The Starters
Apple Inc. is rarely the first to a new market: The Sony Walkman preceded the iPod; Palm and BlackBerry owned the phone market before the iPhone; Microsoft had tablets before the iPad; and the Google smartwatch platform predated the Apple Watch.
But Apple’s entries have upended their categories. With the iPod, Apple shook up the market with a white plastic and metal design and the click wheel. The iPhone and iPad popularized all-screen devices and app stores. The Apple Watch brought advanced health sensors and a phone-like interface. Even in cases where Apple wasn’t necessarily first, the company still felt ahead of its time.
These days, though, Apple may be taking a new tack: practicality. As it prepares to push into two major categories a mixed-reality headset and an electric car the company is aiming to be less revolutionary and more pragmatic, all in the name of actually getting the products out the door.
Tim Cook (and Steve Jobs before him) has often said that Apple cares more about being the best in a particular category than being the first. It has gained an edge by developing new interfaces and applying technologies in innovative ways. That was clear with the iPhone, which traded in physical keyboards for a touch screen, and the iPad, which included a giant display and 10 hours of battery life.
But with its next products, the company seems willing to make more compromises to get its foot in the door of a new market.
Let’s start with the upcoming mixed-reality headset. The device will certainly be advanced with high-resolution displays, several external cameras and a new version of iOS dubbed xrOS. Its sleek design and powerful processors should let it outshine offerings from Meta Platforms Inc. and Sony Group Corp.
But it won’t achieve the holy grail of the industry: true augmented reality. The dream is to have a lightweight pair of glasses that can add data and visuals to your real-world experience without being clunky or overly distracting. For now, the technology just isn’t there yet.
So Apple will instead offer mixed reality, a blend of both augmented and virtual reality. The headset will be a VR system at its core, but use cameras to create a quasi augmented-reality experience.
When Apple set out to enter this market about seven years ago, the hope was that AR glasses could replace the iPhone by beaming information into a users’ field of view, let them make and take calls, and serve up content.
Cook started publicizing that vision in 2016, telling Good Morning America that AR is superior to VR because the former “gives the capability for both of us to sit and be very present.” He later criticized VR goggles at a conference in Utah, saying that “few people are going to view that it’s acceptable to be enclosed in something.”
And yet, Cook’s criticisms of VR began to subside as Apple settled on building a device that will use that very approach the enclosed headset design that the CEO once deemed unacceptable.
The reason for the shift is clear: True AR glasses are still many years away. The necessary component miniaturization, battery technology, lenses, software support and manufacturing capability is nowhere close to ready for prime time.
Or, in the words of Cook about a year after he panned VR: The technology for AR glasses “doesn’t exist to do that in a quality way. The display technology required, as well as putting enough stuff around your face there’s huge challenges with that. The field of view, the quality of the display itself, it’s not there yet.”
Rather than hold off until 2025 or so when true AR glasses may be feasible Apple will take the practical route and release a stopgap product that offers the very best mixed-reality technology available today. And this seems to be the right decision for Apple, especially given it doesn’t want to cede a promising hardware market to Meta.
The same scenario has played out with the Apple car. When Apple set out to build a vehicle in the early 2010s, autonomy wasn’t a major priority. The company was more focused on how it could compete with Detroit and Tesla Inc. on design, battery technology, hardware and software integration, and premium materials.
But a few years into development, Apple executives decided that a car would need a clear differentiator to make it worth launching. Enter autonomy: Apple quickly became fixated on launching a car with full self-driving capabilities and no pedals or steering wheel.
That ambition the pursuit of something that has bedeviled the entire automotive industry quickly began to hurt Apple, leading to management turnover, layoffs and project resets.
And so, another compromise was struck. Apple has shelved its plan to launch a fully autonomous car. Instead, it’s now building a more traditional EV with a steering wheel and pedals. There will still be autonomous capabilities, but they’ll be geared toward freeway driving.
An Apple car will still be able to stand out from competitors with unique features and integration with the company’s other products. And the self-driving capabilities should gradually improve and expand to new geographies, but the company is no longer waiting to release the car until it reaches Level 5 the auto industry’s elusive pinnacle of autonomy.
Apple’s next major product categories may not change their markets the way the iPod, iPhone and iPad did. But they’re now less likely to be stuck in limbo, thanks to Apple being a bit more practical.
The Bench
Apple delays its car until 2026 as it pares back self-driving technology. As I mentioned above, Apple’s plan for an electric car has undergone yet another fundamental shift: a switch from a fully autonomous vehicle (that can get you from point A to point B without driver intervention) to something a bit more traditional. The new plan calls for a car with a steering wheel and pedals along with self-driving functionality for freeways, but not city streets.
Apple made the change after spending years working toward a fully autonomous vision that likely won’t be feasible for decades. Along with the fundamental change, the company has pushed back its planned release by about a year to 2026 and is now aiming to sell its vehicle to consumers for less than $100,000 per car. It’s also still looking for a partner to develop its underlying platform (the steering system and car base).
Apple ups its security with end-to-end encrypted iCloud backups. The company rolled out a trio of major security enhancements this past week: end-to-end encrypted iCloud backups, physical security keys and contact verification within iMessage. The biggest piece of news is the encrypted backups. It means Apple won’t be privy to the encryption key for most everything you back up to iCloud (excluding mail, contacts and calendars).