New PR chief for Apple View: Apple glasses coming soon?

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TL;DR

• Apple is said to have poached the communications chief from Facebook's Meta's AR division.
• She is likely to play a decisive role in shaping the external presentation of the Apple Glass Apple View.
• Her first task will probably be to make the Apple fans appreciate the $3,000 glasses.

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Her time at Facebook and Meta respectively is probably coming to an end after more than five years. TheVerge reports with reference to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman's Power On newsletter that Andrea Schubert has signed on at Apple. According to her LinkedIn profile, Schubert was responsible for communications of the AR division at Meta for the past six years.

This adds another piece of the puzzle to the picture: Apple could give the world its first look at the Apple View at the next WWDC. In any case, the Developer Conference would be an opportunity to bring developers along - after all, a new hardware platform shouldn't launch without an ecosystem.

Many rumors are circling around how the device will look, as well as the inclusion of gesture controls. In addition, a price of $3,000 is expected, which makes sense for glasses equipped with 8K displays. How Apple View will fit into the AR/VR/MR market and the Apple ecosystem is not yet known. It may need to be connected to an iPhone or Mac, which will provide the processing power.

In any case, Andrea Schubert's current employer dominates when it comes to VR goggles - the Oculus Quest 2 is extremely successful. The number of potential inhabitants of Facebook's Metaverse is thus growing rapidly, and Apple will have to hurry if it still wants to get its own ecosystem going here.

The current situation with AR glasses, on the other hand, is reminiscent of 2014, when rumors of an iWatch became increasingly concrete and the great gold rush around the wrist broke out. After the market launch of the Watch in 2015, it took less than five years for Apple to become the world market leader in wristwatches - both analogue and digital, mind you. Android Wear, on the other hand, wasn't much of a success, but at least managed to make a huge leap forward this year with Samsung's support - from 3.2 percent in Q3 2020 to 17.3 percent in Q3 this year (Counterpoint).

Now, a similar lurking attitude prevails for the AR glasses. A lot will go wrong if Apple doesn't at least announce its first smart glasses in 2022. And as in 2014, the competition is rowing wild: Oppo unveiled its first AR glasses at its Inno Days in mid-December, and Huawei also unveiled its smart glasses just before Christmas. Xiaomi showed off its own pair of glasses right before the iPhone 13 launch in September.

But let's be honest: At least in the AR sector, things are still foggy. Actually, we're all waiting for Apple and the Apple View to clear things out. It is possible that the world of analogue and digital eyewear is also in for a new world market leader. What do you think?

Source: TheVerge