In a bid to expand its product portfolio amid slowing iPhone sales, Apple is reportedly exploring the potential of an augmented reality set of glasses that sound an awful lot like Google Glass.
Sources familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg that although it's still in an exploratory phase, Apple has reportedly met with potential component suppliers and even gone so far as to have ordered a small quantity of near-eye displays from one supplier for testing purposes.
Should Apple decide to proceed with a consumer product, sources say it won't be unveiled until 2018 at the earliest.
Anyone that has kept current with Apple news shouldn't be surprised by the development. The Cupertino-based company has been buying up augmented reality and virtual reality companies left and right over the past couple of years and has even spoken publicly about its interest in the space.
Some of its more recent acquisitions include Swiss motion capture company Faceshift, German augmented reality firm Metaio, Kinect developer Primesense, AI image classification systems startup Perceptio and San Diego-based startup Emotient.
It's possible that Apple purchased some of these companies with the intent of using technology for its Titan car project but that's pure speculation on my part. Speaking of, it is believed that Apple has moved away from the idea of creating its own self-driving vehicle and is instead focusing on developing autonomous driving software that automakers could utilize.