New iPhone 8 Feature Needs To Be More Than A Gimmick

I have a lingering scepticism about the iPhone 8’s supposed AR tech.

Traditionally, when Apple does something, it does it well. So there’s always the assumption that when it dips its feet into a new technological arena, success is guaranteed.

But with augmented reality being so rarely used by other tech companies for anything other than demo ware (excluding the Pokemon Go craze), I’m hoping Apple has something clever up its sleeve. 

We know little about Apple’s plans so far, but small revelations to date haven’t exactly been inspiring.

A report from Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources, explained that Apple is pouring lots of money, time and effort - alongside bringing in experts and acquiring AR-related companies - to make its AR offer a success.

But the AR features mentioned towards the end of the article are fairly mundane: depth sensing and manipulation of pictures, and placing virtual effects on images, much like Snapchat.

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Whilst there’s an obvious benefit to greater control over images, especially for people who specialise in on-phone picture editing, I hope that’s not the full extent of the iPhone 8’s AR tech.

If it is, then it wouldn’t be a revolutionary jump in smartphone technology, but more a modest improvement on existing features. What I’d like to see, especially since Apple is staking part of its future on AR, are clear advances on current iPhone features with augmented reality.

Gaming, shopping and combining AR on the iPhone 8 with smart home products would be a good start.  Making AR a core part of the iPhone with genuine, real-world uses is what Apple should be aiming for in its first try.  

The real ARevolution

Apple needs to make sure that it puts a clear line between the technology’s gimmicky past (half-baked marketing ideas) and what the iPhone-maker can do with the technology. One aspect of Bloomberg’s report was particularly exciting: a pair of AR glasses.

Big players like Sony and Google have tried and failed at making general purpose AR glasses, with Sony’s SmartEyeGlass effort being particularly egregious.

But Apple thinks it can make a better go of it, and given its design credentials, I suspect it will. A face-mounted AR machine is where smartphone technology should be *ahem* headed.

I’m not going to expound the benefits of face-mounted AR technology here, you can watch any mildly futuristic film to see the potential of having the world’s information available at the blink of an eye. Or how it can go horribly wrong. 

But I will say that Apple’s acquisitions, hiring of talent and re-deployment of departments to AR related endeavours is a clear sign that Apple knows which way the wind is blowing, and it’s staking its future on AR.

In short, whenever the Cupertino-based company decides to reveal its AR spectacles, expect them to be more than a concept, or even a clunky first generation device. Instead, they’ll likely be mass-market ready kit that will do a better job of convincing people that they need to wear a smartphone on their face.