It pretty much looks like Google has finally dropped plans for its glasses based on augmented reality — the cancellation of the device codenamed Project Iris, according to The Information, is also the third time the search giant has thrown in the towel, as plans had been canceled twice before. because of its failure; However, it has not been completely abandoned yet.
Information about Project Iris first appeared in 2022, when it was launched the edge Citing anonymous sources, leaked information about a Google device. Their article revealed that it may be a tool with a more user-friendly appearance and ease of use, and somewhat different from Google Glass, which is almost similar to traditional glasses to the point of sound.
The device was completely wireless, graphic tasks that required higher performance were performed not by the glasses themselves, but by an external graphics unit, to which it was connected via Google cloud servers. The report also covered prototypes in development, among them a device that looks a lot like a ski goggle, but that, as it turned out, wasn’t a successor to Google Glass, but was made for the company’s AR partnership with Samsung and Qualcomm, the report writes. ArsTechnica.
All plans were discarded
Information that Google has now suspended all work on the project is inside comes from , which refers to three people who “know it well”. According to them, the glasses were developed by the American company for years, but at the beginning of 2023 they threw in the towel and canceled all plans. This reportedly comes after a series of layoffs and corporate restructuring at the company, including the departure of Clay Bavor, who left the search giant to start an artificial intelligence company independent of Google.
Google managers were constantly changing what exactly Iris should be capable of, so the team working on it had to constantly come up with new strategies, which was very frustrating for employees.
– told the newspaper an insider, who said that Google would completely abandon hardware development based on extended virtual reality, and instead they would invest time and energy in polishing software interfaces.
Of course, the reason for the project’s cancellation will probably never be revealed, but it’s reasonable to conclude that Google felt it simply couldn’t compete with Meta and Apple anymore. The latter was already rumored at the beginning of the year to present its glasses based on virtual reality and augmented reality this year, which took place at WWDC 2023 in early June. Apple Vision Pro appears to be Apple’s most ambitious project to date, which we’ve written about in more detail in our article below.
Could Android come to augmented reality?
According to the information, Google is now focusing on creating an AR software platform – the company hopes that this will be the “Android for AR”, which, in addition to the basic Android for phones and tablets and wearOS for smart watches, can also be licensed by headset manufacturers. The internal prototype is rumored to be called Project Betty, and potential partners include companies like Samsung. If Project Betty becomes a reality, it is likely that more manufacturers will start producing different headsets, thus increasing the reach of VR and AR – at the moment, actual interest in these devices is very low.
