Apple's Mixed Reality Mystery Headset: What WWDC Needs To Discuss
VR/AR Productivity
Speaker 1: Apple's upcoming VR headset, whole new computing platform or an unusual experiment. We're just days away from Apple's Developer Conference, WW d c, where there is finally expected to be an Apple mixed reality headset. We've heard about this thing for years now and there were already VR and AR headsets that have been on the landscape for a while. I've been covering VR and AR for at least a decade. While Apple has [00:00:30] not been in this space, but is expected to have a product and how expensive this product is and whether it's for you. Those are very much questions that we'd like to know, but there are a lot of ways where Apple could change the game in the landscape and do some things that are really interesting. Now, you know the meta quests too, which is a lot of people have and play games with a gaming VR headset.
Speaker 1: That's how most people think of vr. You hold these PlayStation type controllers and you play games with it. Well, what do you do beyond that? Can you do work? Can you do fitness? [00:01:00] Can you connect with other people? Can you connect with your devices? These are the sorts of things that Apple could open doors to. First of all, let's talk about the devices right now with VR headsets and with AR headsets, there are really not great for connecting to your computer or your phone or other things. And while I do work on my laptop with the MetWest Pro and cast monitors up in the air all around my laptop, it's not a perfect experience, but that's the type of thing that Apple could [00:01:30] make a lot easier to use. Apple has laptops, they have iPads, they have phones. They have things that automatically seamlessly most of the time connect to each other.
Speaker 1: Things like the Apple Watch, AirPods, where does that all fit into the equation? Well, the Apple Watch could be the type of thing that could work with the Apple VR headset, maybe for controls or connecting to fitness. What about connecting on your laptop and throwing a screen up on a virtual monitor or getting all of your information from your phone and not feeling like you have to take off the headset? That type of seamlessness [00:02:00] between all the devices, that's a big part of what's missing in the landscape. What we see instead are a lot of VR headsets that are building mixed reality features into them. Last year's Met Aquest Pro is an example of that. It was $1,500, now it's a thousand, but it's a headset that's VR that uses cameras to map the world around You show video through the cameras onto the display and layer VR on top of it. That's what mixed reality is and that's the type of thing that Apple is likely [00:02:30] to do with their headset. A similar type of idea, but with a much higher resolution display. Most likely powerful chips inside looks like M two chips, similar to what's on their Mac and you know, and their iPad lineup and possibly 4K micro O LED displays, which could be fantastic.
Speaker 1: Now another area is fitness. Fitness is already a stealth killer app on VR right now. MED has been doing that for a while and things like Beat Saber Supernatural, these are fantastic [00:03:00] features. They don't always work well with your existing fitness and health ecosystems. This is where Apple could come in. Apple already has a lot of research into health and fitness initiatives. What if the Apple headset also has workouts some way of being able to accurately train workouts like a Peloton and also has breathable materials that are better for sweating and better for just general fitness and comfort. Apple could be one of the first to make a bigger step in that space.
Speaker 1: The other thing [00:03:30] that Apple could really do is figure out interfaces. Now it sounds like the headset is not going to have controllers per se. Maybe it has hand tracking in combination with eye tracking to be able to look at where you're pointing to in space and and accurately hone in on it and allow you to pinch and kind of virtually touch things. How would that work? Without feedback though, maybe the Apple Watch is involved here with some sort of vibrational feedback. Apple has already done accessibility gestures and commands that work with the Apple [00:04:00] Watch where you can actually use it for some, you know, different types of points and pinches and things like that.
Speaker 1: And the other things we're curious about, well look, you know how it's built because apparently it's got this really nice display. It may even show your eyes through some sort of pass through display. It should have a lot of sensors on it, both for cameras for eye tracking and for hand tracking. And it sounds like it's very slim using the types of optics that have been included on Met as Quest Pro headset and are expected on the Quest three. [00:04:30] The other thing that this headset looks like it's got is compatibility with the iPad app ecosystem. It sounds like thousands of iPad apps are gonna run on this, and I'm really curious if Macapp will run on this and how cross compatible that will fuel and what's the pathway for that to then become a mixed reality app. And what is this X R O S, which is this XR operating system that Apple is supposed to have on this headset?
Speaker 1: We're expecting that the headset will cost $3,000, which is a lot really expensive. [00:05:00] Headsets in my mind are more like $1,500 and that's the Quest Pro, which already dropped in price. If that's the price, then it's really sort of a developer specialty item, which may be a building block for a future more affordable headset down the road. And how will Apple pitch that? We're expecting maybe that this headset will launch in the fall and maybe this event is more of a beginning breakdown for what the headset involves and how to develop apps for it with a real formal launch in the fall. But with the Medic Quests three coming, which should cost around 400 to $500 we expect. And already [00:05:30] the PlayStation VR two, there are a lot of headsets coming out. Which one should you get? I have no idea, but we'll find out more what Apple has in store pretty soon. If you have any more questions, let us know in the comments below. Thanks for watching and make sure to like and subscribe.
