Apple CEO Tim Cook Teases Future AR Products & Talks Secretive Innovation Process in New Interview

The Apple rumor mill never stops churning and when it comes to augmented reality smartglasses, the chatter has been particularly hot in recent months.

Now Apple CEO Tim Cook has made a new appearance where he makes a few comments that may stoke even more excitement for what's coming next in that direction.

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The comments from Cook were made on Wednesday during the Paris, France tech conference Viva Technology. During a remote conversation with Guillaume Lacroix, the CEO of Brut, Cook decided to talk about what he's most excited about in terms of Apple's future.

"I'm excited about AR. I get excited about AR because I see it as a technology that can enhance life in a broad way," said Cook. "We've been working on AR first with our phones and iPads, and later we'll see where that goes in terms of products."

That last sentence is about as close as Cook has come to admitting that "something" new is in the works in terms of a non-software AR product from Apple.

Of course, at this point, we've fielded so many rumors and leaks about what the Apple AR device may or may not be, it has become difficult to tell what may actually be coming from Apple's product labs. Is it an AR wearable? Is it a VR headset? Is it a hybrid of both? Or is it something we haven't even imagined?

This "what is it" confusion, fueled by leaks, is likely the result of Apple trying out a range of AR wearable ideas and some of those ideas managing to (possibly deliberately?) leak out. Cook sheds some light on how this is probably happening with his additional comments on developing products under the cover of high secrecy.

"We try to fail internally instead of externally because we don't want to involve customers in the failure. We develop things and subsequently decide not to ship [them]," said Cook. "We begin going down a certain road and sometimes adjust significantly because of the discovery that we make in that process. Failing is a part of life. Whether you're a new company, a startup, or you're a company that's been around for a while and you're trying different things. If you're not failing, you're not trying enough different things."

Given those comments, it's quite possible that at least a couple of the Apple AR smartglasses rumors we've seen were informed by some of those never-to-be-released failures.

Nevertheless, unless Apple's legendary secrecy bubble pops, we'll have to wait for the truth. "I've gotta keep some secrets," said Cook. "There's always has to be something up our sleeve."

Cover image via Viva Technology/YouTube