iPhone X Fold Release Delayed Because Apple Is Working On AR Glasses?

The iPhone X Fold is believed to come out at a much later date compared to competitors from Samsung and Huawei. The two companies are commercially releasing foldable devices this year while Apple is reportedly preparing to release its own version in 2020.

Although there’s no clear reason for the delay, some analysts believe that it is because Apple wants to release a device that already “corrects” the possible problems that its competitor will face this year. However, there could be another significant reason for this. According to a report, Apple might be prioritizing the release of its AR glasses over the iPhone X Fold.

It should be noted that the Cupertino giant bought Akonia Holographics late last year, a start-up based in Colorado that’s known for manufacturing displays for augmented reality glasses. Some analysts are saying that this is solid evidence that the tech company is actively working on its first set of AR glasses.

Akonia described its company as a group that holds more than 200 patents and is capable of creating smart glasses that can display “vibrant, full-color, wide field-of-view images” via thin and lightweight bifocals.

Akonia is one of Apple’s latest acquisitions that suggests that the consumer electronics company is indeed working on its AR glasses. In fact, the Cupertino giant has been purchasing start-ups with technologies that can be applied in the development of an AR device since 2013.

Two years ago, for example, Apple CEO Tim Cook bought four companies with breakthrough technologies that can contribute to producing AR tech. They are InVisage Technologies (an image sensor manufacturer), Regain (a French computer vision company), Vrvana (manufacturer of augmented reality head-mounted displays) and SensoMotoric Instruments (known for eye-tracking hardware and software).

In a Reuters report last year, Apple said that people shouldn’t read too much in their acquisitions of the small companies. However, it can be remembered that the same thing happened before the Cupertino firm released its groundbreaking voice assistant, Siri.

Aside from this, Cook has also been known to be a big fan of AR, so there’s a very big chance that the company is close to releasing an elegant set of glasses that boasts of a number of tech capabilities. These could include functions like smart object recognition, hand tracking and a field of view that could actually surpass the windowing effect of current AR headsets.