- Snap’s 5th-generation Spectacles look pretty cool.
- But they’re only available to developers to rent for $99 per month.
- There really doesn’t seem to be a good use for AR technology yet.
Snap is going all-in on trying to make its AR glasses a platform, but is AR ever really going to be a thing?
Snap, aka Snapchat’s, new Spectacles are now in their fifth generation, yet they’re still not ready for sale. They actually look pretty cool, but when you put them on, as the Verge’s Alex Heath did, you’ll find that they still only run a few pretty useless demo projects, like virtual flowers appearing in the real world. Clearly, the technology is hard, but there might be an even bigger barrier to Spectacles, Vision Pro, and any other product of this type: people just don’t want or care about AR.
“It looks highly improbable that phones will be replaced mostly by glasses anytime soon. Phones have a variety of functions and, therefore, are convenient for communication, web browsing, or doing several things at once. Normally, AR glasses might act as an additional device in particular situations, such as content creation or information retrieval, without the use of hands. For glasses to take over the phone, they would have to be as or more advanced and convenient as smartphones today, which is still quite a way off,” Chris Dukich, founder and CEO of display company Display Now, told Lifewire via email.
AR-GHHH
It seems almost impossible to build a new computing platform. To attract users, you need to have all the apps they want. But to attract the developers of those apps, you need to have enough users to make it worth their while. Snap is trying to kickstart things from the developer side by only offering its new Snap Spectacles to developers, who have to apply for the privilege and then pay $99 per month, or $1,188 per year, to rent them.
The hardware itself is pretty bulky and a little bit nerdy, but nowhere near as bad as Apple’s huge, overpowered, overpriced Vision Pro. The Spectacles actually look kinda cool in a cyberhipster way. Yes, we said cyberhipster. But however neat it looks, nobody is going to buy a computer that doesn’t do anything.
Snap can, of course, put its own apps on the Spectacles, but it seems to be working hard to get developers on board before any kind of public hardware launch. For a developer, getting in at the beginning of a successful platform can be very attractive. The early days of the iPhone App Store were a gold mine for some app makers, for example. And yet, not every platform is the iPhone. Even Microsoft failed to get enough developers on board its Windows Phone platform to make it a success.
Plus, successfully building and launching a platform full of great apps still isn’t enough if nobody wants it.
Socially Awkward
Smartphones have changed the world, but they’re still just more portable versions of the computers we’ve known for years and the gadgets—TVs, telephones—we’ve had for years before that. They’re objects we take out, interact with, point at people, listen to, and then put away again.
AR, on the other hand, is an entirely new model—wearable tech. Not only is there a fashion element to this—and by fashion, I mean the politics of how we present ourselves to the world—but also a massive social element.
“[T]he social aspect of AR glasses is perhaps the most complicated,” Dr. Daniel Glazer, a clinical psychologist and Co-Founder of Health Networks, Ltd., told Lifewire via email. “We’ve already seen how society adapts to technology that once felt intrusive—smartphones being the obvious example. But I think the hurdle AR glasses have to clear is much higher. It’s one thing to pull out a phone to take a picture—there’s a clear action and intent—but glasses that could always be recording would likely create a sense of distrust or discomfort in everyday spaces.”
We just don’t know how to act around this stuff. Couple this with the fact that AR glasses don’t offer much that we can’t already do better with phones, and you can see that this new platform is not a slam dunk in terms of adoption. Even when Apple put its billions and its best minds behind the Vision Pro and let it run many existing apps, it’s hard to call it anything but a flop. If even Apple can’t get people interested, then maybe we have to admit that AR is just not going to happen. Maybe the only people who want it are the tech CEOs and their money-obsessed shareholders.
“For this technology to succeed, there will need to be significant consideration for privacy, comfort, and, ultimately, whether they genuinely enhance our lives in a way phones don’t already do. Otherwise, it might just be another tech fad that never quite finds its place,” says Glazer.
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News Summary:
- Snap’s AR Glasses: Still Pushing the Future of Tech, But Will They Ever Catch On?
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