I suspect AR glasses, if done well, will be the next big world changing thing. Each WWDC conference releases more SDK advancements directly related to AR. They are also moving more of their AI features (Siri, text recognition, etc) to be on device rather than processed on a remote server. Something necessary for a smooth AR experience. Lots of releases and updates over the last couple of years all point to AR glasses.

WWDC sessions https://developer.apple.com/wwdc22/sessions/ https://developer.apple.com/wwdc22/sessions/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc2020/

The big issue with AR is that many people prefer to use eyeglasses instead of contact lenses. Many also wear sunglasses outdoors. I don't see a big AR breakthrough coming until someone figures out how to combine AR with the other functionality people expect from their glasses.

> that many people prefer to use eyeglasses instead of contact lenses

Apple has a patent for a tunable and foveated lens systems allowing it to accomodate glasses, contact lenses etc.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/01/11/apple-glass-could...

All very good points. I don't wear glasses, so hadn't thought about some of those. I do wonder if the usefulness would change peoples preferences or behavior.

The meta demo video I saw recently clearly shows that they're trying to seamlessly integrate prescriptions into their product via software and dynamic lenses.

Yeah this makes sense, and the Microsoft video I linked to does seem to be solving the same kind of problem, the ability to access the data available to a computer in any context, on any surface.

Hasn't it been like 2 or 3 years since Apple has even mentioned AR at the main keynote?

I think most are betting on AR.

Humane (some ex-iPhone people) is working on some sort of projection like UI, but they have put out very little detail about it.

Apple is working on some sort of AR related heads up display. If the hardware can work well for that, the benefits there seem obvious if you can get the UX right. Looking at the world and pulling up information in your visual field would be really useful. Could still pull up flat 'screens' in your visual field for normal text/web interaction.

It's hard to do well given latency issues (need very low) and no real ability to draw black (AR uses ambient light), but if it can be pulled off I'd expect that as the next platform/device shift.

Just as Steve Jobs camped out by the river and waited for economical capacitive touchscreen technology to come floating by, somebody somewhere is waiting for adaptive optics to become practical at the consumer level. At that point it'll become possible for AR glasses to begin to replace conventional eyeglasses for presbyopes and myopes, and that'll be the NBT.

Everybody working in the AR field now is starting too early. In 2003 the iPhone was impossible, while by 2007 it was inevitable.

My bet: pens that both work with traditional ink and also by creating a digital copy at the same time of your notes for a seamless sync everywhere.

Paper's never going to be replaced but I have definitely wished countless times for something that could copy a paper for storage instantaneously.

(Given Wacom's technology with cintiqs, I'm actually surprised this isn't a thing already.)

Livescribe tried to launch that 15 years ago. The Rocketbook Wave tried a very different tech too.

The reMarkable is probably close to what you're describing. People who use them love them, but I'm still a fan of real paper and ink.

I can't see this being "the next big thing". Can't you just take a picture of your document with your phone if you want a digital copy for storage?

The Fly[0] came out in 2005, but it requires special paper that told it where it was on the page. It even worked as an MP3 player! I had one; It was big and clunky, and didn't work well if you wrote fast (which I did). It was still a neat thing.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_(pentop_computer)

Is this better than taking a photograph of a page and applying OCR?

The reMarkable was supposed to replace notebooks, but I gave up on my reMarkable 2 after a month.

may i ask why you gave up on it, having considered one also?

Is this satire? I see ads for these all the time and I can't imagine this approaches a category like smart phones.

I had something called an Equil smartpen 2 that did mostly this in 2015. Now I just take notes on my iPad.

This isn't a smartphone level money maker...

I think it’s the computer.

Microsoft’s platform has never been weaker. For all the growth in phones, every professional worker on the planet is sitting in front of a PC.

> Microsoft’s platform has never been weaker. For all the growth in phones, every professional worker on the planet is sitting in front of a PC.

Or a Mac, or a Chromebook, or an iPad. It's hard to talk about this as a monolith since there are pretty distinct groups — most of the people I know who get to choose their device are using Mac or Linux (which is admittedly an atypical crowd of developers, scientists, lawyers, architects, etc.) but there are a ton of people who have professional jobs where that's not the case (e.g. everyone I know who works in healthcare uses some kind of Windows device which is so locked down that it might as well be an iPad, and I know some people at government agencies who are favoring ChromeOS for security reasons since you can lock those devices down so hard).

I make that distinction because it doesn't help Microsoft very much strategically if the cashier at McDonald's is sitting in front of a Windows box because they're interacting with a single application and will use whatever their next employer has standardized on when, say, they go somewhere which uses Square. Someone who uses Office is a bit more but as an increasing percentage of people aren't doing anything which they couldn't do in a browser, that's not as strong as it used to be. None of that means that Microsoft is going away but I think it does leave them really wondering how to avoid falling behind the next trend like they did with mobile devices.