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In 2013, Apple CEO Tim Cook, aforementioned The gadgets we wear on our wrists “could have a deep tech space”.

it wasn’t. Maybe you own a Fitbit or Apple Watch, but this category of digital devices hasn’t been as important as Cook and many other tech optimists had hoped.

Half a decade ago, Pokémon Go convinced people to wander around their neighborhoods. chasing animated characters He said they could see by pointing a smartphone camera at their surroundings. Cook was among company executives who said the game could be the beginning of a transformative mix of digital and real life, sometimes referred to as augmented reality or AR.

“I think AR can be huge,” Cook told Apple investors in 2016.

it wasn’t. augmented reality, virtual reality and similar technologies remain promising and sometimes useful, but they are not very big yet.

Today, Cook and millions of others are using a combination of these two technologies. It is becoming the next big phase of the internet. Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Snap are heading towards a future where we’ll wear computers on our heads. interactions that combine physical and digital life. (You and Mark Zuckerberg call it virtual universe. I won’t.)

Given the spotty track record of technologists in predicting digital revolutions, it’s worth examining why their explanation hasn’t happened yet—and if they’re right this time around.

There are two ways to look at the predictions of wearable computers and immersive digital worlds over the past decade. The first is that all inventions of the past were necessary steps on the road to something great.

People regiment Google Glass, after the company released a test version of the computer headset in 2013, but glasses may be a building block. Computer chips, software, cameras and microphones have evolved so much since then that digital headsets may soon become less intrusive and more useful.

Likewise, Pokémon Go, virtual reality video games and apps Check out a new lipstick via augmented reality may not be for everyone, but they have helped techs refine ideas and have some people excited about the possibilities of more immersive digital experiences.

My colleagues reported that Apple may ship a ski goggle-like computer headset next year, aiming to offer virtual and augmented reality experiences. Apple only gave hints about this study during a study. Event on Monday to explain iPhone software tweaksbut the company preparing the ground for such technologies to potentially become the next major product category.

The second possibility is that tech experts were wrong again about the potential for the next iterations of Google Glass plus Pokémon Go. Maybe more refined features, longer battery life, less dumb glasses, and more fun things to do on face computers aren’t the most important components for the next big thing in tech.

One of the problems is that technologists haven’t yet given us good reasons why we want to live in the digital plus real world they envision for us.

I’ve written any new technology before Inevitably, it competes with the smartphone, which is at the center of our digital life. Anything after that should answer the question: What is this thing doing that my phone can’t?

This challenge does not mean that technology is frozen where it is today. The exercises that made it look like it got me excited. a trainer is coaching me across a virtual alpine lake, and I can imagine new ways to feel closer to people far away than Zoom. Apple, in particular, has a history of taking existing technology concepts like smartphones and streaming music and making them appealing to the masses.

But the richer our current digital lives become, the harder it will be for us to embrace something new. This is something past and present predictions of a more immersive computing future don’t really take into account.

Before you go …

• Just one of the brutal and stereotypical deceptions that followed violent tragedies: After mass shootings or other deadly incidents, online publications often claim that Jordie Jordan was one of the victims. My colleague Tiffany Hsu explains what’s behind this repeated fake campaign? and others liked it.

• Is this an excuse to get out of a bad deal? After the recent drop in the stock prices of many tech companies, Elon Musk seems to be paying a lot of money to buy Twitter. This is a useful context for: Complaints from Musk’s lawyers On Monday, he said the company refused to tell him about automated Twitter accounts, and for a threat (Again) to withdraw from the deal, as reported by my colleagues Lauren Hirsch and Mike Isaac. (DealBook has more info on this.)

• Our shopping habits are changing the US workforce: Axios has had the largest share of employment in the transport and warehousing sector (jobs like truck drivers, Amazon warehouse workers and delivery couriers) since records kept. reported. This is a decade of employment shifts fueled by our appetite to spend more on supplies than services during the pandemic.

  Related: “The businesses that are hot right now — restaurants, storage — these are things that won’t last forever,” said Mary C. Daly, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank. told my colleague Jeanna Smialek.

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David Scott creates Rube Goldberg-style creations with the help of computers. marble concert on xylophone-like rods. (My Colleague Maya Salam suggested Videos of Scott going by the name Enbiggen on social media.)

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