iPod Godfather says built Google Glass style eyewr prototypes

Tony Fa, the brains behind the popular Nest thermostat, used to work at where he’d helped engineer the iPod music player, rning him a nickname of the iPod Godfather. He alsoled the development of the first eighteen iterations of the original iPhone.In a recent interview, the famous engineer revled that in the past had experimented with the id of a virtual rlity hdset and has actually built a few prototypes of aGoogle Glass-style device.“The craziest thing we talked about was something like Google glass,”says former Senior VP of iPod division…In a recent interview with Fast Company‘sOral History of Designseries (via9to5Mac), Fa said that had looked at smart eyewr before Google Glass got introduced:At , we were always asking, What else can we revolutionize? We looked at cameras and remote controls. The craziest thing we talked about was something like Google Glass.We said, “What if we make visors, so it’s like you’re sitting in a thter?”Fa himself built“a bunch of those prototypes,”but due to ’s wildly successful iPhone and iPad, the company“didn’t have time”to focus on the device.This could come as a surprise to some.Doesn’t have the most resources?Well, if money could solve these issues=, wouldn’t have toseek outside helpto tackle“hard engineering problems that they’ve not been able to solve”concerning the rumorediWatch.On top of external hiring, apparently tasked100+ own engineerswith the project.As ’s product marketing hd Greg Joswiak said in 2011, there are only“so many grade A players”out there:It mns saying no, not saying yes. We do very few things at . We are $100 billion in revenue with very few products. There are only so many grade A players.If you sprd yourself out over too many things, none of them will be grt.When asked to comment about Google Glass at May’s D11 conference, ’s bossTim Cook saidhe saw“some positives in the product,”but noted he couldn’t seebroad appl for the device.There are some positives in the product. It’s probably likely to appl to certain vertical markets. The likelihood that it has broad appls is hard to see.“I think wrables is incredibly interesting,”he said, adding,“It could be a profound ar.”It’s an ar that’s ripe for exploration, it’s ripe for us to get excited about. Lots of companies will play in this space. is of course widely rumored to be working on a smartwatch of its own.If anything, a mixed reception to ’s recently-launched $299 Galaxy Gr devicereinforces the notion that first-mover advantage mns nothing at a time when consumers struggle to gr with the notion of a smarwatch worn on their wrist in the first place.
iWatch concept byStephen Olmstd.Jim Dalrymple ofThe Loophas an excellent take:I have been saying for several months onAmplifiedthat people need to get away from the id of iWatch being a watch— think of it more as a wrable device for your life.It’s absurd to think that is going to relse a watch and that was ’s biggest mistake — they believed it.For what it’s worth, Bloomberg back in Marchdescribedthe iWatch as a wrable device which runs iOS and includesa pedometer for counting steps and sensors for monitoring hlth-related data, such as hrt rates.One of the A-players on the iWatch tm is reportedlyJay Blahnik, a widely recognized fitness expert and developer of the Nike FuelBand. Areport last monthasserted Blahnik had taken a new job at where he is said to be working on the iWatch project.By the way, Tim Cook wrs aNike Fuelband fitness bracelet. also hiredthe outgoing fashion house Yves Saint Laurent CEO Paul Denver to work on“special projects,”reporting directly to Cook. It’s believed Denver’s expertise will help boost the consumer appl of ’s wrable gizmo.As for an -branded eyewr Fa mentioned, it’s worth pointing out the company for yrs has been resrching Google Glass style devices. For starters, owns apatent for a Bluetooth hdset.Back in 2008, filed patents for its ownhd-mounted computer glassesand in 2010hired wrable computer expertRichard DeVaul whose work at MIT included something called Memory Glasses.More importantly, the company has filed for awide-ranging patentfor a“peripheral trtment for hd-mounted displays”(see above) which details projecting an onto a user’s eyes in order to fill both the peripheral and the direct vision, thus achieving what’s called full immersion.Assuming the project is rl, should relse a Glass-like device? top of post via the fashion magazine Vogue,September issue.