It is supposedly preordained. The iPhone is supposed to be replaced by Apple’s Augmented Reality-based smart glasses called Apple Glass. Looking like a regular pair of spectacles, Apple Glass will give wearers access to many of the same apps and features offered by the iPhone but without having to carry the handset wherever they go. Don’t let Vision Pro throw you off because Apple Glass is not Vision Pro. The latter was never meant to be the successor to the iPhone but Apple Glass always was.
But because Vision Pro was released this year, we hear more about the mixed reality headset spatial computer than the smart glasses. But that might change, at least in the short term thanks to a patent application filed by Apple that was published on Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Titled Dual-Axis Hinge Mechanism, the patent covers a hinge for eyewear that allows the arm to the glasses to be in a folded position, a nominal open position, and a hyperextended position.
The nominal position allows any gaps exposing the electronics hidden inside the frame and the arms to be closed. Apple says that a cable or electrical connector can extend through a portion of the hinge to guide the cable through the electronic parts in the arm and frame. Make no mistake about it, the constant use of the term “eyewear” in the patent means that this hinge is intended for Apple’s smart glasses.
Illustration from Apple’s patent application for a smart glass hinge
After being unveiled in April 2012, Google Glass was made available to “Glass Explorers” in the U.S. a year later, at the price of $1,500. Users were quickly chastised by theater owners for recording bootleg videos of movies. Bar owners chased out Google Glass users since they often recorded the bar’s customers without their permission. Google Glass wearers soon became known as “Glassholes” which is not what Apple wants its Glass users to be known as.
We still see Apple Glass to be a possible iPhone replacement although clearly the phone still has many years of life ahead of it.
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