Can Augmented Reality turn around Apple’s fortune?

Apple’s dwindling fortune sees no respite as iPhone sales declined for the second straight quarter but the tech titan believes or maybe want us/investors to believe that the company will soon get back on track with its ‘work in progress’ on Augmented reality front. However, there is a small glitch here. On the one hand, Apple CEO Tim Cook is trying hard to reassure the investors that the company is set to ride the next wave of technology, but on the other, the company wants to keep its work in "artificial intelligence and augmented reality" as the secret of the age.

Appreciating the smashing smartphone game Pokemon GO, Cook said that "Apple is high on augmented reality for the long-run and have been investing heavily". Cook also highlighted Apple's investment in artificial intelligence, which the company uses to suggest content to users and even spot usage patterns to improve a device's battery life.

Unlike rivals - Facebook, Google - who iterate products in the open, Apple's habit of keeping quiet about its product pipeline is not helping the company in the current scenario.

According to Analyst Bob O'Donnell of TECHnalysis Research augmented reality and artificial intelligence is often regarded as an uneasy fit for Apple, a hardware maker that tends not to embrace new technology until it matures. "They're in this weird position where they want the world to know that they are working on it, but they have nothing to show for it," he said.

Though Apple is yet to make a public display of its work in the field of AR, Cook stressed that the company is hard at work behind the scenes. "We have been and continue to invest a lot in this (AR) and we think there are great things for customers and a great commercial opportunity."

Oren Etzioni, who is CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and a professor at the University of Washington said, "They are running behind, and they are trying to catch up both in perception but also in fact.”

Cook affirmed that Apple has found a way to hit the sense of balance between making progress in artificial intelligence and maintaining users' privacy. "The deployment of artificial intelligence technology is something that we will excel at because of our focus on user experience," he said.

Eventually, Cook claimed, fields such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality will only reinforce the importance of the iPhone.

He concluded by stating the company was unbeaten in making sure that its products worked well with third-party products like Pokemon Go. "That's why you see so many iPhones in the wild right now chasing Pokemons."