What Apple’s Latest Move Tells us About the Future of Reality
But while this announcement might not rank high among the list of Apple’s other recent announcements, there’s a bigger picture it points to that is very notable: the integration of media technologies into our daily routines, a sort of precursor to what Kevin Kelly calls the “Mirrorworld.”
In this case, Apple gets something that so many virtual, mixed, and augmented reality companies/studios/et al. don’t—that tech can only change as fast as culture.
The upshot of this 1-2 punch? That Apple is emphasizing high-quality, lifelike audio in its present and future efforts.
With this framework in mind, it’s easy to imagine how, whenever mainstream, consumer smartglasses are capable of full augmented reality, Dolly Parton’s walks are accompanied by a visual representation of Dolly right on that walk with you. As context awareness improves in the back end (both environmental and in user preferences), we might imagine how an interactive, virtual Dolly might prompt conversations “with” us.