Tim Cook is visiting East Asia and is currently in Japan. In an interview to Buzzfeed News Japan, Cook has again taken a side between virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Speaking to the correspondent, Cook said that there is no substitute for human contact and so Apple will want technology that encourages that.
Cook has been vocal about his preference for AR over VR. To that effect, Apple has beenpoaching engineers from companies such as Oculus Rift and Magic Leap. It has alsobought companies such as PrimeSense, the Israeli-company behind Microsoft Kinect’s sensor.
According to Cook, VR has interesting applications but it isn’t as broad-based as AR.
“Augmented reality will take some time to get right, but I do think that it’s profound. We might … have a more productive conversation, if both of us have an AR experience standing here, right?,” he told Buzzfeed.
Cook said that AR is better as it does not create barriers between people when they are interacting with each other.
In the story Buzzfeed also mentioned that Apple has held meetings with immersive content company such as Jaunt which is a cinematic VR company.
Tim Cook’s inputs on VR and AR are pretty logical. As reported by MacWorld, he commented “nobody in here, few people in here, think it’s acceptable to be tethered to a computer walking in here and sitting down, few people are going to view that it’s acceptable to be enclosed in something, because we’re all social people at heart.”
Cook was not against VR as he said, “I’m excited about VR from an education point of view, I think it can be really big for education, I think it can be very big for games. But I can’t imagine everyone in here getting in an enclosed VR experience while you’re sitting in here with me.”