Speculation about whether Apple is going to release an augmented reality headset has been going strong for a few years now.
The overall viability of virtual reality and augmented reality as a mass market consumer product is still an open-ended question. What is known is that tech giants like Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Apple have all been spending profits from their flagship products to fund augmented reality research for about a decade now. Microsoft HoloLens is perhaps considered the most successful augmented reality product on the market today. It was released to the marketplace in 2015 after being developed in part from intellectual property once owned by Ralph Osterhaut. Osterhaut’s startup company Osterhaut Design Group released its own series of augmented reality glasses that ran on Android like a smartphone before shuttering its doors earlier this year.
Now some new reports suggest that Apple might be bringing their first augmented reality product to market at some point in 2020. Hype about Apple’s research into augmented reality glasses stretches back to a wave of curious acquisitions that began in 2013 with PrimeSense. You might remember PrimeSense as the company that developed software for the earliest Kinect 3D depth sensor. The Face ID feature that Apple offers its users was developed and brought to market as a result of this acquisition.
Apple then acquired Metaio in 2015 and developed it into its augmented reality SDK, ARKit. The next few startups purchased for Apple’s research were interesting on the hardware side of the equation. Most were hardware variables for a system that allowed analysts to speculate that Apple was serious about creating an augmented reality headset. For example, hardware technology developed by hardware startup Vrvana was intriguing enough to Apple to acquire the company. Startup companies SensoMotoric Instruments, InVisage Technologies and Akonia Holographics were also acquired by Apple within the next few years.
Bloomberg recently reported that Apple was aiming for 2020 to deliver their AR headset to market. The device is expected to function in tandem with a user’s smartphone. The device will join an ecosystem of wearables like the Apple smart watch series of products.
But Apple has some serious competition.
Google built Google Glass and the project currently has a number of highly specialized uses through its partner program. Facebook reported that they are trying to deliver a consumer level headset with a new type of display in the next 3-5 years from Facebook Reality Labs. The Magic Leap One is perpetually in development, with software engineers currently working to create marketable media and entertainment content.
But the recent spike in speculation about an Apple AR headset comes mainly from respected analyst at TF International Securities Ming-Chi Kuo. He gathers intelligence from Apple’s vast supply chain in Asian countries and recently claimed that manufacturing of Apple’s augmented reality headset will begin in 2019, and that the company will go all in on a second quarter launch in 2020.
We’ll still have to wait and see. Apple has its storied history of creating hit products for the mass market, but AR has extremely tough problems to crack.