Coming way of a DigiTimes Taiwan article cited by MacRumors, Apple has reportedly ended development of its augmented reality (AR) glasses, which was formerly rumored to go into production by Q2 2020. The DigiTimes article claims that “people familiar with the situation” report that the AR glasses development team was disbanded in May and transferred to other projects. It should be noted that this quote comes from a version of the article converted from Chinese to English. The article also reports that cancellation was brought on by Apple’s inability to make the headset lightweight, integrate 5G, and offer enough quality content for users.
Though this report is concerning for enthusiasts awaiting Apple’s magic touch on the AR glasses game, the company is nowhere near abandoning AR. Their keynote at WWDC this year revealed a slew of updates for ARKit3, and Frank Casanova, a former iPhone executive and QuickTime developer, was promoted to Head of Marketing for AR. Additionally, during the company’s first quarter earnings call in 2018, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “I see AR as being profound. AR has the ability to amplify human performance instead of isolating humans. So I am a huge, huge believer in AR. We put a lot energy on AR. We’re moving very fast.”
Cook’s feelings are likely still the same given the above developments from Apple. The Cupertino tech giant is also not afraid to cancel products that they’re not confident about the quality of, given the unfortunate demise of the AirPower wireless charging pad earlier this year. Cook himself spoke about not being the first in the AR glasses game to The Independent in 2017, saying, ““We don’t give a rat’s about being first, we want to be the best, and give people a great experience. But now anything you would se on the market any time soon would not be something any of us would be satisfied with. Nor do I think the vast majority of people would be satisfied.”
Apple has been contacted about a quote on this story, but has yet to comment. An update will be issued when that quote comes in.
