A participant uses a hand-tracking feature with Facebook’s Oculus Quest VR headset at the Oculus Connect 6 conference in San Jose, California, on September 26, 2019.
Photographer: Michael Short / Bloomberg
Photographer: Michael Short / Bloomberg
The first crack from Apple Inc. with a headset is designed as a pricey, niche precursor to a more ambitious augmented reality product that, according to knowledgeable people, will take longer to develop.
The original device has passed several development hurdles, and the company has conservative sales expectations, illustrating how challenging it will be to bring this burgeoning consumer technology to the masses.
Primarily a virtual reality device, the device displays an all-encompassing 3D digital environment for gaming, watching video and communicating. AR functionality, the ability to post images and information on a real world representation, will be more limited. Apple plans to launch the product as early as 2022, in violation of Facebook Inc.’s Oculus, Sony Corp.’s PlayStation VR. and HTC Corp. headsets, people said. They asked not to be identified while discussing private plans.
Apple’s quintessential playbook means that emerging consumer technology, such as music players, smartphones, tablets and smartwatches, is made reliable and easy to use for everyone. This time around, however, Apple isn’t planning to create an iPhone-esque hit for its first headset. Instead, the company is building a high-end niche product that prepares third-party developers and consumers for the ultimate, more common AR glasses.
The plans suggest Apple’s first headset will be much more expensive than rivals, which will cost around $ 300 to $ 900. Some Apple insiders believe the company may only sell one headset per day per store. Apple has about 500 stores, so in that scenario annual sales would be just over 180,000 units, excluding other sales channels. That would put it on par with other expensive Apple products, such as the $ 5,999 Mac Pro desktop computer. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.
Participants will visit the Sony PlayStation virtual reality gaming booth at the Gamescom event for the computer games industry in Cologne, Germany, on August 20, 2019.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi / Bloomberg
Apple is aiming to include some of the most advanced and powerful chips in the headset, along with displays with much higher resolution than those in existing VR products. Some of the chips tested in the device beat the performance of Apple’s M1 Mac processors. The company has also designed the headset with a fan, something the company usually tries to avoid with mobile products, people said.
The headset, code-named N301, is in late prototype stage, but has not yet been finalized, so the company’s plans could be changed or scrapped entirely before launch. The AR glasses, code-named N421, are still known early on as ‘architecture’, meaning Apple is still working on underlying technologies. This product, according to people, has been removed in a number of years, although Apple previously had the goal of unveiling it in 2023.
The powerful processors and the addition of a fan initially led to a device that was oversized and heavy, with some neck strain concerns in early tests. Apple has removed the space that VR gadgets usually reserve for users who need to wear glasses, bringing the headset closer to the face and reducing the size. And to appeal to consumers with poor eyesight, it developed a system where custom prescription lenses could be placed in the headset over the VR screens, the people said.
This can expose Apple to regulations for the sale of products with regulations. The company typically sells its devices in dozens of countries, many of which have different prescription lines. Apple is also discussing how it would implement recipes at the point of sale online and in stores.
Apple originally planned to add less powerful processors and transfer much of the work to a hub in a user’s home that would send content wirelessly to the headset. But that idea was squashed by Jony Ive, Apple’s design chief at the time, Bloomberg News reported last year. The headset is designed to work as a standalone device, which means it can run on a battery rather than plugging into a wall outlet or a Mac. That’s comparable to Facebook’s newest VR product, while Sony needs a PlayStation game console.
Read more: Apple’s AR and VR headset plans changed due to internal differences
To further reduce the weight of the device, Apple plans to use a fabric exterior. That’s different from the metal designs Apple uses for most products, although it has used plastic for devices like AirPods, which need to be lightweight, and fabrics for the HomePod speaker to improve acoustics.
Prototypes of the headset, some of which are about the size of an Oculus Quest, include external cameras to enable some of the AR functions. The company is testing the use of the cameras for hand-tracking and is working on a feature that will allow a user to virtually type in the air to enter text. It’s unclear if that feature will be ready for the first version of the device or if it will ever leave the exploratory phase.
The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted some development, as Apple hardware engineers were only able to work from the office on certain days. The company has also faced delays in conducting user testing and data collection. That has delayed some decisions in the engineering process.
The company is also still struggling with what content and functionality it wants to send with the device. Virtual reality is still a somewhat burgeoning technology, with content outside of games still relatively limited. Last year, Apple took over the company NextVR, which recorded events such as concerts and sports games in virtual reality. There has also been talk of bundling an App Store with the device, which runs on an operating system called “rOS” within the company.
If Apple continues with the VR headset, it would be a precursor to an eventual AR glasses – a product the company sees as much more mainstream, but also more difficult to launch. The HoloLens 2 from Microsoft Corp. and Magic Leap’s headset, which emphasizes AR over VR, retails for $ 3,500 and $ 2,295, respectively. HoloLens still focuses primarily on work-related use cases, while Magic Leap falls far short of the early hype and job cuts last year.
A visitor tries a Magic Leap One at 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, enabling new mobile games and apps, such as those that allow you to virtually place furniture in your living room before you buy it. Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has said that both virtual and augmented reality have potential, but AR is the more likely.
AR glasses have to be packed with small, powerful and efficient electronics to overlay notifications, directions and other information while supporting the internet connection and long battery life. That is a huge technical challenge. Even Oculus, which released its first all-in-one VR headset in 2019, will not include AR features in its first glasses this year.
Getting to that point requires years of work on lenses, hardware and software, component miniaturization, manufacturing techniques, and content creation. It’s critical that most people wear a computer on their face, even a small one, that’s difficult. That partially doomed Google’s early attempt to make consumer AR glasses a few years ago.
By developing a less common initial headset, Apple can invest in the underlying technologies, consumer education, content development, and developer relationships to give the final AR glasses the best chance of success – when they’re ready.