Apple Scores AR Eye-Tracking Coup With SMI Acquisition

[scolaner]

It’s no secret that Apple is planning to build an AR headset of some kind, but with the purchase of SMI, the company has, in one fell swoop, revealed a key part of its plan and also undercut the plans of some of its XR competitors.

Apple Scores AR Eye-Tracking Coup With SMI Acquisition : Read more

 

[bit_user]

Let's just hope Apple's first AR product does for the industry what their iPhone did for smartphones.

On a technical level, I think it's going to be more of a me-too, adopting mostly stuff we've seen in other products. But, if it takes the tech mainstream, that's more than enough.

 

[scolaner]

Let's just hope Apple's first AR product does for the industry what their iPhone did for smartphones.

On a technical level, I think it's going to be more of a me-too, adopting mostly stuff we've seen in other products. But, if it takes the tech mainstream, that's more than enough.

Agreed and agreed. And actually, that makes sense--Apple is typically great at design, which in this case means it doesn't need to invent any new tech. It just needs to package it all correctly and make the industrial design click with people. I think most of the pieces are there...

I don't see why we can't have a paradigm wherein you have a pair of relatively lightweight glasses (with sensors, eye tracking, a HUD, etc) that connect to a phone in your pocket that does all the computing and pumps the data/video to the spectacles. The display's GPU/CPU reqs should be pretty lightweight, not unlike HoloLens. But for consumers.

Give me that and a wireless keyboard (that folds) and a wireless mouse, and I have my new mobile productivity loadout.

 

[mpdugas]

If it's Apple, it's no go.

 

[bit_user]

If it's Apple, it's no go.

No disrespect, but I think that might be a bit narrow-minded. Now, I'm no Apple fanboy. I don't own a singe piece of Apple hardware. Never have.

...but I recognize what they did for the smartphone market, and I think we've all benefited from that. So, I'm rooting for them. I want to see them use all their skills, talent, branding, and clout to really help take this tech mainstream.

I don't think any of the other players are going to pull it off: not Samsung, Microsoft, Facebook, nor even Google. Sure, they might sell a few million units and give us techies some cool stuff to play with. But we need this stuff to move in the tens and hundreds of million units, and I think that can happen through Apple. They can give it cache' and create the demand.