Apple’s next big thing is coming out in a few weeks, and an initial review says it’ll live up to the hype.
Palmer Luckey, a 30-year-old American entrepreneur who started the Oculus VR platform, appears to have used the device.
Luckey sold his company, Oculus, to Meta for $3 billion (£2.4 billion) when he was just 21 years old. On Sunday, he simply tweeted: “Apple headphones are so good.”
Few official details are known about the Apple device, but it is believed that it will display alerts, messages, directions and more to the person using it.
Luckey is a big name in the VR industry, but no one knows how or where he came to test the device.
Luckey started Oculus when he was just 15 years old. He is a huge fan of video games and owns a defense company called Anduril Industries, which he founded in 2017.
Most recently, he created NerveGear, a headset that ‘brain-destroys’ the user as soon as they lose a video game.
Apple’s new headphones, which are supposed to be called “Reality Pro” and are due out later this year, won’t be nearly as dangerous.
Apple hasn’t said anything about the next device in public, but everyone in the tech business knows it’s coming.
Mark Gurman, an American who has been leaking information about it through his weekly email for months, says it could “replace the iPhone.”
Gurman says that Apple will launch Reality Pro on June 5, the first day of its five-day Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
Apple announced WWDC dates in March, but didn’t say anything public about the headphones.
But Apple’s promotional image for this year’s WWDC shows curved lines of color that look like the shape of headphones.
Launch: September 2023
Type: Mixed reality
Processors:
– One of ‘higher range’ similar to the M1 or M2
– A lower end to manage ‘sensor related aspects’
Operating system: xrOS
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6E
Price: $3,000 (£2,400)
According to Gurman, the Reality Pro will go on sale in September, around the same time as the company’s next iPhone.
The headset will “start at around $3,000,” which is about double what some of the most expensive smartphones on the market right now.
Augmented reality (AR) is the technology that Reality Pro will use to add digital images to the real world.
But it will also be able to do virtual reality (VR), which means it will only show virtual things and not the real world behind them.
AR adds computer generated imagery to the real world. Pokémon Go is a well known example of this. VR, on the other hand, is all in the virtual world.
Users will be able to walk down the street and always see the interface of their device in AR, be it an announcement, a message or a map. They won’t have to take their iPhone out of their pocket.
When the person is immobile, the device can be switched to VR mode, which is great for playing games, watching movies, or talking to avatars online.
The Reality Pro will likely come with its own operating system, called xrOS, which will have Apple apps like FaceTime, Messages, and Maps.
According to Gurman, as part of Apple’s push towards live streaming of games and news, the headset will be featured with a new portal for watching sports in virtual reality.
Advanced video conferencing and virtual meeting spaces with realistic avatars will also be available, giving users the impression that they are participating in the same place.
Apple’s headphones will be promoted as an iPhone accessory and the two devices will have to be connected, said Ming-Chi Kuo, another leaker.
Even so, the headphones will have their own sensors and processors, one to manage “aspects related to the sensors” and another “similar” to those found in iPads and Mac computers.
The new device will offer Apple enthusiasts a whole new level of contactless immersion and control, and is believed to be compatible with the iPhone, so any warning coming to the phone will be displayed on the earpiece.
The Reality Pro is expected to work more like a smartphone than previously released competing AR or VR headsets from Meta, Samsung and Microsoft.
Meta released its $1,499 Meta Quest Pro VR mixed reality headset last fall. It has new features that are meant to make users feel like they are in the same room as other people.
But Meta Quest Pro VR is primarily made for creative workers, businesses, and fans, so it shouldn’t be a direct competitor to Reality Pro.
The HTC Vive brand, owned by Taiwanese company HTC, the Samsung Gear VR and Microsoft’s HoloLens mixed reality headset are some of the other major players in the market. However, these are bulky devices that are mostly used by gamers or professionals.
Why is Apple launching a mixed reality headset?
It has been said that Apple has been working on an AR device for a long time. In 2019, the tech giant filed a patent showing what it might be working on behind closed doors.
But people have been working on headphones for the better part of a decade.
Gurman says the Reality Pro could be the next big thing after the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, which all came out in 2015 to much hype.
Mark Gurman has called the June 5 launch “one of the most important events in the company’s history” and an opportunity to “herald a post-iPhone era.”
Apple executives are “clear-eyed about Apple’s challenges in entering this new market,” but are also “preparing for a future beyond iPhone and iPad” with Reality Pro.
Gurman believes that the first version will not sell as well as the company’s other products, but he believes that future versions will likely do better as the product finds its place in the market.
For now, Apple will have to tell people why they would want such a device and how it is better than the iPhone and iPad.
Paolo Pescatore, an expert at PP Foresight, said the device will appeal to loyal fans and people who want “an immersive experience in areas like gaming and live events.”
But most people don’t use AR or VR technologies and don’t know much about them, which could hurt equipment sales.
“The device will give the virtual and augmented reality market a much-needed boost and get people interested again,” Pescatore told MailOnline.
“In the end, this is still in its early stages and has a long way to go before it’s mass-market ready and accepted by the majority of people.”
“No one is jumping up and down to buy a VR headset or even watch 360-degree video.”
Pescatore also said that Apple “cannot rely solely on the iPhone forever” because there is a lot of competition from other companies in new product categories like foldable devices.
He said: “The company has paid a lot of attention to the iPhone as a way to enter the Apple universe.” “This could mean that you are not up to date with the new hardware.”
Categories: Technology
Source: vtt.edu.vn