Summer is generally a quiet season for business, but now with Labor Day in our rear-view mirror the industry news is kicking up. A number of big announcements and product launches are coming up in the next few weeks, so it’s time to speculate! Here are the five things that I am watching this week…
1. Apple Event announced
Apple announced their fall event will be held next Tuesday, September 14th. This event is widely expected to be the launch platform of the next generation of iPhones (most likely the iPhone 13, as they seem to have abandoned their off-year “S” branding).
This year’s event will once again be a streamed broadcast (thanks Delta), and is also likely to introduce a new series of the Apple Watch, but expect the new iPhones to get most of the attention.
For these devices, there are many rumored features that we are interested in: better cameras (and possibly an astrophotography mode?), smaller notches (fun fact: the notch is a Kinect… no, really), and faster screen refresh rates (which is great news for gaming).
https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/7/22648593/apple-fall-event-2021-date-iphone-macbook-watch
2. … and they included a pretty cool AR Easter Egg
This one is rather impressive. Go to the Apple Events page (with your iPhone, sorry Android folks) and click the Apple Logo in the hero image. This will launch an AR experience that lets you pass through the portal just like in the announcement tweets.
https://9to5mac.com/2021/09/07/apple-hypes-next-weeks-iphone-13-event-with-ar-portal-experience/
3. So wait, does that mean AR glasses?
Sadly, probably not this year, but we do seem to be getting closer. There are a lot of systems that have to be built to make wearable AR work properly, and Apple continues to add and refine hardware and software for these with each successive release. We will surely see the continued inclusion of LIDAR for depth scanning. This was already a feature for the Pro models of iPhone 12, and it remains to be see if the 13 will be only-Pro for LIDAR, or expand the tech to the other models.
We also know that a number of new AR features and capabilities are expected to be included with iOS 15, as many of them were featured earlier this year at their annual WWDC developer event. These libraries include Object Capture to scan and capture 3D models of real world objects, RealityKit 2, Apple’s software for generating AR experiences, and ARKit 5, which is similar to RealityKit, but focuses more on how to place objects in real world environment. (This year, ARKit 5 finally includes the ability to anchor objects to geolocations). Tim Cook has called AR the “next big thing” and that seems to be holding steady.
Make no mistake, Apple is definitely working on AR glasses, and reportedly also AR/VR glasses, and have been for some time. But the details are kept super top secret, and what we do know is mostly pieced together through rumors, patent filings, and chip industry reports. MacRumors has a nice roundup of what is known or suspected.
https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/apple-glasses/
4. Facebook ALSO has an announcement…
Not to be outdone, Facebook and Ray-Ban (yes, the sunglasses maker) are teasing their own “smart glasses” announcement which will occur this Thursday, Sept 9th.
So what will this be? Probably not “wearable AR” in the “mixed reality” sense of the Hololens or Magic Leap. Based on their early promotional teases (mostly first person action views) these are probably going to be some enhanced camera sunglasses – like a wearable GoPro, or maybe something capable of capturing multiple perspectives such as Snapchat Spectacles. (Note, that’s the OLD Snapchat Spectacle, and not the next-generation Spectacles device which does operate much in the same way as the Hololens, except only used for snap-chatting. Still… progress).
Hopefully they are at least a step up from Bose AR smart glasses, which were an audio-only augmentation, and relied on your phone’s GPS and motion sensor to handle spatial sensing. They were… an odd choice.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/7/22661109/facebook-ray-ban-luxottica-smart-glasses-teaser
5. IRS looks for AR Solution
File this under the “why AR?” category. The IRS has put out an RFP for Augmented Reality enhancements to their tax forms. DEA has also proposed an AR solution, but one that would provide a live mapping view for their surveillance aircraft.
https://gcn.com/articles/2021/08/19/irs-dea-augmented-reality.aspx