smartphone market cools. No product lasts forever. The iPod was the big hit product of the first decade of the 21st Century, but it eventually became little more than an app on the iPhone and has disappeared almost entirely. At some point another device or devices could supplant the smartphone as our main way of interacting with the world digitally, and it might be the wearables are what does it.
I don’t think Apple gets enough credit for the success of the Apple Watch and AirPods, the two current entrants in Apple’s Wearables category. That may be in part due to the fact that Tim Cook just isn’t the galvanizing vision caster that his predecessor Steve Jobs was. But if you spun Apple’s Wearables division off into its own company, it would be a Fortune 150 company, and the Apple Watch has eclipsed the Swiss watch industry in sales. Though Apple hasn’t yet announced a smart glasses product, it’s heavily rumored to be working on such a thing. Will Apple Glasses ever come to market? Only time will tell, but there’s a few things to think about with respect to such a product.
Apple loves to show demos of Augmented Reality, or AR at its product events. Apps like Apple’s Measure app for iOS which lets you measure something virtually with just your iPhone. Or the seemingly countless demos of Lego games where you built a physical lego set and then point your iPhone at it to have virtual figures interact with it. There’s also potentially a lot of application for AR in fields like engineering and architecture where a worker could literally see schematics or technical drawings overlaid on top of real world objects and locations. Or in medicine where a doctor could see realtime patient data or anatomical diagrams overlaid on top of their flesh and blood pateint. In my mind the biggest thing holding back AR is that you have to hold a devices in your hands to use it. AR glasses would revolutionize this field because it would allow you to see the digital overlay while using both hands to work.
There’s also safety to consider. Apple has put some effort into improving driver safety via its Siri Eyes Free and CarPlay products for the car, which aim to minimize your distractions while driving. Apple Glasses could take that even further. With Maps data presented to you in your normal field of view, you’d never have to take your eyes off of the road.
There are several practical concerns about such a product. First, can Apple convince us to move toward a society where essentially everyone is wearing glasses? I’ve worn corrective lenses for my near-sightedness since third grade. So I’m already a daily glasses wearer, but what about people with 20/20 vision? Can they be persuaded to choose to wear non-sunglasses in every day situations? And what of people who have had corrective eye surgery so that they no longer need to wear glasses? Can they be coaxed back into daily glasses wear? And what of sunglasses? It’s common for people to toss on sunglasses while driving or outdoors, and even wearers of prescription lenses like me often have a pair of sunglasses in addition to their regular glasses. Will Apple need to persuade people to buy Sunglasses and regular Apple Glasses? Or will Apple Glasses have something like Transitions lenses that change based on lighting conditions? And what’s the story for people like me who do wear corrective lenses? Will prescription lenses be available? How expensive will they be?
I think there’s a lot of potential in smart glasses and it wouldn’t totally surprise me if in a few years we have become a society where everyone is wearing them. But Apple’s challenge is to really sell us on the vision (sorry, couldn’t resist) of this new world, and have compelling answers to the questions posed above. As a glasses-wearer and an Apple product enthusiast, I’ll be watching this space closely.
