Ming Chi Kuo released a new prediction this week about Apple’s AR glasses. Kuo suggested that the new glasses could be coming late this year or early next year.

As I mentioned last year, I think AR could be an exciting new way to interact with your tech and I think if done right, it could be the next big thing. It seems we are on the verge of that coming true.

Kuo makes the point that these glasses are going to be tied to the iPhone still. All the processing will be done on the phone and pushed out to the glasses. I don’t like the idea of these being tethered, but it makes sense for now. Even the iPhone was tethered to iTunes at first.

Eventually I imagine the glasses and the Apple Watch will gain independence from the phone. I imagine the Watch taking the place of the phone for most things and the glasses allowing you to actually see what you’re doing.

Competition

If Apple’s AR glasses were to get out there, they wouldn’t be the first. I’m sure that everyone remembers Google Glass and how those didn’t really pan out. I know that Bose has released some smart glasses of their own but they are taking a different path.

The Bose smart sunglasses pipe audio into your ear which in my testing wasn’t audible to others, but I’m not sure they are using bone conducting or not, but they do seem magical. But Bose isn’t going to be using visuals in their smart glasses. Right now, the glasses simply act as headphones, but in the future they plan to update them so that they can give you audio cues. The example I’ve seen is that they can tell you about exhibits inside a museum by using the GPS and other measures.

But how many people will be wearing sunglasses inside a museum?

I’m sure that Apple’s system will be more thought out that than, but will include many of the same things.

AR glasses excitement

Many people are getting excited over foldable phones, but I’m not really sold. AR feels more exciting to me. With AR we will be able to do pretty much whatever we want. We wouldn’t even need a phone to manipulate anymore. The key is going to be in how they are implemented, and I think that is an area that Apple excels in.

But I still have reservations. I think AR will need to time to grow, but I think Apple has already started that with ARkit for the iPhone. AR might seems cool but I don’t think many people use it. It’s not likely that people will hold their phones up for a long time to do things that is being required by AR. If you offload that to something like glasses, I think we will see a boom similar to when the iPhone came out. There will be some stumbling though, but I’m excited about the potential.