Apple will soon throw its hat into the AR/VR ring with its own headset, set to debut at the 2023 Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC), taking place from June 5-9 near San Jose, California, at the company’s headquarters.
Rumors have been floating around for years that Apple would eventually enter the industry of head-mounted displays (HMDs), but the company kept pushing back on it, seeing as how the technology failed to live up to their vision. However, that is going to be changing very soon.
Speculation reveals that the device will likely go by the name Apple Reality or Reality Pro. This headset is expected to support virtual reality (VR) applications similar to Meta Quest 2 and the Valve Index. With VR, users have their field of view completely immersed in a fully digital world as they interact.
In addition to VR, Apple also plans for the device to support both augmented reality (AR) and mixed-reality (MR) apps. Unlike VR, these technologies display digital images and interfaces on top of the user’s view of the real world, behaving more like reading glasses. Specifically, MR is a mix of both AR and VR technology.
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Due to the fact that Apple is planning to offer a combination of VR, AR, and MR, Apple is marketing the product as an extended reality (XR) device, giving the name to the operating system, xrOS.
Like most Apple accessories, it will run every kind of app you’d find on your iPhone and iPad, including Messages, Maps, FaceTime, and Apple TV. It will also support every version of the AR/MR apps that already run on those devices.
Similar to the Microsoft HoloLens, which was initially targeted towards developers and enterprises given its high cost of production as well as its sophistication, rumor has it that Apple’s headset will run at least $3000 on store shelves. Still, Apple has yet to confirm that the headset even exists, let alone its price.
Mark Zuckerberg was one of the first big tech entrepreneurs in the industry to support this technology, having acquired Oculus VR way back in 2014 for $2 billion. Since then, he has completely rebranded the company from Facebook to Meta in full belief that it will “be the next big thing” and revolutionize computing as the “final platform.”
With all the competitors that have arisen since the early days of this kind of hardware, it will be interesting to see what Apple will do to set itself apart.