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Apple

Apple Said To Be Working on AR Glasses With Carl Zeiss (cnet.com) 66

Posted by msmash from the definitely,-maybe dept.
Apple seems behind Microsoft, Google, and Facebook on the nascent augmented reality space, but that could change soon. From a report on CNET: The tech titan is working with the German optics manufacturer Carl Zeiss on a pair of lightweight AR/mixed reality glasses, according to tech evangelist Robert Scoble. The project, which could be announced as early as this year, was confirmed by a Zeiss employee, Scoble wrote in a Facebook post.
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Apple Said To Be Working on AR Glasses With Carl Zeiss More

Apple Said To Be Working on AR Glasses With Carl Zeiss

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  • Apple is behind (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The-Ixian ( 168184 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2017 @03:49PM (#53644087)

    Has Apple ever been first with anything?

    Seems to me, Apple has always just taken what exists but then makes it pretty and sometimes easier to use.

    Lately, Apple just seems to be a fashion company with a technology spin.

    • Google already tried augmented reality. How is Google glass doing these days?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Google Glass is not AR. It's a little side window, no overlay/HUD on top of what you're seeing at all.

    • Re:Apple is behind (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rwven ( 663186 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2017 @04:12PM (#53644263)

      I think that's really the key though. With the iPhone, they took the concept of a smartphone and made it into something that was user friendly and that people wanted to use. Same with the iPad/Tablet Computers. Previous attempts existed, but were clunky and offered (relatively) crappy user experiences.

      If they can take Google's clunky concept and come up with a way to use it that is aesthetically appealing and easy to use (and live with), they could have a winner on their hands.

      The real question is if they can do a proper job of it without Steve Jobs at the helm.

      (Disclaimer: Not a fan of apple at all as a company and own zero apple devices. Just acknowledging the obvious.)

      • Re:Apple is behind (Score:5, Informative)

        by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2017 @06:12PM (#53644915)
        Are you kidding? We had PDAs long before smartphones [wikipedia.org]. They weren't klunky, and the user experience wasn't crappy. By the early 2000s, it was obvious PDAs were going to converge with phones (well, obvious to everyone except Microsoft, who completely missed the boat despite having conquered PalmOS as the PDA OS of choice). The only question was if PDAs would pick up phone features, or if phones would pick up PDA features. RIM (Blackberry) was the first company to really combine these two effectively, which is why they took an early lead in the smartphone market.

        The two innovations the iPhone brought were
        1. (1) a completely touchscreen interface. Given that LG actually did this before the iPhone [wikipedia.org], I don't really count this as a true Apple innovation. The Prada is evidence that the smartphone market was already heading in this direction before the iPhone, and our smartphones would still be touchscreen phones today even if the iPhone had never existed.
        2. (2) an integrated app marketplace for loading third party apps onto the device. Early PDAs (like the Palm Pilot) had had the ability to run third party apps. But you had to side-load them by first downloading them onto your computer, then transfer them from the computer to the PDA. That was a klunky process. The App Store neatly streamlined that process (in the same way that iTunes streamlined getting music onto your MP3 player, leading to the success of the iPod). This was a true innovation which I give Apple full credit for - it turned your smartphone from an accessory of your personal computer, into a general purpose computer in its own right.

        • well, obvious to everyone except Microsoft, who completely missed the boat

          Weird thing is, Microsoft did the smart thing first. Apple just had a better UI (specifically, browsing the internet was about 10 times easier on an iPhone than a Microsoft phone/PDA).

          • More than a better UI.

            Microsoft tried to port the Windows experience to a phone. failed miserably.

            With windows 8 they tried the opposite approach. Port a phone UI to a desktop. also failed miserably.

            The UI goes deep. it's not just menu typeface. APple understood what navigating a small touchscreen should be.

  • First they took Apple from the Beatles, then they grabbed iPhone from Cisco, now they're going to try to wrest eyePhone from Momcorp.

    eyePhone
    aaiiiiiPhone it's a direct ocular implant, see...
    arrrrPhone pirate patch extra charge
  • It makes sense, considering the good things Cook has said about augmented reality. Quote:

    "There's virtual reality and there's augmented reality -- both of these are incredibly interesting," Cook said in the interview. "But my own view is that augmented reality is the larger of the two, probably by far."

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      AR can be far more useful. Successfully overlaying useful information, such as CAD renderings, properly in your field of view will be more useful to many more people than total sensory replacement devices. VR will still do very well in simulator arrangements, like expensive/high risk training scenarios.

      If Google gets to define the field, AR will actually be used to force advertisements at wearers throughout every minute of their day. Regardless of my disinterest in iThingies, I prefer Apple set the templ

  • Sure to be reasonably priced (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Zeiss? Apple? Hmm, I wonder what kind of loan I'm going to need to take out to look awesome with these babies?

  • iEye? (Score:3)

    by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2017 @04:29PM (#53644335)

    iEye?

    • Since eyes come in pairs, a more logical name would be iEyeEye. The advertising could feature Sofia Vergara.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      I actually think "iGlasses" would be cute. But nowadays Apple wants everything to be "Apple-this" and "Apple-that".

  • Brushing up on our sci fi, zeiss, et al

  • They do nothing!

  • Are these the same glasses Roddy Piper wore? Are we going to find out who our overlords truly are?

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