It’s no secret that Apple is cooking up some type of augmented reality hardware at its Cupertino headquarters. CEO Tim Cook has broadly hinted at the company’s ambitions to deliver a head-mounted display or smart glasses device at some point in the future. More recently, Cook said that the “the technology itself doesn’t exist” to make augmented reality goggles at the level of quality Apple desires, suggesting the company may at hard at work rethinking conventional approaches to try and come up with a unique way to tackle the hurdles involved.
A new patent application, published today with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and detailed by Slashgear, sheds new light on Apple’s intended milestones for such a device — even if the finished product is years away from seeing the light of day. One the primary goals, it seems, is to create a headset or glasses that are much more comfortable and light than modern-day AR and VR devices like Microsoft’s HoloLens and Facebook-owned Oculus VR’s Rift headset.
While the patent application obviously doesn’t describe competing devices by name, Apple does lay out in its summary how “if care is not taken, a head-mounted display may be cumbersome and tiring to wear.” Apple describes the optical systems for these displays as “bulky and heavy,” and that “extended use of a head-mounted display with this type of optical system may be uncomfortable.”
