We are in the Snap offices here in Santa Monica, and I have the pleasure of being with Evan Spiegel in person. Hello Evan. It's a real pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much for coming. We are here for a very special occasion.
I'm so excited. I can't wait for people to try the Specs for themselves. And I know you had the chance to test them just a few minutes ago, right?
Yes, I won't say anything for now to keep the suspense.
You were telling me that a long time passed between when you had this idea and today, as the Specs are about to launch. Nearly 10 years ago, you launched Spectacles, but the idea was quite different. It was more fun, more pop, a bit like a camera gadget. Where did the idea for the Specs come from?
Well, if we think back to the beginning of the Specs, it all really started from our lessons learned from Snapchat. With Snapchat, we were addressing this feeling that on social media, everything was saved forever, permanently, and very publicly. It felt like a popularity contest with all these likes and comments. With Snapchat, we wanted to create something different, more fun, where you could really express yourself. And with Snapchat, we made the choice to open directly to the camera. That's where our obsession with this idea began. Instead of opening to a feed or something designed to distract you, computing should open to the present moment. But the challenge we had back then with Snapchat was that the camera was always at the bottom of your pocket. It wasn't there at the exact moment you needed it. So we started testing camera glasses, wondering what would happen if we took the camera out of our pocket to make something wearable. And around that time, we realized that with augmented reality and the great work we were doing with Lens, all of that was confined to that small smartphone screen. We then understood that if we could bring augmented reality into the real world where people could interact directly with it, we could start to change how computing works.
You've tried and tested a lot over these past 10 years. How did you go from Spectacles to the Specs? It's a standalone device, it's something very different. What did you learn to make this object so different from the Spectacles?
So many crucial elements came together over the last 12 years of working on the Specs. We took a very deliberate approach. If you remember, the first generation of Spectacles had only one camera. Then, over time, we added a second one to get binocular vision to start better understanding the world or capturing 3D images and videos. Next, we took the step of adding a display in the frame. We thus combined this understanding of the world with the ability to see new information through the display anchored in the physical environment. But with the Specs, it's a really significant step forward. Building on our operating system, which capitalizes on all our learning from Lens and smartphone augmented reality, we are finally able, for the very first time, to concentrate all this computing power capable of understanding the world without recording it and integrating these experiences into your environment, all in a pair of glasses that weighs barely 130 grams. Bringing together all these features developed over the years into a truly portable everyday object is a tremendous step.
You talk about intuitive computing. A notion difficult for me to pronounce. And how we interact with the physical world. Is it a more mature way of interacting that we are capable of today and that would have been impossible years ago? Is this a whole new world, this computing?
We believe it represents the new interface for computers. When I was a child and there were all these desktop computers, the paradigm was to point and click with a mouse and a keyboard. Then there was this great revolution of the touchscreen where you could interact directly with the screen. But today, with an intuitive interface, what's exciting is that you have nothing new to learn. You interact with computers exactly the same way you do with the real world. If you see something in front of you, you simply reach out to grab it. You can use your voice to ask for what you want. It's a major change. Instead of having to learn a new interface or a new method of interaction, it's the computer that evolves to understand your natural interactions and adapt to you.
How can you be sure that we are ready to detach from our smartphone to, as you say, keep our heads up?
I believe it's something people deeply desire. Every time I talk with friends or family, people feel like they spend 7 hours a day on average with their heads down, eyes fixed on a tiny screen or behind a computer screen. I think they really want a new type of computer that helps them accomplish more but ends up using less. And that's exactly what the Specs represent. Instead of having to operate a computer all day, typing things, with the advances in artificial intelligence, AI will do a larger share of that work for us. We can simply supervise it through the glasses and thus spend more time outside, in the real world, or with friends.
We talk a lot about AI, but people are still afraid of it. How can you reassure them that AI can be a friend, someone who helps, and not an entity that does things for you?
Because that will be the main goal of the Specs. To have an AI that helps, but while continuing to do things ourselves. Our vision for the Specs is a computer that enhances your own capabilities rather than replacing what humans can do. That's partly why it's crucial that the Specs anchor computing in the world around you. When you use the new basketball Lens with the NBA and WNBA, you're holding a real ball in your hands and learning to become a better player. If you're learning to draw, it's you learning to draw in the real world, but without replacing those drawing abilities or that human creativity. For us, the vision of AI with the Specs is to stimulate human creativity rather than replace it.
What is your favorite feature on the Specs?
My favorite? You know, lately, I've been using the whiteboard feature a lot. I'm a very visual thinker. For me, having this huge creative canvas, being able to talk to it, display my ideas, save them, and brainstorm in such a visual way is really great.
How long do you think we'll be able to use them?
The battery life is designed for 4 hours of mixed use. That could be simply listening to music via Bluetooth or using more immersive 6D Lenses. It's hard to evaluate precisely, but for us, the most important thing is that the Specs fit into people's lives rather than asking them to change their lives to adapt to the glasses.
What triggered this shift towards the Specs according to you? The technological advancement we have today or your philosophy from the beginning?
