What's happening with AR at Apple?

The biggest news of AR Apple came long after the lights went dark on the Steve Jobs Theater scene yesterday. Apple has made virtually no mention of the AR during the iPhone event. Only later, when Apple released a new beta for iOS 13 and, as expected, it contained significant references to a new stereo order processing framework and a kind of headset.

Despite some experiences with the phone-based AR in recent years, Apple has not announced any type of AR headset or any support for the stereo AR. It is therefore surprising to talk about this technology in an operating system for iOS devices. It would not be the first implementation of stereo AR on an iPhone. Disney and Lenovo have been collaborating for two years on a simple and inexpensive AR helmet compatible with iOS and Android. The RA is composed of two almost identical images. When the phone goes into the headset, each image is reflected by one of your eyes and the images on the screen suddenly appear in the form of a single 3D image.

We do not know if the stereo AR referenced in iOS 13 Beta behaves the same way, but it's a possibility. Heck, everything related to stereo AR and headphones might relate to third party products like the Lenovo headset. Or it could be something simple, like Google Cardboard for AR. What has been found so far in the beta does not indicate what will happen.

But the documentation refers to Garta, the material that seems to come from Apple and seems to be a kind of AR device mounted on the head. MacRumors referred for the first time to Garta on September 2nd. But an AR headset has been developed at Apple much longer.

The Financial Times and Bloomberg both reported on a headset project in March 2017. In April 2017, Gizmodo reported on incident reports prepared by a subcontractor of the company. Environment, health and safety, which seemed to confirm the development of a type of headphones. Two separate incident reports reported eye injuries during prototype testing.

In late 2017, Tim Cook told The Independent that high-quality anti-glare glasses technology did not exist yet:

"But today, I can tell you that the technology itself does not exist to do it qualitatively. The display technology required as well as the addition of enough material around the face – this poses enormous problems.

"The field of view, the quality of the display itself, is not there yet," he says. And as for all of its products, Apple will only send a product if it is convinced that it can do so "qualitatively".

"We do not want the rat to be first, we want to be the best and give people a good experience," he says. "But now, everything you see in the market anytime soon is not something that none of us would be happy with. I also do not think that the vast majority of people would be satisfied.

And the problem is that it still is not the case. I say that as someone who has used advanced noise-canceling helmets. I tried the two helmets HoloLens 2 and Magic Leap and they are impressive, if not exactly ready for the general public. Microsoft has defined the AR user interface and Magic Leap achieves incredible performance in terms of AR image quality.

But the helmets themselves are still giant monsters and it's not because Magic Leap and Microsoft are made up of giant dorks. They must be bulky and dorky because it is difficult to get a high resolution translucent image in front of your eyeball that overlaps in the real world.

In the event that Apple would have created a better AR screen than the competition and designed a product that people would like to wear, there was still no way of knowing how it would be powered. HoloLens 2 places the battery and the computer on the back of the headset, making it a counterweight to the screen. The Magic Leap contains all this in a small device that looks like Discman you wear at the waist.

The documentation found by the developer Steve Troughton-Smith gives you a reasonable idea of ​​what Apple might attempt in a device. Theoretically, the headset could be a passive device allowing the iPhone to do the job. Think of it like at the Apple Watch: it must be connected to a phone to do everything outside of the hour.

The Apple Watch is perhaps the best Apple comparison for a theoretical headset. The Apple Watch has succeeded not to be the first on the market, but to find the right mix of aesthetic design, features and ease of use. The Apple Watch is not perfect – it only lasts 18 hours with a charge – but it has done something long-coveted, but enough so that you do not know the flaws.

That's what the Apple AR helmet will also have to do. And, given the state of the display technology, it is unlikely that he can control this mix at this time.

So, the long-awaited AR helmet of Garta Apple? There is certainly a possibility, even if it is very far away. But maybe Garta is something simpler: the version of an Apple Developer Console. A bulky and heavy device intended solely for the development of software.

Be that as it may, it is clear that although Apple has not made public its risk recovery plans, it still remains in the company's mind.

Do you know anything about Apple's AR hardware? You can leave me a message at [email protected] or [email protected]. My DMs are also open if you want to request my signal number or you can still contact Gizmodo anonymously via SecureDrop.