Apple reportedly making foray into wearable glasses

Do you remember Google glass? Despite the buzz and the visionary concept, the project was ultimately abandoned by the company. But that did not stop Snapchat from creating its own video-camera sunglasses that infused a new lease of life into the segment and now it looks like, we might soon have another wearable tech glasses coming from the best in tech industry- Apple.

According to Bloomberg, Apple is working on a wearable device - smart glasses - to expand further in the field of Augmented Reality. Citing sources familiar with Apple's 'secret' plans, the report says the smart glasses would connect wirelessly to the iPhone (like the Apple Watch) and would display "images and other information" to the wearer.

If the project succeeds, Smart glasses would be Apple's first hardware product targeted directly at AR. Apparently, Apple has also ordered small quantities of near-eye displays from one of its potential suppliers for testing and could launch the product by 2018.

CEO Tim Cook has always stressed that Apple is high on AR for the long run. The company has AR patents for things like street view in mapping apps. It was also awarded patents for smart glasses that make use of full-fledged virtual reality.

According to Bloomberg, one of the challenges that Apple will face for the current AR experiment is that "the chips, batteries and other components that will be available in a year or two may still not be small enough and powerful enough to build slim glasses capable of handling compelling AR experiences."

Google Glass also faced similar problems in terms of battery and also suffered a privacy backlash and poor public perception of its external design. The expensive tech was ultimately abandoned by Alphabet closing even the social media account linked to the device earlier this year.

As Apple is also known to pivot, pause or discontinue projects without disclosing them, one can hardly provide assurance about the official launch of Smart glasses.