In a lengthy article, Bloomberg reveals what is the most accurate portrait of the Apple Reality headset to date, which is still expected sometime in 2023. One of the product’s flagship features would be a 3D body modeling, for ultra-futuristic FaceTime virtual meetings.
Can Apple succeed in the virtual reality sector, or is it about to enter a niche market? According to more and more rumors, the Californian brand will announce in the course of 2023, probably in the spring, its first mixed reality headset. The Reality Pro or Reality One (these are the two names registered by Apple) will allow the iPhone manufacturer to experiment with a new market, which is nevertheless struggling to convince the competition (the Meta Quest Pro is a technological monster, but its sales are still low). How does Apple intend to convince people to buy its product? Mark Gurman of Bloombergknown for his often fair sources on Apple, revealed on January 23 full of exclusive information on Apple Reality.
Navigation with eyes and hands, Apple’s weapon
With every major announcement from Apple came a new way to interact with technology. There have been :
- The mouse with the Mac,
- The wheel with the iPod;
- Multitouch with iPhone and iPad;
- The rotating crown with the Apple Watch.
It is rare that Apple is the first to arrive on the market, but the strength of the Californian brand is to reinvent its use. It is particularly expected on headsets, especially since rumors suggest that Apple will not launch controllers to interact with its virtual reality. Unlike all its competitors.
According to Mark Gurman, the Apple headset would reproduce the interface of the iPhone home screen, but in 3D. There would be floating icons and widgets, which you could select with… your eyes. Thanks to eye tracking (a technology already used by Meta and Sony), it would be enough to look at an icon to animate it. A pinch of the fingers would then select it. This is more ambitious than the competition, which under-exploits eye tracking for the moment.
If augmented reality should be highlighted, Bloomberg specifies that Apple’s interface could switch from the real world to full virtual reality, thanks to a rotating crown similar to that of the Apple Watch. By rotating it, we could more or less activate the cameras to see through the helmet, thanks to cameras located around it. We can only hope that the rendering of the cameras is better than at Meta or HTC, where the image is quite noisy.
FaceTime in 3D, cinema in realistic settings… Apple’s ideas
Mark Gurman also gives examples of applications designed by Apple for its 3D environment. There would of course be the essentials (Safari, Photos, Mail, Messages, Calendar, App Store), but also services (Music, TV+, Podcasts). Health monitoring would also be highlighted, we hope with a mixed version of Fitness+ (we dream of a virtualized sports teacher in the middle of his living room). For Apple TV+, Apple imagines a kind of projection in a dedicated environment. An apocalyptic series could be watched in a cinema covered in sand, with effects depending on what happens. Apple would have approached Disney and Dolby to create content adapted to VR and would also have sports ambitions (that’s good, Apple is currently buying broadcasting rights).
In addition to a Mac connection mode (to virtualize your computer in mixed or virtual reality), Apple would also bet on FaceTime. The headset’s sensors would be able to create a realistic 3D version of their user, from head to toe, to give two correspondents wearing the headset the impression that they are in the same room. The device’s M2 chip, however, would not be powerful enough for group calls – only two people could be 3D modeled at the same time. The others should be replaced with a 3D avatar, like a Memoji. We are very curious to see what this will give in real life, this type of technology seems very complicated to us to set up.
Finally, Mark Gurman discusses rumors about the headset’s limited battery. The journalist confirms that it is unlikely that the Apple Reality exceeds 2 hours on a single charge, especially since its battery will probably be external (it would have to be put in your pocket, with a cable hanging down). All this is not yet sure, there would be a prototype with an integrated battery. To see which Apple will decide to market.
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