Paul Henry Smith
Product Designer

What if…?

What if Apple’s rumored AR glasses arrive? Here’s one way you could use them to study.

Forget about walking around town with dopey camera-glasses overloading your brain with useless dreck. Instead, think about enhancing what we already do, in places where we won’t bump into things ... like simply studying a textbook at home. Let‘s start there and learn about how AR experiences can work and then evolve.

What if the millions of old, printed textbooks could be transformed to a gateway to new digital experiences?

A simple card placed in the upper-left-corner can anchor a rich AR experience around a book. An “always on” table of contents, explanatory animation, instant access to your own notes… These are the low-hanging fruit that can transform AR from snazzy doo-dad to “I can't believe it hasn’t always been done this way.”

What happens when a singer hears an orchestra accompany her—and it fits her tempo in real time—on an iPhone?

We have gotten so used to the idea that it is us who have to bend to technology that people literally squeal with delight when they experience technology that does just the opposite.

What if images stayed in view as long as the text was referring to them?

We are so wedded to the fiction of a “page” that we accept many of the page’s limitations. For example, images on a page can't detach and remain in view when the text referring to it moves on to the next page. But a page that is on a screen could do just that.