They’ve got your ears with their AirPods. What other body part will Apple subsume in order to capture even more of your attention and, coincidentally, make even more money? Your legs are relatively useless. In any case, apparently, no one has legs in the Metaverse. This leaves your face. The very essence that you project into the world is now for sale. Apple, like many other tech companies, surely wants it. And, as so many have speculated, the company may choose 2022 to unveil its no-doubt revolutionary hardware idea to adorn your most precious features. Apple CEO Tim Cook has often been effusive in his insistence that Augmented Reality is far more human-friendly than its virtual relative. Augmented Reality tries to enhance your human experience, so its proponents exclaim. Virtual Reality tries to take it over. How odd that Mark Zuckerberg is so keen on the latter. What sort of glasses might Apple create? What sorts of sensitivities might it have to overcome in order to make Apple Glasses the, um, next big thing? I tend to believe there are only two types of human beings: those who desperately need to have a fancy logo on their glasses and shades. And those who flee from the very idea, as if it’s a rampant Aedes mosquito. I fall into the latter category, though I fear it’s the minority. So many sport their Armani, Gucci, and even RayBan logos on their faces that they must believe it somehow enhances their features. Please consider, then, whether you’d like an Apple logo emerging from the side of your head. Or even the front. Many on YouTube are already showing their imaginings of that sight. Of course, it would be a tastefully sized Apple logo. But it would still be yet another badge with whose cause you identify and whose ethos you serve. Will you do it? Do you like it? Do you dream of it? What if you don’t? What if you think it’s one step too far in your gradual roboticization? Personally, I know I could never wear an Apple logo on a pair of glasses. It’s not open for negotiation. Just no. Please go away. No, not even if you pay me. It won’t happen. Please don’t even try. Yet, there is a solution that might tempt me over the edge. The headline would read: Apple buys Warby Parker. Let’s imagine, for a moment, that Apple’s superior chip design allows it to make that technology relatively unobtrusive on its AR glasses. Let’s imagine, too, that Apple buys Warby Parker and sacrifices its need to slap an overt logo on the front of the glasses. Or the side. Warby itself has been very clever in not blaring its own name anywhere on the outside of its glasses. Look closely, and it’s engraved on the inside. The company understands that your face is yours, not theirs. Warby has done an excellent job of wresting humans away from the iron grip of Luxxotica, which seems to control inflated pricing across so many of its eyewear brands. Wait, doesn’t Facebook already have a deal with Luxxotica’s Ray-Bans? Why, yes, it does. Here, then, is the price of my face, Apple. You buy Warby. You work with it to design your new Apple Glasses. You don’t adorn them with your logo – at least nowhere immediately visible. You give people a lot of design options. And you make the AR so human-friendly that even the truly skeptical won’t resist for too long. You see, Tim, I’m cheap. Really cheap. I just need the right sort of love and respect.
