Last year Tim Cook, the CEO of the tech giant Apple, had expressed his interest to explore augmented reality (AR) and earlier this month it was reported that Apple has brought about 1,000 engineers to work on its own AR project. Now, the latest details in this regard have surfaced and according to that Apple has created a team of engineers from both hardware and software domains to explore the potential of AR. The company plans to make it reach the public through iPhones and this time it is further seeking technology prowess of engineers outside its organisation – something contrary to Apple's existing law of building new products.
The team is reportedly chaired by a former executive of Dolby Laboratories and it includes members who had previously worked with Facebook's Oculus VR headset and Microsoft's mixed reality HoloLens headset. Moreover, the team consists of the best minds in the industry, including digital-effects professionals from Hollywood.
The latest developments of the company in the field of AR, follows the company's several acquisitions of firms that have long been working on AR hardware, 3D gaming and VR software.
As per a report by BGR, some of the features that the team is experimenting with include, the ability to take a picture and then change the depth of the photograph or the depth of specific objects in the picture later, to isolate a single object from a picture and tilt it 180 degrees and to use augmented reality to place virtual effects and objects on a person.
Rumours have it that these features depend on a technology called depth sensing, which uses an algorithm created by PrimeSense, the Israeli company acquired by Apple in 2013 and these could be incorporated in the iPhone 8.
Initially, the UBS research note expected that the upcoming iPhone might incorporate the new AR technology for moderate 3D mapping. Business Insider also reported that an AR software development kit could be in the making. Last but certainly not the least KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo speculated that the next iPhone, i.e., iPhone Edition would feature a front camera with an IR module to sense the 3D space in front of it for AR usage.
Apart from all these, Apple has plenty of patents that talks about the AR-products.
