Apple is known to be pushing the development of Augmented Reality (AR) technology. At the WWDC conference some time ago, the manufacturer released a development platform called ARKit for developers who want to add AR functionality to the application.
That's from the software side, what about the hardware aspects of AR? Apple seems to be preparing a device in the form of smart glasses. His form was revealed in a recently published patent document.
Like an AR device, the sunglasses in an Apple patent document have a "semitransparent glass" that can display a variety of data over all sorts of objects that the user is viewing.
In that way it works similar to the Google Glass device, but there's something else in the form of technology that's a bit like the "touchscreen"
Armed with a special camera, Apple's smart glasses are mentioned to recognize objects that are being referred by the user's finger. So, for example the user shows a finger to a painting, Apple's glasses can identify and present additional information about the painting.
The patent documents say that the smart glasses can work without the need to connect to a smartphone. However, there is also a description of the phone (iPhone) that have AR capabilities similar to using the rear camera.
Of course, like a device that is still a patent, still not clear when the smart glasses will be ready to be marketed. That is if it really manifests in the form of final product.