A lot of Apple fans keep saying Apple drives innovation, but I'd love to see where this has actually been true. Every example I've ever been given has a counter-example where someone else did it first and Apple did not do it in a way that conferred a market advantage; the only thing Apple has proven they're consistently better at is having a PR team that is also a cult.
Sure. Here's the basic pipeline: Somebody makes a cool piece of tech, but they don't have the UI/UX chops to make it work. Apple comes along and works some serious magic on the tech to make it attractive for everyday use. Other companies get their roadmap from Apple's release, and go from there.
Some examples:
Nice fonts on desktops
Smartphones
Tablets
Smartwatches (more debatable, but Apple did play a big part here)
In-house SOCs.
I suspect that their future AR offering is going to work the same way. The market is currently nascent, but Apple will make a market.
