We’re expecting to see the launch of an Apple Glasses product at some point next year, and a sketchy rumor suggests that they may borrow a key feature from Vision Pro.
Specifically, it’s said they may be able to recognize hand gestures as a means of interacting with the wearable device – but there’s good reason to doubt the claim …
The hand gesture claim
Early VR headsets relied on hardware like handheld controllers as input devices. Vision Pro greatly streamlined the way users interact with the device by giving it the capability to recognize hand gestures with no additional hardware needed.
MacRumors cites an “inside source” in suggesting that Apple Glasses will have the same capability.
The AI glasses will include two cameras. A high-resolution camera will be included for capturing photos and videos that can be shared on social media and used like iPhone photos. A second lower-resolution wide-angle lens will read hand gestures and provide visual input for Siri.
The site links this to similar rumors about AirPods having cameras for the same reason.
Reasons for skepticism
Apple glasses are expected to have either one or two cameras, in contrast to the eight external cameras and four internal eye-tracking cameras on Vision Pro. Relying on a single low-resolution external camera to recognize hand gestures, as the report suggests, would be challenging to achieve with any reliability.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has also expressed his own skepticism about the idea.
The technology to do this reliably with a single camera, no neural band and no eye-scanning doesn’t exist today as far as I know. I’ve also heard nothing to suggest the first version has any sophisticated form of gestures as this describes. I am extremely skeptical.
What does seem likely is support for AirPods-style head gestures, like nodding and shaking the head, and it may be that the source for this rumour has mistaken talk of this for hand gesture support.
That said, it’s not totally impossible that the wearables could use some combination of head gestures and extremely obvious hand gestures – but we are certainly viewing this report with a very large pinch of salt.
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