Apple CEO Tim Cook: Augmented Reality is ‘a big idea like the smartphone’

Apple CEO Tim Cook in an interview has said that Augmented Reality or AR is 'a big idea like the smartphone'.

Cook has been known to drop hints in interviews without getting into details before and he did the same about AR in an interview with The Independent.

However, Cook's one-liner comes as no surprise as the company has been looking to make huge progress in AR and has been hiring people and acquiring companies to spearhead the AR campaign inside the company.

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But what comes as good news, if history is of any lesson, is that a product offering might soon be in the offing -- at the time of the launch of 10th anniversary iPhone 8. The Apple CEO had done the same in earlier interviews when the company was working on TVs.

Read: Apple to start iPhone 8 production early to meet 'unprecedented' demand

"I regard it as a big idea, like the smartphone. The smartphone is for everyone, we don't have to think the iPhone is about a certain demographic, or country or vertical market: it's for everyone. I think AR is that big, it's huge. I get excited because of the things that could be done that could improve a lot of lives. And be entertaining," Cook said in the interview.

He also said that he sees AR just like the silicon used in the iPhone's chips, in other words as a "core technology" and "not a product per se." Back in September, Cook told Good Morning America that AR held more potential than virtual reality because it allowed people to remain present in the real world while interacting with technology.

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This means that Apple is soon going to take baby steps towards an AR technology similar to Google's Project Tango which has now been used on few smartphones including the Lenovo Phab.