An Apple safety report has given hints at to what the tech giant is working on. Picture: AFP

APPLE’S is famously obsessed with keeping its prototype ideas top secret but a standard workplace safety report could just have spilt the beans on the tech company’s next big thing.

In a report that details the everyday safety incidents at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters is a snippet of information that seems to confirm Apple CEO Tim Cook’s belief that augmented reality is set to be a key focus in the future.

The report, apparently accidentally sent to hundreds of Apple staff instead of just health and workplace safety officers and obtained by Gizmodo, details two injuries that occurred in the past few months while wearing a prototype device.

“After BT4 user study, user advised study lead, that she experienced discomfort in her eye and said she was able to see the laser flash at several points during the study. Study lead referred her to optometrist and secured prototype unit for analysis,” the report says of an incident in February.

A month later, there was a second injury. “Employee reported eye pain after working with new prototype, thought it may be associated with use. He noticed that the security seal on the magenta (outer) case had been broken and had thought the unit may have been tampered with.”

Cook has been spruiking AR as the focus for the future for months.

Earlier this year, he called it the technology “for everyone: and likely to have as big an impact as the iPhone.”

Last year he said people would “have AR experiences every day, almost like eating three meals a day — it will become that much a part of you”.

The discomfort in the eye seems to suggest that Apple is testing some sort of smart glasses, although iris scanning as part of the facial recognition that is expected to be part of the iPhone 8 is another possibility.

Google Glass promised much and delivered little.Source:Supplied

Snapchat has its own take on smart glasses, with sunnies that double as a video camera. Picture: AFP/SNAP INCSource:AFP

Smart glasses are certainly not new to the tech world, with Google Glass an early product that promised much but delivered little more than giving the world the derogatory term “glasshole”.

Snapchat has its own take on the smartglass model, with sunglasses that shoot round video. Then there was the recent trial in Australia of WaveShades sunglasses that can be used to buy goods.

The workplace reports contain other snippets of information that could reveal what else Apple might be working on, with an employee suffering an injury on a ski trip a suggestion that Apple might be adding skiing to the workout app on the Apple Watch.

Then there is this revelation: an employee performing a test in a chamber at Cupertino dropped the “heavy object” on his toe.

“At that time, he didn’t feel was a big deal, he continued to finish his testing. He just reported to me that is toe is now swollen,” the report says.

Maybe Apple’s next big thing is actually just a really big thing — that’s quite heavy too.