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   Apple Wants to Bring Augmented Reality to the Masses   
   Mark Gurman @markgurman More stories by Mark Gurman   
      
   CEO Tim Cook is betting on augmented reality, a cousin of VR that he believes   
   will keep his company on top and may even supplant the iPhone.   
   by   
      
   March 20, 2017, 6:00 AM EDT   
      
   Tim Cook has talked up a lot of technologies since becoming Apple Inc.'s   
   chief executive in 2011. Driverless cars. Artificial intelligence. Streaming   
   television. But no technology has fired up Cook quite like augmented reality,   
   which overlays images, video and games on the real world. Cook has likened   
   AR's game-changing potential to that of the smartphone. At some point, he   
   said last year, we will all "have AR experiences every day, almost like   
   eating three meals a day. It will become that much a part of you."   
      
   Investors impatient for Apple's next breakthrough will be happy to know that   
   Cook is very serious about AR. People with knowledge of the company's plans   
   say Apple has embarked on an ambitious bid to bring the technology to the   
   masses—an effort Cook and his team see as the best way for the company to   
   dominate the next generation of gadgetry and keep people wedded to its   
   ecosystem.   
      
   Apple has built a team combining the strengths of its hardware and software   
   veterans with the expertise of talented outsiders, say the people, who   
   requested anonymity to discuss internal strategy. Run by a former Dolby   
   Laboratories executive, the group includes engineers who worked on the Oculus   
   and HoloLens virtual reality headsets sold by Facebook and Microsoft as well   
   as digital-effects wizards from Hollywood. Apple has also acquired several   
   small firms with knowledge of AR hardware, 3D gaming and virtual reality   
   software.   
      
   As previously reported by Bloomberg, Apple is working on several AR products,   
   including digital spectacles that could connect wirelessly to an iPhone and   
   beam content—movies, maps and more—to the wearer. While the glasses are a   
   ways off, AR features could show up in the iPhone sooner.   
      
   Apple declined to comment.    
      
   It's an auspicious moment for Apple to move into augmented reality. The   
   global market for AR products will surge 80 percent to $165 billion by 2024,   
   according to researcher Global Market Insights. But Apple really has no   
   choice, says Gene Munster, a founding partner at Loup Ventures who covered   
   the company for many years as an analyst. Over time, Munster says, AR devices   
   will replace the iPhone. "It's something they need to do to continue to   
   grow," he says, "and defend against the shift in how people use hardware."    
      
   Augmented reality is the less known cousin of virtual reality. VR gets more   
   attention because it completely immerses users in an artificial world and has   
   an obvious attraction for gamers. So far, however, headsets like the Oculus   
   and HoloLens are niche rather than mainstream products. Apple believes AR   
   will be an easier sell because it's less intrusive. Referring to VR headsets,   
   Cook last year said he thought few people will want to be "enclosed in   
   something."   
      
   Building a successful AR product will be no easy task, even for a company   
   known for slim, sturdy devices. The current crop of AR glasses are either   
   under-powered and flimsy or powerful and overwhelmingly large. Apple, the   
   king of thin and light, will have to leapfrog current products by launching   
   something small and powerful.    
      
   Adding AR features to the iPhone isn't a giant leap. Building glasses will be   
   harder. Like the Watch, they'll probably be tethered to the iPhone. While the   
   smartphone will do the heavy lifting, beaming 3D content to the glasses will   
   consume a lot of power, so prolonging battery life will be crucial. Content   
   is key too. If Apple's AR glasses lack useful apps, immersive games and   
   interesting media content, why would someone wear them? The glasses will also   
   require a new operating system and perhaps even a new chip. Finally, Apple   
   will have to source the guts of the gadget cheaply enough to make it   
   affordable for the mass market.   
      
   When it was developing the Watch, Apple put together a multi-disciplinary   
   team drawn from inside and outside the company. It has done much the same   
   with the AR effort. In 2015, Apple recruited Mike Rockwell, who previously   
   ran the hardware and new technologies groups at Dolby, the iconic company   
   known for its audio and video technology. Rockwell also advised Meta, a small   
   firm that makes $950 AR glasses and counts Dolby as an investor.   
      
   Rockwell now runs the main AR team at Apple, reporting to Dan Riccio, who's   
   in charge of the iPhone and iPad hardware engineering groups, the people   
   said. "He's a really sharp guy," says Jack McCauley, who co-founded and   
   worked at Oculus before it was sold to Facebook in 2015. "He could certainly   
   put a team together that could get an Apple AR project going."    
      
   Last spring, in a sign that it's serious about taking products to market,   
   Apple put some of its best hardware and software people on Rockwell's team,   
   including Fletcher Rothkopf who helped lead the team that designed the Apple   
   Watch, and Tomlinson Holman, who created THX, the audio standard made popular   
   by LucasFilm.   
      
   Apple has also recruited people with expertise in everything from 3D video   
   production to wearable hardware. Among them, the people say: Cody White,   
   former lead engineer of Amazon's Lumberyard virtual reality platform; Duncan   
   McRoberts, Meta's former director of software development; Yury Petrov, a   
   former Oculus researcher; and Avi Bar-Zeev, who worked on the HoloLens and   
   Google Earth.    
      
   Apple has rounded out the team with iPhone, camera and optical lens   
   engineers. There are people with experience in sourcing the raw materials for   
   the glasses. The company has also mined the movie industry's 3D animation   
   ranks, the people said, opening a Wellington office and luring several   
   employees from Weta Digital, the New Zealand special-effects shop that worked   
   on King Kong, Avatar and other films.    
      
   Besides hiring people, Apple has been busy making tactical acquisitions. In   
   2015, the company acquired Metaio, which developed AR software. Former Metaio   
   CEO Thomas Alt now works on Apple's strategic deals team, which decides which   
   technologies to invest in. Last year, Apple also bought FlyBy Media, which   
   makes AR-related camera software. Cook even visited the offices of Magic Leap   
   last summer and displayed interest in the secretive company's AR technology,   
   the people say. Magic Leap declined to comment.    
      
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   Hundreds of engineers are now devoted to the cause, including some on the   
   iPhone camera team who are working on AR-related features for the iPhone,   
   according to one of the people. One of the features Apple is exploring is the   
   ability to take a picture and then change the depth of the photograph or the   
   depth of specific objects in the picture later; another would isolate an   
   object in the image, such as a person's head, and allow it to be tilted 180   
   degrees. A different feature in development would use augmented reality to   
   place virtual effects and objects on a person, much the way Snapchat works.   
   The iPhone camera features would probably rely on a technology known as depth   
   sensing and use algorithms created by PrimeSense, an Israeli company acquired   
   in 2013. Apple may choose to not roll out these features, but such additions   
   are an up-and-coming trend in the phone business.   
      
   The AR-enhanced glasses are further down the road, the people say. Getting   
   the product right will be key, of course. Wearables are hard. Apple's first   
   stab at the category, the Watch, has failed to become a mainstream hit. And   
   no one has forgotten Google Glass, the much-derided headset that bombed in   
   2014. Still, time and again, Apple has waited for others to go first and then   
   gone on to dominate the market. "To be successful in AR, there is the   
   hardware piece, but you have to do other stuff too: from maps to social to   
   payments," Munster says. "Apple is one of the only companies that will be   
   able to pull it off."    
      
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