Facebook thinks AR will replace your smartphone by 2030
Facebook Reality Labs chief Michael Abrash has seen the future, and it sits upon your nose. Talking to The Information, Abrash says that your desk workspace will be replaced with high-quality VR someday, and augmented reality glasses will replace smartphones, though for a while he expects a companion device like a phone or “a puck” will be needed for battery power and computing.
Everybody sees that AR will replace the phone someday. That seems like a given. But I think that VR will be as important as AR. AR can replace the phone, but VR can replace the personal computer.
There is something bleak in Abrash’s utopian vision for the future of reality as controlled by Facebook. The worlds that Abrash describes include “the best workspace in the world.” A key benefit to the magic of augmented reality will be your ability “to access a lower fidelity version of the same workspace.”
The technology that will allow most of that to happen does not yet exist … but it will.