Last week we wrote about simplicity as a driving force behind the world’s biggest technology offerings. We’re extending our thoughts on simplicity into a series that explores the necessity of simplicity in frontier technology. First, we’ll dive into AR.

Simplicity for AR in 2018 must start with a question: “What does AR do?” Not in the literal sense. We all know it overlays digital information on the real world. What the question needs to answer is what undeniable and unduplicable benefit AR confers to its users. What can only AR do?

The smartphone put a powerful computer in your pocket that lets you work and play from everywhere. Apple makes the smartphone so simple anyone can pick it up and start working and playing instantly.

What can only AR do?

The Internet connected you with the world’s information. Google sorts it for you. Amazon lets you buy things you find.

What can only AR do?

The answer isn’t that it puts a computer with the world’s information in your eye. That’s only marginally better, maybe not even, than what we have now. Marginally better is fine as an emerging feature on smartphones today, but it won’t drive mass adoption of AR wearables that people wear all day long.

The problem is more obvious when asked what the killer use case of AR is. To be clearer, a use case the average consumer could engage in every day. It’s not envisioning a new couch in your living room or getting step-by-step instructions or doing facial/object recognition. AR doesn’t have the advantage of email, messaging, and web browsing as the smartphone inherited from the Internet. Because AR is a true paradigm shift in how we interface with computers, we need to rethink communication, information collection, and information consumption specifically for AR. That hasn’t happened in a meaningful way yet.

Our tone here is tough, but only because we think the AR space has been taking a pass at answering this hard existential question in favor of experimentation with hopes that customers figure it out for them. We remain bullish on the future of AR and think the answer to our core question here might have something to do with the relative “nearness” of information it creates. To elaborate, we’ve evolved from a limited keyboard-style interface to a touch interface to a mixed reality interface that might incorporate gestures, thoughts, voice, etc. Interacting with information is becoming much closer to how we interact with the real world. This answer isn’t perfect, but we think it’s in the right direction.