Apple apparently no longer sees the future through augmented reality-tinted glasses. The company is ditching a project to build AR lenses that would have competed with Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, putting the company at risk of falling far behind its rivals following the commercial failure of the Apple Vision Pro headset Gizmodo reported.
The glasses project, codenamed N107, was never made public, but Bloomberg reports that the plan was to build tech-equipped glasses that looked like any other pair but offered augmented reality features that could display information visible only to the person wearing the frames.
An initial version of the product would have connected to an iPhone, but that was scrapped once it turned out the processing power needs of the glasses stressed out the handset and rapidly drained its battery. Apple shifted gears to paring the glasses to Mac devices, but it continued to fall short of expectations in testing. Reportedly, the company threw in the towel on the project altogether earlier this week.
The Verge reported: While Mark Zuckerberg and Meta press forward with augmented glasses projects buoyed by its million-selling set of smart Ray-Bans, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman says that Apple just pulled the plug on an AR glasses protect. Codenamed N107, they’re described as something that would’ve looked similar to regular glasses but with added displays in the lenses that could connect to a Mac.
With features that sound similar to devices like the Xreal One AR glasses, the glasses could’ve delivered on the Vision Pro feature that’s closest to being any kind of killer app (popping up huge virtual monitor anywhere) without the $3,499 price and heavy design that required a head strap. The glasses also would have tint-changing lenses that, like the Vision Pro’s Eye Sight, could signal to onlookers whether the wearer was busy or not. While other details are fuzzy, it doesn’t appear as if the N107 glasses would’ve had a camera or any of the mixed -reality features of the Vision Pro.
The most recent cancellation puts a big question mark over Apple’s future AR and XR plans. Apple purportedly canceled a separate AR glasses projected in 2023, and rumor has it that work on a Vision Pro 2 has been put on hold in favor of trying to create a cheaper Vision Pro. Meanwhile, the Vision Pro itself has struggled to find foothold.
AppleInsider reported: According to a new leak, Apple has pulled the plug on a project that allegedly hoped to produce lower-cost augmented reality glasses after the project seemingly couldn’t meet executive expectations.
The device in question would have looked like a standard pair of glasses, but would feature built-in displays. It also would have required a persistent tether to a Mac.
This device, which was code-named N107, would have been seen as a more affordable alternative to the Apple Vision Pro. After all, one of the biggest complaints about the Apple Vision Pro is nearly $3,500 price tag — before taxes.
In my opinion, it appears that Apple has decided to not continue the N107 smart glasses. This might disappoint those who wanted to use to try them out.