Catcher Technology, a Taiwanese company which supplies metal frames and casings for Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPad and MacBook, has been tapped to make metal components for augmented reality devices, according to the Nikkei Asian Review. Catcher CEO Allen Horng declined to name the company responsible for the order, but this report will inevitably stir up questions about Apple’s rumored augmented reality glasses.
“Based on what we have learned, [new AR products] need to look good and be light enough to wear … that makes the casings for such devices very complicated to manufacture and there are still a lot of challenges to overcome currently,” Horng told analysts and reporters during an earnings conference on Tuesday.
Rumors surrounding the so-called Apple Glasses have been swirling for months, but Apple CEO Tim Cook quashed them somewhat in an interview with The Independent last month. At the time, Cook said that :the technology itself doesn’t exist to do [smart glasses] in a quality way,” which sounds similar to the challenges Horng discussed.
But not everyone was convinced by Cook’s dismissal. Yuanta Investment Consulting analyst Jeff Pu says that not only is Apple currently developing AR glasses, but that they will go on sale as soon as the end of 2019.
This isn’t the only Catcher news of the week either. Just yesterday, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in a research note that Catcher has won new orders for iPhone components into 2018. We don’t want to read too much into the timing of the two pieces of news, but it’s clear that Apple and Catcher will continue to work together.
