It almost certainly won’t happen, but if Apple really wanted to take the Mac in a wild new direction it could release an augmented reality (AR) laptop akin to Sightful’s Spacetop (pictured).
The folks at Sightful say the Spacetop offers a “100-inch laptop in your backpack.” The laptop’s specs include:
° A Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 processor;
° Kryo 585TM 8-core, 64-bit CPU (up to 3.1GHz speed);
° Adreno 650 GPU; 8GB of LPDDR5 memory; a 128G drive (which can be upgraded)
° 2560 x 1920, 2560 x 1920 webcam;
° 35mm headphone jack;
° 5G connectivity;
The Spacetop works with AR glasses (Real Light) with these specs:
° Two X OLED display panels (1920×1080 pixels per eye) with sRGB 106% color gamut;
° Refresh rate: 72Hz;
° 8-bit depth for 16.773 million colors;
° Up to 280 nits perceived brightness;
° 100,000:1 contrast ratio;
° ~52 degree FoV (Diagonal);
° 42 pixels per degree (PPD);
° Fingerprint-resistant coating;
° Two open-ear speakers, dual microphone array, omnidirectional MEMS, microphones.
The Spacetop runs on a customized version of Google’s Android operating system that’s “built from the ground up to provide an amazing spatial computing experience.” If you wear prescription lens, you can use Spacetop and the AR glasses. During checkout you will be asked if you wear glasses and, if so, to provide your prescription. Your Spacetop will then ship with a customized set of lenses that magnetically clip to the inside of your glasses.
However, if Apple made an AR laptop, it would be pricey (of course). The Spacetop starts at US$2,150, and a Mac AR laptop would likely cost even more.
