Apple Glass: Patent Round-Up
Apple patents lay down a marker. But what will make the cut when they launch?
A basket of patents was granted to Apple. They must have known they would likely be released at around the same time as their developer conference.
It feels a lot like an announcement: “we’re coming”.
First, the patents. If you like to read this kind of thing:
Head-Mounted Display Device With Vision Correction
Display Devices With Multimodal Audio
Electronic Device With Inner Display and Externally Accessible Input-Output Device
Reactions
Robert Scoble gave the world the first head’s up:
This is a massive patent. And it summarizes how a pair of glasses would work.
Scoble tells me that an expert on patents said that it’s “one of the best patents I’ve ever read”. But it wasn’t the only patent released.
Self-Correcting Lenses
Tom’s Guide thinks that self-correcting lenses are the killer feature. The patent granted is for “a in-headset vision correcting system that eliminates the need to wear prescription lenses beneath an augmented reality device”.
According to the patent:
“…lenses may serve to provide most of the optical power used in bringing display into focus, while lenses may correct for user-specific vision problems such as astigmatism, etc. If desired, tunable lens structures may be used in combination with vision correction lenses and/or other fixed lenses (e.g., catadioptric lenses, Fresnel lenses, etc.).”
Apple is After The Eye Glass Market
This is a big deal. Apple isn’t trying to launch augmented reality glasses. They’re trying to disrupt the eye glass market.
Which sets up a battle not between Apple and, say, Hololens. But between Apple and Oakley.
Scoble made the point:
If Apple doesn't offer corrective lenses, or doesn't have the features that my eye glasses have, like the ability to see near and far, or the best anti-scratch, anti-fog, and anti-glare coatings, some percentage will hear the disadvantages and decide to stay with traditional eye glasses.
According to this patent, they can.
Making AR Look Good
The other patents primarily focus on optimizing how AR looks. In the main patent for example “the beam splitter structures may replicate the beams across two dimensions (e.g., across the lateral area of the waveguide). In this way, an eye box may be provided with uniform-intensity light from the display across its area and for a wide field of view."
The scanning patent addresses issues with mirrors and proposes to “overcome these difficulties to provide high resolution (low divergence) images at high frame rates while still allowing the optical system to fit within the constrained form factor”.
Just Because They Can?
Apple is famous for what it leaves out.
I agree with Scoble: they’re up against Oakley (and the behemoth behind it).
But I also point out that Apple plays a long, slow, patient game:
But Apple is also incredibly patient. They will pull even the smallest feature if it isn’t ‘ready for prime time’. And they’ve even changed their internal processes to make them less focused on big launch dates. If anything, they have become more incremental over time.
And so while I don’t disagree with Robert, I think it creates a bit of a binary view: “if Apple doesn’t have these things at launch, the market may be disappointed”.
We’ve seen a group of hugely significant patents.
We’ve now seen that Apple has figured out how to make self-correcting lenses, potentially removing the need for a new pair of glasses every time your prescription changes.
But that doesn’t mean Apple will launch with these things.
They have hundreds of prototypes. And my guess is that only Tim Cook and a few others knows which one they’ll bring to market first.
In the meantime, I await Karl Guttag’s take on the Apple patents. If anyone can give us a read on the more technical parts of what we’ve seen, it’s him.