Apple Glasses concept is inspired by Steve Jobs’ iconic frames

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AR glasses
Would you wear Apple Glasses like this?
Photo: Taeyeon Kim

Apple is reportedly interested in building augmented reality glasses that work with its ARKit framework. Although such technology is likely a few years away, designer Taeyeon Kim has created a design concept for what such Apple Glasses may look like.

Check them out below.

Taeyeon Kim
The all-important Apple logo.
Photo: Taeyeon Kim

Augmented reality glasses for hipsters

The hipster-style glasses owe a debt to the eyewear of Steve Jobs, who favored perfectly round glasses created by the eyewear brand Robert Marc.

The glasses borrow from the colors Apple is currently using for the iPhone, while also boasting a detaching templepiece detail from the Apple Watch, that would let users swap the arms of the glasses depending on the occasion.

Taeyeon Kim
A look at the potential packaging.
Concept: Taeyeon Kim

Personally, I think the design is still too bulky and, while it may appeal to hipster urbanites, it’s difficult to imagine it appealing to older customers, who still represent a sizable portion of Apple’s customer base.

The moving away of the Apple Watch’s marketing from being a luxury fashion brand, as it was originally promoted, to a fitness one also shows the challenges Apple will have if its AR glasses tilt too strongly in the fashion direction. Even more than watches, glasses are extremely personal products, and it would be a massive challenge for Apple to create just a few designs that would appeal to large numbers of users — especially if they were to be worn in multiple settings.

Still, it’s fun to speculate on what Apple’s next products may look like — and, in this case, whether it will be able to avoid the poor design which ultimately helped derail Google Glass.

Taeyeon Kim
Would you like your glasses in rose gold?
Photo: Taeyeon Kim

We doubt that Apple is in too much of a rush to get its AR glasses out. Not only has uptake of ARKit among developers reportedly been a bit disappointing, suggesting that augmented reality is still relatively immature as a market, but Tim Cook has pointed to technical challenges as well.

While Apple supposedly has a team of hundreds of engineers working on AR headsets, CEO Tim Cook has tempered expectations by saying that the technology to make an AR headset in a quality way just isn’t available yet.

What do you think of this design? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Yanko Design

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