According to a report from supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the first appearance of metalens will enter mass production in 2024 for use as a Face ID cover for the iPad Pro. If successful, the iPhone will adopt metalens as Face ID in 2025 or 2026, though Kuo says the latter is more likely.

Eventually, the technology will be used in Apple’s “Apple Glasses,” augmented reality glasses that are expected to display content in the real world. Apple’s glasses will go into production as early as 2026 or 2027.

Metalens technology is expected to become mainstream between 2028 and 2030 as a replacement for plastic lenses in low-end cameras or LiDAR systems.

A Harvard University paper describes Metalens as a flat surface that uses nanostructures to focus light. The technology appears to be in its early stages, but Kuo believes it will be ready for tiny lens covers for Face ID by 2024.

Kuo hasn’t mentioned a launch date for Apple’s AR glasses project for years, previously sharing that they would launch in 2025, and that report also mentioned that contact lenses would be available in 2030, but Wednesday’s report didn’t mention any of that.

Apple’s VR headset and its operating system support are rumored to be announced during WWDC in June, perhaps as a first step in Apple’s development of Apple’s AR glasses.

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The first rumor has been echoed in a new article by foreign tech media outlet 9to5Mac, but the second is completely false, Apple’s AR glasses were clearly known to require a long development cycle from the beginning of the project and are not on hold.

The media outlet cites two reasons for this.

1. The Apple Glass development cycle was already long.

Apple Glass was set to be close to prescription glasses in form, affordable to consumers, and provide a superior eco-experience. This in itself presents many challenges and will take years of technology and ecological development to achieve. It will not be updated as often as AR / VR headsets. 2.

2. Apple Glass is not like an AR / VR headset

While there is some overlap between the Apple Glass project and the AR / VR headset, the two are being driven by different development teams. They are different products, and Apple has set different timelines for them.

The two projects don’t have much in common, other than reducing the cost of manufacturing the planned product by reducing components and finding a more logical mix of components.

Apple is not putting the Apple Glass project on hold, but it will still be a long wait for consumers.

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Gurman said: “Apple’s original vision was to provide a pair of lightweight AR glasses that users can wear all day. Now it seems that even if it is launched, it will be several years away from commercialization.”

According to Apple’s previous roadmap, Apple will launch AR (augmented reality)/VR (virtual reality) head-mounted display devices this year, and then accumulate related technologies and software ecology to create AR glasses in 2024/2025.

Gurman said that the current AR technology is not mature enough, and not only Apple but also other companies have such challenges. Overlaying virtual information on top of the real world, augmented reality experiences require a transformation in many ways. Google’s Google Glass is an example of a failure.

On a technical level, the weight, bulk, and design aesthetics of AR glasses struggle to live up to the expectations of users of traditional corrective glasses. The processor, system, and software ecosystem have not yet been developed. Even if it can provide an excellent AR experience, the size limit cannot provide a sufficient battery life guarantee, and the actual use may be less than 2 hours.

Faced with these hurdles, Apple has halted its glasses project and now plans to follow its first head-mounted display device with a lower-cost but conceptually similar mixed-reality device. Gurman predicts this will come in 2024 or early 2025.

Gurman predicts that Apple’s first AR/VR head-mounted display device will cost around $3,000 (currently about 20,340 CNY), and the price of this “people-friendly” model will be around $1,500 (currently about 10,170 CNY). The configuration of this affordable device will drop from Mac level to iPhone level.

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I. Apple wants to recreate the AR myth

After Apple’s baton was passed to Cook, the legendary technology company has not released any amazing products.

The iPhone 14 launched at the conference still does not see much innovation in terms of performance. The chip is still the A15 Bionic, compared to the 13 series, which will be more cost-effective after the price reduction. Of course, this is also Cook’s old routine. The team spent two years polishing the satellite communication function was snatched by Huawei for the world premiere, this function also looks less stunning in the launch.

The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max series have been upgraded to “pill screen” instead of Apple’s “bangs screen”. But these updates really did not give consumers much surprise.

Looking back at the Steve Jobs era, the release of the Apple generation completely changed the way people communicate and ushered in the smartphone era. Then, Apple launched the IOS system, Apple Store and other features one after another to continuously improve the Apple ecology. It can be said bluntly that Apple has always been a worthy leader in the smartphone industry.

And in recent years, fruit fans have to admit that Apple has indeed encountered an innovation bottleneck. New product launches can only be made in color, appearance and other irrelevant aspects, but in battery performance, feature development, and other hardware and software capabilities are repeatedly disappointing. For example, Apple’s battery loss has been a headache for many users, and no effective solution seems to be proposed for the new machine.

Not only that, the smartphone circuit is changing, and Apple’s dominance in high-end machines is beginning to falter. Overseas, there is a Samsung deep folding screen this segment of the track, has attracted a lot of consumer attention. Domestically, there is the Huawei Mate series benchmark, just two days before Apple’s launch, on September 6, Huawei also held a conference to officially launch the Mate 50 series, the Mate 50 series also added satellite communication capabilities, but also the innovative introduction of ultra-space storage compression capabilities. In performance and price are known as formidable enemies to fight with Apple.

The data that most visually reflects Apple’s crisis is its fiscal year 2022 third-quarter report, although the company’s third-quarter revenue of $83 billion, indeed the slowest growth rate of Apple since the 2020 epidemic, and, for six consecutive quarters of sales growth decline.

What makes Cook and even the entire smartphone industry feel more urgent is that the global economy is in a downward spiral, the epidemic has intensified the instability of life, consumers are starting to stay calm in front of the iteration of smartphones, “and so on party gradually become the mainstream mood of consumers. 1.27 billion units, and will also increase prices by 6.3%.

Smartphones are starting to cool down on the consumer side, and tech giants are starting to think about the next form of smartphones. AR glasses give Cook hope.

From the point of view of portability, and VR headset is different from bulky, AR technology is compressed into the shape of glasses, and easy to carry. Compared to the smartphone era, it also frees up hands and saves the “low-headed people”.

From the point of view of the use of scenarios, AR glasses can be benchmarked against smartphones, to undertake social, entertainment, office and other functions.

Cook has repeatedly revealed in interviews that the prospect of AR is expected. As early as 2016, it was reported that Apple was forming a senior team related to AR technology, and Cook personally came down to tap Magic Leap’s senior computer vision algorithm engineer.

Previously, a Bloomberg report showed that the AR product development team once exceeded 1,000 people. Although rumors of Apple’s VR/AR team being disbanded have also been circulated many times, Apple has never put down the pace of AR glasses research and development.

Last year, Apple was revealed to have registered and applied for the trademark of Reality OS around the world. In February, foreign media revealed that Apple’s supply chain rumored that Apple had completed the second phase of engineering verification testing (EVT2) for its AR/VR headset. In March, Apple filed another patent application for the haptic glove, which covers a device that accurately simulates the user’s sense of touch in augmented reality, virtual reality or mixed reality environment.

Apple continues to build up its strength in AR glasses, waiting to recreate the industry legend.

Second, AR is stuck in a technical bottleneck

A realistic problem is that the AR technology is still just figuring out in the starting period. Even Apple, including technology giants in AR glasses this answer sheet can not deliver satisfactory answers.

AR glasses, as an iteration of smartphones, have raised higher requirements in terms of performance requirements and user experience. AR technology is a virtual technology superimposed on top of real scenes to enhance the sense of presence. At the same time, as a wearable device, the design of AR glasses also needs to take into account the actual user experience requirements, which means that AR glasses need to strictly control the weight of the product.

The most important concern of AR glasses is the final imaging effect, and the optical structure of AR glasses is what determines the imaging effect.

At present, several common display solutions on the market are mainly divided into a prism, free-form surface, Bird-bath and light waveguide technology. Prism is cheap and small in size, but the field of view is small, and it is easy to block the line of sight. Previously, Google Glass used this solution, and it was not recognized by consumers. Bird-bath solution has a heavy-weight lens.

The relatively mainstream AR display technology is an optical waveguide, thin and light and high penetration characteristics make it very potential. Microsoft’s Hololens 2 and Magic Leap One both use this solution. But the price of light waveguide technology is very high, a pair of lenses up to 2,000 yuan, the cost of mass production crushed many developers.

AR glasses have taken the lead in B-side development, such as Microsoft’s HoloLens 2, which is mainly supplied to enterprises and the military. Of course, this is because at this stage AR glasses in terms of weight and price is really no way to make a compromise. The Microsoft HoloLens 2 national version is priced at 27,388 yuan and weighs up to 2.87 kg. Guo Ming-Chi also predicts that Apple’s AR glasses will be offered at a price of more than $2000.

Microsoft HoloLens2

On August 27, Nreal launched the new Nreal Air and Nreal X for the domestic market, with the price of Nreal Air reduced to 2,299 yuan. The price reduction did pry the market demand, and Nreal delivered 12 million sales on the first day of sale. However, back to the Nreal product itself, consumer satisfaction is not high. In the official Nreal Tmall flagship store, many consumers questioned the product adaptation of Nreal Air. Some consumers even said that instead of being an AR glasses with emphasis on interactive functions, Nreal Air is more like a convenient, high-definition display screen. Therefore, Nreal’s claim of consumer-grade AR seems premature.

Third, the industry is betting on the future like crazy

According to Liu Tianjie, investment director of Huaying Capital, AR technology lags behind VR technology by at least five or six years in terms of technology maturity.

The VR headset led by Meta Quest has already landed on the consumer side. IDC data shows that in the first quarter of 2022, 356.3 units of global VR headset were shipped. In contrast, AR device shipments can only be described as dismal. IDC statistics, AR devices sold only 280,000 units in 2021, which is still less than a fraction of the quarterly shipments of VR headsets. Moreover, 80% of the shipments of AR headset devices are enterprise users.

It can be said that AR still has a long way to go from the consumer side.

But if you can’t go to the consumer side, AR glasses are afraid of being unsustainable. Because the cost of hardware devices such as AR glasses is not low, and can only be mass-produced to improve sales and thus reduce costs.

In 2021, Meta upgraded the 64GB version of Quest 2 directly to 128G, and increased the volume without increasing the price, still maintaining a price of $299. Under the high cost performance directly opened the consumer market. That is, in 2021, the VR headset ushered in the inflection point of the market explosion. After opening the user market, the content ecology will naturally follow to improve.

Of course, this kind of strong price subsidy can only be sustained by a giant company like Meta. Obviously, the domestic AR star company Nreal wants to replicate Meta’s successful experience in the VR headset field, but the product side is still a huge regret. The hastily launched AR glasses are recognized by many consumers as a “half-finished product”.

In addition to the product technology, AR glasses also face the problem of limited use scenarios on the consumer side, in other words, consumers do not know what irreplaceable functions the AR glasses can achieve. Without rigid consumer demand, it is difficult to persuade consumers to try AR glasses that are not inexpensive. At present, the consumer-grade AR glasses launched on the market are far from being able to replace the use of smartphones in the scenario.

The reason why capital and market pay close attention to Apple’s movement is of course the expectation that Apple, which once unveiled the history of smartphone development, can provide a solution for consumer-grade AR. But the frequently shelved Apple AR products have once again poured cold water on the AR market.

This is true for large manufacturers, and even more difficult for AR startups.

The importance of funding for startups during the technology start-up period cannot be overstated. Nreal, which is backed by Azure Capital and Sequoia Capital, says that at least 70% of its funds are used for R&D. However, even though many AR startups have invested a lot of money, the progress of the technology is still slow, and the sales figures are certainly dismal. Capital naturally can’t let go of bottomless pits, and with the withdrawal of funds, the development of startups has been plagued. Once valued as high as 12 billion yuan, AR glasses company Shadowtronics has had no more capital injection since September 2020, and was exposed as owing half a year’s salary to its employees.

With Apple’s delayed delivery, capital and creators can only bet heavily on the future of AR glasses once.

The post Where are the piggybacked Apple AR glasses stuck? appeared first on TechGoing.

For this upcoming, and some kind of “reality” related change is what, in the end, is virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), extended reality (extended reality, ER) or mixed reality (mixed reality, XR), many people have different views.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has changed the company’s name from Facebook to Meta and encompassed all of these realities in what he considers to be a “meta-universe. This marketing scheme has led many to see Zuckerberg as the leader, or at least the thought leader, of this new trend.

According to the press, Zuckerberg insists that VR represents the future, while Apple believes it’s AR. confusingly, Apple, the main driver of the hardware platform, is expected to launch an AR-enabled VR product next year.

With so much fear, uncertainty, doubt and hype surrounding the so-called “metaverse,” it’s important to stop and understand what’s happening now and what could happen in the future. Mike Elgan, a columnist in the technology field, argues that

— There is no meta-universe, and there never will be. The metaverse is really a shared, open VR/AR version of the Internet.

— The basic end-user devices for VR and AR experiences fall into three categories: 1) bulky VR headsets for indoor use only; 2) bulky AR headsets for indoor use only, and 3) everyday AR glasses that look like regular glasses.

— Of the three categories above, the first two will offer exciting, high-quality experiences, but will always be niche products in specific areas only. For example, video game consoles or drones, are popular but not central to most people’s lives.

— The third category is AR glasses that can be worn throughout the day in all social situations, and which will likely replace smartphones as the core must-have device for everyone. Such devices will spark a revolution in human culture, changing the way we live, work, and think. Some argue that within 10 years, AR glasses will become more important in work and life than smartphones.

Knowing these trends, what kind of plan does Apple have to respond?

Apple now has hundreds of employees actively building two separate hardware platforms, which will run a mobile operating system called realityOS. The first platform is a headset, and the second is smart glasses.

Apple’s headset, which is expected to ship next year, is essentially VR hardware primarily for AR support, although it also supports VR capabilities. For AR, this means that the camera will capture a view of the user’s physical environment, which will be presented to the user in real-time and augmented with audio and visual information. It was previously reported that Apple’s killer app for this platform would be a virtual meeting based on digital avatars. The hardware will be as powerful as a personal computer and just as expensive (at least $2,000), and will feature two 8K displays, one for each eye.

Apple’s AR glasses will be equipped with sensors for mapping 3D space and monitoring the user’s identity, gaze focus and other factors. Spatial audio will help create the illusion that virtual objects exist in physical space. The glasses will look much like regular glasses and will support the use of prescription lenses and could ship in 2025. Little is known about the final configuration of this eyewear product, and Apple may not have finalized the specifications yet.

Elgan believes that of the two products, the glasses are likely to spark a new revolution, replacing smartphones as the central platform for a major cultural change.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly stressed that the company sees AR as the future of Apple. So why build two platforms at the same time? Why develop VR devices? Why didn’t Apple just wait until the smart glasses technology was mature before entering the market? In the words of Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft, it’s all about attracting developers.

Apple’s first headset will likely be launched primarily as a proof of concept to inform the revolutionary glasses to come. They will likely compete in a crowded market limited to short-term indoor use with devices that will actually provide an exciting experience but appear too bulky and restrictive for most businesses or consumers.

However, these types of headsets will give developers a reason to embrace and stick with ARkit. They will enable enterprise developers to build custom apps and encourage niche markets to use realityOS for event marketing and experiential marketing. They will also show the world what Apple plans to do and create a more secure environment for the upcoming Apple Glass. The glasses could go mainstream and become the platform that replaces smartphones.

Many expect Apple to call the headset “Apple Reality”. The best-case scenario for Apple is that the AR glasses will be available within three years, with thousands of compelling apps running on them by then. Truly compelling apps take a lot of time to develop, and companies need years to test, develop, train and integrate. As a stopgap measure, Apple Reality will provide Apple with the time it needs.

Will this strategy work? It is not yet known. Apple has a good track record, but it will depend on what Apple actually develops and what its competitors do. Apple has a chance to lead the third major industry change (the other two being personal computers and smartphones). But whether Apple succeeds or fails, it’s almost certain that AR glasses will lead the third big change.

Why will smart glasses change the world?
When people can wear smart glasses like regular glasses anywhere, it may enter the so-called “augmented society”. For example, when you read an e-book or view a document on the web or on your laptop, every element you see is a portal to relevant information. They can be copied, pasted, shared, captured, indexed, duplicated, sampled, saved and searched.

Researchers at the University of Surrey have released a new version of their “Next Generation Paper” (NGP) project. With low-cost conductive paper, physical paper books can provide enhanced content through simple gestures. For example, flip the paper and contextual information will be displayed on a nearby device. This idea will be implemented by advanced AR glasses, which will be able to recognize text and provide any type of contextual information through gestures, without the need for special paper, smartphones or tablets. The contextual information will be displayed hovering over the book.

Cameras and other sensors, coupled with artificial intelligence (AI), will enable smart glasses to recognize books, as well as symbols, landmarks, objects, people, etc. QR codes will tell the glasses where to place virtual images and information. the huge shift that AR will bring is that everything, not just digital things, will have access to digital properties. Knowledge about things seems to increasingly reside on the things themselves, rather than in the human mind or on the Internet.

While it is interesting to know how smart glasses will support what we do on our smartphones, it is important to remember that smartphones have also enabled things not previously possible, such as posting photos on social media. Smart glasses will turn the entire world into our own personal AI-enhanced computers that will have capabilities we can’t even imagine right now while supporting behaviors we never thought possible.

Apple can’t afford to take a back seat to the next culture-changing technology, and for that reason, it is building two platforms: one to attract developers and the other to deal with big changes.

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