Tim Cook discusses AR/VR in new interview as Apple mixed-reality headset rumored for June

Apple CEO Tim Cook has discussed augmented reality in a new interview with GQ magazine amid rumors that the iPhone maker will unveil an all-new mixed-reality headset this year, with Cook admitting that he and Apple previously misjudged the potential of AR.

Speaking with GQ’s Zach Baron, Cook referred on comments he made several years ago in a similar interview discussing Google Glass, an early AR product, with Cook at the time saying he was skeptical of the concept, adding that “glasses were not a smart move, from a point of view that people would not really want to wear them.”

With Apple rumored to be readying its first-ever mixed-reality headset, Cook was asked what he thought of his previous comments, saying “My thinking always evolves. Steve taught me well: never to get married to your convictions of yesterday. To always, if presented with something new that says you were wrong, admit it and go forward instead of continuing to hunker down and say why you’re right.”

Speaking about an interest in AR/VR, Cook said “If you think about the technology itself with augmented reality, just to take one side of the AR/VR piece, the idea that you could overlay the physical world with things from the digital world could greatly enhance people’s communication, people’s connection. It could empower people to achieve things they couldn’t achieve before. We might be able to collaborate on something much easier if we were sitting here brainstorming about it and all of a sudden we could pull up something digitally and both see it and begin to collaborate on it and create with it. And so it’s the idea that there is this environment that may be even better than just the real world—to overlay the virtual world on top of it might be an even better world. And so this is exciting. If it could accelerate creativity, if it could just help you do things that you do all day long and you didn’t really think about doing them in a different way.”

You can read the full interview here, where Cook also discusses his public image, Apple Park, and more.