Apple has dropped its development of augmented reality glasses designed to pair with the Mac, reports Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman. The glasses were intended to look like regular glasses, but boasted AR capabilities.
The company shuttered the program this week, according to people with knowledge of the move. The now-canceled product would have looked like normal glasses but include built-in displays and require a connection to a Mac, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the work wasn’t public. An Apple representative declined to comment.
The project had been seen as a potential way forward after the weak introduction of the Apple Vision Pro, a $3,499 model that was too cumbersome and pricey to catch on with consumers. The hope was to produce something that everyday users could embrace, but finding the right technology — at the right cost — has proven to be a challenge.
The AR glasses would connect to a Mac for power, because a chip powerful enough for AR applications would not fit in a device that’s the size of standard glasses.
Initially, Apple intended the glasses to connect to the iPhone, but the iPhone didn’t have the power or battery life to support them. Apple then looked at using the Mac as a power source, but Apple executives decided a Mac-connected device was not a satisfactory solution, so they shutdown the project.
While there have been rumors of Apple AR glasses for nearly a decade, the technology for the glasses simply doesn’t exist yet. The Apple Vision Pro is what Apple eventually built.
Although Apple has dropped development of the augmented reality glasses, the company is still working on new versions of the Vision Pro. As technology advances, Apple will likely revisit the idea of AR glasses.
