Apple has canceled a project to build advanced augmented reality glasses that would pair with its devices, marking the latest setback in its effort to create a headset that appeals to the consumer market. The company shuttered the program this week, Bloomberg News reports citing “people with knowledge of the move.” Apple is still working on successors to the Vision Pro, including updated versions of the original model.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
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.
Apple had previously intended to sell its device-connected glasses, which were code-named N107, [by 2027].
The decision to wind down work on the N107 product followed an attempt to revamp the design, according to the people. The company had initially wanted the glasses to pair with an iPhone, but it ran into problems over how much processing power the handset could provide. It also affected the iPhone’s battery life. So the company shifted to an approach that required linking up with a Mac computer, which has faster processors and bigger batteries.
But the Mac-connected product performed poorly during reviews with executives, and the desired features continued to change. Members of Apple’s Vision Products Group, which worked on the device, grew increasingly concerned that the project was on the rocks. Sure enough, the final word came this week that the effort was over…
The N107 retreat is just the latest failed attempt to make Apple’s headset technology successful, they say, and that’s hurting morale…
MacDailyNews Take: Color us unsurprised.
Not that Mac-connected AR glasses were ever going anywhere, but that’s the point in a nutshell: Everybody knew it already except the guy signing the checks.
“Tim is not a product person, per se.” – Steve Jobs
Apple needed new blood years ago, but the old blood simply won’t let go. – MacDailyNews, January 22, 2025
This is what happens after a decade plus with a caretaker CEO at the helm after he hits the last page of his iteration playbook, yet attempts to stay in the game for too long. – MacDailyNews, April 1, 2024
Clearly, Apple is not as innovative as it was under Steve Jobs who even started the company’s work on Apple Silicon, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro, but, thanks to Jobs, and Cook’s subsequent management of iterations of products and services conceived during Jobs’ tenure (including the retail store buildout which is responsible for a significant portion of Apple’s growth), the company now has more than enough money to make up for Cook’s glaring lack of vision. – MacDailyNews, April 23, 2024
You know, some people get upset when we point out that Tim Cook is a boring, reactive caretaker who’s not really the best person to be running Apple today or for at least the past several years.
Operations manager Cook should have been a 3-5 year stopgap after Steve Jobs’ untimely passing, running the iteration playbook, providing continuity for the company while it found a real CEO. Instead, he hung on — and keeps hanging on — well past his sell-by date.
Sigh.
You can be upset with us for having the temerity to call it like we see it, but the fact remains that Apple would be doing significantly better today with a visionary who’d have seen AI on the horizon, who’d have recognized the intrinsic importance of Siri and therefore invested in it instead of criminally neglecting it, and who wouldn’t have squandered the company’s gigantic leads in things like personal assistants and podcasting. – MacDailyNews, August 22, 2024
This is not the only project inside Apple that’s wracked with indecision, disagreement, and waste. This is not an anomaly, it’s closer to the norm.
What if a major company had a CEO who was out of his depth, but who could look wildly successful for a decade simply by building out the company’s retail chain that his predecessor devised and iterating/not screwing up products that, again, his predecessor devised?
What would happen when real vision was finally required, but the company was hamstrung with an indecisive, myopic CEO with a seemingly unending list of misplaced priorities? – MacDailyNews, March 11, 2024
The difference between an operations guy following a static playbook — reacting to events instead of determining them — versus a visionary genius becomes ever more apparent with each passing year. – MacDailyNews, March 8, 2023
There are far too many examples of our warnings to cite, but we’ve been doing so for well over a decade:
The multi-talented Steve Jobs was supposed to have been replaced, as best as possible, by a team of people. Some of these team members are obviously not performing up to anything near a Jobsian level… Steve’s attention to detail may very well be irreplaceable. — MacDailyNews, September 28, 2012
Here’s the thing: Attention to detail should be replaceable; by brute force if necessary. Apple has over $100 billion dollars. They are not a rinky dink turnaround operation anymore. Apple needs to get a Quality Control team staffed by a bunch of Type-A’ers and led by a perfectionist. Such people certainly do exist. Too much shit is slipping through the cracks. — MacDailyNews, October 2, 2012
“Apple has over $100 billion dollars.” Heh, how quaint.
“A players attract A players. B players attract C players… A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players.” – Steve Jobs
If you really love the company, retire, Tim. Consider it your final, best gift to Apple.
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The post Apple shutters work on Mac-connected Augmented Reality smartglasses appeared first on MacDailyNews.
