"AUGMENTED REALITY IS THE FUTURE NOT VIRTUAL REALITY " SAID BY TIM COOK

According to a recent interview, Apple CEO Tim Cook, claimed that augmented reality (AR) will be a big thing in the years to come. In fact, he went on to claim that it will be commonplace and that everyone will be using it in the same way as people use their smartphones.

It was indeed interesting to see Cook talk about augmented reality at the Utah Tech Tour. This is more so because Apple seems to be the only company that has yet to officially reveal a VR or an AR product. Apple who is known to make bold moves with its products (removal of the headphone jack, DVD drive etc.) has so far steered clear or VR or AR, which could hint that may be the world isn’t ready for it just yet.

Tim Cook’s inputs on VR and AR are pretty logical. As reported by MacWorld, he commented “nobody in here, few people in here, think it’s acceptable to be tethered to a computer walking in here and sitting down, few people are going to view that it’s acceptable to be enclosed in something, because we’re all social people at heart.” Cook was not against VR as he said, “I’m excited about VR from an education point of view, I think it can be really big for education, I think it can be very big for games. But I can’t imagine everyone in here getting in an enclosed VR experience while you’re sitting in here with me.”

In short, it’s just that VR will not cut it for people who are on the move. This may all seem like right direction for VR. But Google seems to have its own stand about VR. It’s daydream platform is set to change things and while little has been known about it, we do know that it will be powered by smartphones.

Cook’s philosophy about AR being better does hold plenty of water. This thanks to the fact that augmented reality experiences already exist and this is not just with hit games like Pokemon Go. Microsoft too is looking at something similar, but it takes things a step further and calls it mixed-reality instead.

Tim Cook with his comments does indeed hint at AR experiences coming to the company’s hero product. The company has been acquiring a number of companies, including motion capture firm, Faceshift and Emotient and more recently, FlyBy Media, a company that creates augmented reality software. So it is clear that Apple will go all in with AR. What isn’t clear is weather AR will appear on an iPhone or a new hero product that is yet to come. Something’s definitely cooking at Apple.