A contestant uses a hand tracking feature with Facebook’s Oculus Quest VR headset during the Oculus Connect 6 conference in San Jose, California, on September 26, 2019.
Photographer: Michael Short / Bloomberg
Photographer: Michael Short / Bloomberg
Apple Inc. ‘s first head on a headphone is designed to be an expensive, niche forerunner for a more ambitious augmented reality product that, according to people with knowledge, will take longer to develop.
The initial device faced several development barriers and the company has conservative sales expectations, illustrating how challenging it is to bring this emerging consumer technology to the masses.
As a mostly virtual reality device, it will display an all-encompassing 3D digital environment to play, watch video and communicate. AR functionality, the ability to overlay images and information at a glance in the real world, will be limited. Apple plans to launch the product as early as 2022, against Facebook Inc. see Oculus, Sony Corp. PlayStation VR and HTC Corps headsets. They asked not to be identified during the discussion of private plans.
Apple’s typical playbook involves adopting emerging consumer technologies, such as music players, smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches, making them reliable and easy to use for everyone. This time, however, Apple does not want to create an iPhone-like hit for its first headset. Instead, the company is building a high-quality, niche product that will prepare developers and consumers from outside for its ultimate, more common AR glasses.
The plans suggest that Apple’s first headset will be much more expensive than that of competitors, which costs about $ 300 to $ 900. Some Apple insiders believe the company may only sell one headset a day per retail store. Apple has about 500 stores, so in that scenario, annual sales would be just over 180,000 units – excluding other sales channels. It will cost it on the same level as other expensive Apple products, such as the $ 5,999 Mac Pro computer. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.
Participants visit the Sony PlayStation Virtual Reality Game during the Gamescom computer game industry in Cologne, Germany, on August 20, 2019.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi / Bloomberg
Apple aims to include some of its most advanced and powerful chips in the headset, as well as screens that are much higher than existing VR products. Some of the chips tested in the device beat the performance of Apple’s M1 Mac processors. The people also designed the headset with a fan, something the company usually tries to avoid on mobile products.
The headset, codenamed N301, is at a late prototype stage, but has not yet been finalized, so the company’s plans may change or be scrapped altogether before launch. The AR glasses, codenamed N421, are known at an early stage as ‘architecture’, which means that Apple is still working on underlying technologies. According to the people, this product has been gone for a few years, although Apple had earlier in 2023 aimed to unveil it.
The powerful processors and the inclusion of a fan initially led to a device that was too large and heavy with early testing some concern about the neck tension. Apple removed the space that VR devices typically provide for users who need to wear glasses, which brought the headset closer to the face and helped reduce the size. And to appeal to consumers with poorer eyesight, it has developed a system for which prescription lenses can be placed on the VR screens in the headset, the people said.
This could expose Apple to regulations regarding the sale of prescription products. The company usually sells its devices in dozens of countries, many of which have different prescription rules. Apple is also discussing how they will implement in-store prescriptions online and in retail stores.
Apple originally planned to include less powerful processors and load much of the work into a hub in a user’s home that would stream content wirelessly to the headset. But the idea was shattered by Jony Ive, then Apple’s head of design, Bloomberg News reported last year. The headset is designed to work as a standalone device, which means it can work on a battery rather than a wall or a Mac. It’s similar to Facebook’s latest VR product, while Sony needs a PlayStation game console.
Read more: Apple’s AR and VR headphone plans change due to internal differences
To further reduce the weight of the device, Apple plans to use an exterior of material. This is a departure from the metal designs that Apple uses for most products, though it has used plastic for devices such as AirPods, which should be light, and materials for the HomePod speaker to enhance the acoustics.
Prototypes of the headset, some of which are about the size of an Oculus Quest, include external cameras to enable some AR features. The company is testing the use of hand-held cameras and is working on a feature where a user can virtually type in the air to enter text. It is unclear whether the feature will be ready for the first version of the device or that it will ever leave the exploration stage.
The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted development because Apple hardware engineers could only work from the office on certain days. The company has also experienced delays in doing user testing and data collection. This delayed some decisions in the engineering process.
The company is also still struggling with the content and functionality it intends to ship with the device. Virtual reality is still a somewhat emerging technology, with content outside of games still relatively limited. Last year, Apple acquired a company called NextVR, which incorporated events such as concerts and sports games into virtual reality. It is also being discussed to merge an App Store with the device, which is used on an operating system called ‘rOS’ in the enterprise.
If Apple continues with the VR headphones, it will be a precursor to an ultimate pair of AR glasses – a product that the company considers to be much more mainstream, but also harder to get started. Microsoft Corp.’s HoloLens 2 and Magic Leap headsets, which emphasize AR over VR, sell for $ 3,500 and $ 2,295, respectively. HoloLens mostly still concentrates on work use cases, while Magic Leap falls short of the early hype and last year work cut off.
A visitor tries a Magic Leap One during the Virtuality Paris 2019 show on November 21, 2019 in Paris, France.
Photographer: Chesnot / Getty Images Europe
Apple first added AR to the iPhone in 2017, allowing new mobile games and applications, such as placing furniture in your living room before you buy it. Apple CEO Tim Cook said that virtual and augmented reality has potential, but that AR is the biggest opportunity.
AR glasses should be packed with small, powerful and efficient electronics to cover notices, map directions and other information while supporting internet connection and a strong battery life. This is a major technical challenge. Even Oculus, which released its first all-in-one VR headset in 2019, will not include AR features in his first glasses this year.
To get to that point, years of work on lenses, hardware and software, component miniaturization, production techniques, and content creation are required. It’s hard to get most people to carry a computer on their face, even a small one, and it’s hard. This led to Google’s earlier attempt to partially condemn consumer AR glasses a few years ago.
By developing a less common headphone, Apple can invest in the underlying technologies, consumer education, content development and developer relationships to give their ultimate AR glasses the best opportunity to be successful – when they’re ready.