Apple CEO Tim Cook seems to be a much bigger fan of augmented reality than virtual reality. During an interview with Good Morning America that aired this morning, Cook took a question about VR and used it as an opportunity to bring up AR and why he thinks it’s going to be much more interesting.
"My own view is that augmented reality is the larger of the two, probably by far, because this gives the capability for both of us to sit and be very present talking to each other, but also have other things visually for both of us to see," Cook said. "Maybe it’s something we’re talking about, maybe it’s someone else here that is not here, present, but could be made to appear to be present with us. So there’s a lot of really cool things there."
Cook has been dropping hints about Apple’s interest in augmented and virtual reality since the beginning of the year. In January, the Financial Times reported that Apple has a secret team numbering in the hundreds of employees working to develop applications of the two technologies, including headsets.
In his comments to GMA, Cook doesn’t entirely write off virtual reality, but he does make it sound like a lower priority for Apple. "Virtual reality sort of encloses and immerses the person into an experience that can be really cool but probably has a lower commercial interest over time," he said. "Less people will be interested in that, but there are some really cool areas there for education and gaming that we have a lot of interest in."
His point generally, with regard to VR, seems to be that its applications are limited since it’s sort of antisocial to wrap a screen over your face, whereas AR headsets could be used day to day as you walk around and interact with others in person.
There doesn’t seem to be any clear timeline for when Apple’s AR and VR projects might publicly materialize, if that should end up happening at all. But talking up product categories before entering them some years down the road is kind of Apple’s style, so though it could be a while, it certainly sounds like Apple has something in the works.