Tim Cook’s dream of Augmented Reality is back on course as Apple works with its component suppliers to bring the power of FaceID and its real-world sensors to the rear of the iPhone, allowing the world of AR to explode into iOS powered devices in 2019.
This new information comes from Alex Webb and Yuji Nakamura for Bloomberg, as they report on Apple’s latest plans:
Apple has started discussions with prospective suppliers of the new system, the people said. Companies manufacturing time-of-flight sensors include Infineon Technologies AG, Sony Corp., STMicroelectronics NV and Panasonic Corp. The testing of the technology is still in early stages and it could end up not being used in the final version of the phone, the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing unreleased features. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.
For those of you with sharp memories, Tim Cook and his team made a huge play about AR during this summer’s WWDC event, launching ARkit and pushing Apple as the home for AR. In the month before the launch of the new iPhones Tim Cook reiterated his belief that AR was the future. Then, as the phones were launched, AR became a footnote in the presentation, with the expected raft of demonstrations and apps severely cut down.
Although Apple may not have been pushing AR with this year’s iPhone X to any great level, it is quietly preparing the world for AR with the introduction of FaceID. The sensor technology used to capture and analyse a users face was clearly on show, and the ‘animated emoji of poo’ demonstration shows that capturing data from the real world, processing it, and creating a real-time outcome was possible with the hardware.
The job now is to capture more data and expertise that cannot be replicated in a Shenzhen warehouse, and that’s where the latest leak comes in. By taking the TrueDepth sensor from the forward facing camera and putting it on the rear of the handset, the iPhone can gather data on its physical surroundings and the objects that are close by to it. Throw in the camera to see what is being observed, add in a dash of machine learning in Apple’s own hardware, and you have one of the key components of AR.
Bloomberg’s report on the potential of a rearward facing sensor fits in with Cook’s almost religious focus on AR as being the future. With FaceID now public, the focus will now switch for looking at the user, to what the user is looking at. As with much of the technology inside the iPhone X, the TrueDepth sensor and its associated software is being tested for free by millions of users. Pair that up with Apple’s own R&D into AR and the two-year timescale for a ‘proper’ AR rollout on an iPhone looks achievable.
