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VR/AR
Success in Wearables Drives Apple Double down on A/R
February 09, 2020
The Apple Watch wasn’t just the best-selling smartwatch last year, but also put the Swiss watch industry to shame, according to new sales estimates compiled by Strategy Analytics. The report estimates Apple shipped nearly 31 million units in 2019, up 36% Y/Y. The Swiss watch industry, which includes brands like Swatch and TAG Heuer, only shipped an estimated 21.1 million units, a 13 percent decline, Strategy Analytics says. Apple didn't address the ongoing rumors of an Apple wearable in the smartglasses category at their recent earnings report but Cook was as enthusiastic as ever about augmented reality as one of the company's product pillars. "I think, when you look at AR today, you would see that there are consumer applications, there are enterprise applications. This is the reason I'm so excited about it," said Cook. "You rarely have a new technology where business and consumer are both key… I think it's going to pervade your lives is because it's going to go across business and your home life. I think these things will happen in parallel. There are already companies that are deep into enterprise business that are working on applications for the enterprise.
With high-margin wearables success in its rearview mirror, it seems inevitable that Apple will take the next step and introduce an even higher-margin wearable in the form of smartglasses that perhaps first work as a notifications device and later as a vector for ARKit-created apps. You can almost detect the collective breath-holding of the augmented reality industry as it waits for Apple's inevitable entry. A new Apple wearable built with augmented reality technology is likely the device that will finally make the smartphone take a backseat. Apple's forthcoming (though not officially announced) AR smartglasses will be the company's follow-up to its first wearable, the Apple Watch in 2015 (yes, that was only three years ago), and will set off a chain reaction in the smartglasses industry that's already begun in Asia.
Although devices like North's Focals — the closest example we've seen of fashionable, mainstream-friendly AR smart glasses (albeit only capable of 2D, non-immersive graphics) — have beaten Apple to the spotlight of public scrutiny, the wearable AR market is still Apple's to dominate. Essentially, North's Focals took the Google Glass concept and put it in a far more stylish frame. And while North's example might be the path Apple takes, it seems unlikely that the company would devote so much time and attention to ARKit — a platform that supports 3D, immersive AR content — and then release an AR wearable that doesn't truly take advantage of the developer community and apps developed using ARKit.
Figure 1: North's Focal Concept
Success in Wearables Drives Apple Double down on A/R
February 09, 2020
The Apple Watch wasn’t just the best-selling smartwatch last year, but also put the Swiss watch industry to shame, according to new sales estimates compiled by Strategy Analytics. The report estimates Apple shipped nearly 31 million units in 2019, up 36% Y/Y. The Swiss watch industry, which includes brands like Swatch and TAG Heuer, only shipped an estimated 21.1 million units, a 13 percent decline, Strategy Analytics says. Apple didn't address the ongoing rumors of an Apple wearable in the smartglasses category at their recent earnings report but Cook was as enthusiastic as ever about augmented reality as one of the company's product pillars. "I think, when you look at AR today, you would see that there are consumer applications, there are enterprise applications. This is the reason I'm so excited about it," said Cook. "You rarely have a new technology where business and consumer are both key… I think it's going to pervade your lives is because it's going to go across business and your home life. I think these things will happen in parallel. There are already companies that are deep into enterprise business that are working on applications for the enterprise.
With high-margin wearables success in its rearview mirror, it seems inevitable that Apple will take the next step and introduce an even higher-margin wearable in the form of smartglasses that perhaps first work as a notifications device and later as a vector for ARKit-created apps. You can almost detect the collective breath-holding of the augmented reality industry as it waits for Apple's inevitable entry. A new Apple wearable built with augmented reality technology is likely the device that will finally make the smartphone take a backseat. Apple's forthcoming (though not officially announced) AR smartglasses will be the company's follow-up to its first wearable, the Apple Watch in 2015 (yes, that was only three years ago), and will set off a chain reaction in the smartglasses industry that's already begun in Asia.
Although devices like North's Focals — the closest example we've seen of fashionable, mainstream-friendly AR smart glasses (albeit only capable of 2D, non-immersive graphics) — have beaten Apple to the spotlight of public scrutiny, the wearable AR market is still Apple's to dominate. Essentially, North's Focals took the Google Glass concept and put it in a far more stylish frame. And while North's example might be the path Apple takes, it seems unlikely that the company would devote so much time and attention to ARKit — a platform that supports 3D, immersive AR content — and then release an AR wearable that doesn't truly take advantage of the developer community and apps developed using ARKit.
Figure 1: North's Focal Concept
Source: Adario Strange/Next Reality
Apple wearable is likely to be a cross between the design style of Focals and the Vuzix Blade and the feature execution of the Nreal Light, a device that's tethered to a tiny (170 gram) hip computer module or an Android smartphone to drive immersive AR experiences. With the Nreal Light, the user has the powers of SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping), object recognition, plane detection, and 6DoF tracking. While the field of view is somewhat limited, the experience is "good enough," and the only thing that's missing from the equation are apps and content. These are areas where Apple is well ahead in compared to any AR headset maker. Apple also happens to make one of the most powerful and popular hip computers on the planet, the iPhone.
Figure 2: The Vuzix Blade.
Figure 2: The Vuzix Blade.
Source: Adario Strange/Next Reality
A recent report from Ming-Chi Kuo indicates that Apple will indeed rely on the iPhone to drive its AR smartglasses. The Nreal Light, which hails from Apple's manufacturing base of China, might be a bulkier, Android-flavored preview of what's reportedly already in production over at Apple.
Figure 3: The Nreal Light
Source: Adario Strange/Next Reality
Nreal is backed by Beijing-based Shunwei Capital, a major investor in smartphone maker Xiaomi, and YouTube competitor iQiyi. Currently, Shunwei Capital manages over $3 billion — devoted largely to tech ventures. Another notable AR player in China is the BOE Technology Group, the state-owned company was one of the early backers of Meta Company and continues to operate in the mobile display, IoT, and augmented reality spaces. The new innovations Apple introduces to the glasses-connected-to-smartphone AR dynamic won't take years to copy, as it did with the iPhone. Instead, those innovations will be emulated and iterated upon even more rapidly than anything we've seen with early iPhone competitors. When Apple reveals its long-rumored AR wearable, not only will there already be similar looking, Android-based competitors on the market in China (locally branded and as OEM options for international vendors), but whatever innovations Apple introduces to the glasses-connected-to-smartphone AR dynamic won't take years to copy, as it did with the iPhone. Instead, those innovations will be emulated and iterated upon even more rapidly than anything we've seen before with early iPhone competitors, because China is, at this point, technically the first mover for mainstream mobile AR.
I left the US to move to Japan in 2007, just before the launch of the iPhone. At the time, in the US, most of us were still obsessed with our flip phones, with only some opting to adopt devices like the Hiptop (aka Sidekick), the Blackberry, and some Palm Pilot die-hards still holding on via the Palm Treo. When I came back to the states in 2012, mainstream behavior had wholly changed. People were now walking off elevators and bumping into people with their heads buried in iPhones, and saying "#winning" had become a part of regular conversations. That's how fast technology changes human culture. Five years can shift the entire planet. The same kind of tectonic shift is about to take place with AR via wearable devices. Devices like the HoloLens 2 and the Magic Leap One show what the best versions of these AR experiences can be, but it will be the mobile wearables that truly act as the catalysts that bring about widespread change. Transitioning from Mapsco paper maps to mobile device GPS happened in the blink of an eye. And 2007, the last year Kodak turned a profit before going bankrupt in 2012, is the same year the iPhone began teaching US consumers to photograph "everything" daily.
And like the iPhone, and the Apple Watch after it, when Apple releases its AR wearable, there will be many doubters. When the Apple Watch came out in 2015, many reviewers panned it with lackluster reviews. Today, just three years later, in the US, you see the device on every other wrist, male or female, old or young, as selling wearable.
There's no guarantee that Apple will be able to replicate this success when it debuts its AR wearable in 2020 (or 2021, at the latest), but it won't be alone.
Facebook has already tipped its hand that it has an AR wearable in the works. And while Mark Zuckerberg talks about putting a billion people in VR, his laser focus on mobile indicates that he knows AR is where Facebook's immersive future lies. Similarly, reports have pointed toward a Snapchat brand of AR smartglasses that would build upon the company's early experiments with Spectacles.
Facebook's concept AR smartglasses. Image by Oculus/YouTube
The game of AR thrones is afoot, but who gets to sit on the "iron throne" of our faces remains unclear. Nevertheless, tech history indicates, whether it's Apple or another company, we should all prepare for significant change.
Speaking to ghosts in public (AR avatars others can't see) and literal window shopping (buying localized virtual items without walking into stores) will be normalized. Instead of craning our necks down at tiny squares of glass (an incredibly unnatural act, when you think about it), we'll instead look up and around to compute and interact spatially.