Even with a $3,000 price tag, Apple is set to wow with its VR-AR headset

This mixed reality headset will be significantly more expensive than anything Meta, the market leader in the VR headset space. It will also be much more potent.

File photo of the Apple store in Saket, Delhi | Representational image | ANI

Starting 5 June, Apple will be hosting its annual developer conference, popularly known as “Dub Dub”, short for WWDC or the World Wide Developer Conference. It will be in its 36th year and one can expect the most bombastic and explosive WWDC of them all. We’ve heard about it for years and for the last year, we’ve known it is coming soon Apple’s venture into the niche and truly futuristic realm of virtual reality and augmented reality, crystallised in a headset that will offer both.

The headset has polarised opinions — there are many sceptics who doubt the ability of the Cupertino-based stable to find success where Google, Microsoft and even Meta to a certain degree have failed. There are talks of development issues, there are doubts internally at Apple, and there is chatter about this being CEO Tim Cook’s last hurrah at the tech giant.

And while this happened, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, released its third-generation flagship VR headset, the Quest 3 ($299), which starkly feels iterative at best. Of course, Meta, which now counts Apple as a staunch rival, wants to lay down the gauntlet and perhaps play party pooper at the upcoming developer conference. But if anything, the unveiling of the Meta Quest 3 assures this writer that Apple will succeed where the rest have failed.

The wow factor

When a new technology is about to go mainstream there often needs to be a wow moment. It happened with the mouse and the graphical user interface when the PC became popular. Then the same phenomenon happened with music players — with the Sony Walkman first and then the iPod. And finally, it happened with smartphones, especially with the user interface of the original iPhone. Its first iteration was significantly more expensive than other smartphones and Microsoft’s then CEO, Steve Ballmer, smirked about the iPhone’s cost and limited feature set. Today, it is Microsoft that doesn’t make a smartphone OS, while Apple has become the world’s most valuable company on the basis of the iPhone’s success. And this mixed-reality headset is being seen as the successor to the iPhone.

All the rumours have pointed to one simple fact — that this mixed reality headset will be significantly more expensive than anything Meta, the market leader in the VR headset space, has at $3,000. It is also expected to be substantially more potent as it will use an adapted M2 processor which will enable it to provide tremendous graphic capabilities that will result in significantly realistic VR experiences. After all, Apple is expected to call this product “RealityPro” and the operating system could be called RealityOS — so realism in the virtual realm is literally the name of the game. Added to that will be the tactility of the experience with precise eye tracking and spatial audio.

Apple is the master of spatial audio with AirPods and HomePods. It has scaled that technology across its gadget portfolio. The tech giant also acquired a company called PrimeSense in 2013 whose facial recognition technology it incorporated in the iPhone for FaceID. It has been building the fundamentals of eye tracking, something that you can even experience in the iPad front camera when you make video calls.

The graphics piece in the headset comes with challenges, mainly battery life, for which rumours suggest a magnetic battery extension attachment has been created.

Using a digital crown similar to the one on the Apple Watch, users will be able to toggle between virtual and augmented reality spaces. Just imagine the level of wow this experience can bring to the user if Apple absolutely blitzkriegs the virtual reality aspect from a graphic and application standpoint.

Observers are banking on Apple as over the years, it has acquired startups like Metaio for AR, Flyby Media which worked on computer vision, SensoMotoric Instruments another eye tracking specialist, Akonia Holographics for transparent AR glasses and NextVR a company that specialises in filming content in VR which could help Apple’s content streaming service.

An ecosystem like no other

The Apple TV+ streaming platform is reportedly making films and TV shows for this headset. And from what reports suggest it will be in 4K on the RealityPro headset, unlike the low-resolution screens we are seeing right now.

Apple’s mastery of content, its ability to mobilise developers, and its ability to build custom and fashionable hardware put it in a unique position. We haven’t seen anything like that from Meta and Microsoft which first debuted HoloLens in 2015 and has now stalled its project with the US Army. Google Glass first showed up in 2012 when Sergey Brin hosted an audacious unveil at San Francisco’s Moscone Centre with skydivers wearing it and waltzing into the Google I/O conference. But soon early adopters were called “glassholes” because others around them were wary of being recorded unknowingly.  The use case was minimal and now, apart from some industrial use, Google Glass is dead for all intents and purposes.

Even former Microsoft and Qualcomm executive, and current Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson, believes that Apple has the ability to supercharge this niche market right now. Apple has a way of getting everyone’s attention and it also has an ecosystem that is unlike any other. Even if this headset is a standalone device it will have dependencies on other Apple gadgets like the iPhone, Apple Watch, the Mac and AirPods. It will act like a conduit for more sales of other Apple gadgets and vice versa along with services that Apple will build on top.

For Apple, this is also a way to crack gaming. It has aced gaming on mobile but it has struggled on the PC even with the new M-series of processors on the Mac. But with a successful play in mixed reality, it will crack the next dawn of triple-A gaming that may not need a hook to the cloud — a place where it still needs to compete with the likes of Microsoft.

Apple is never late

All Apple needs to do is hit its target of a million devices which will mean $3 billion in revenue.  That may be chump change for the almost $3 trillion company, but from the perspective of the market, it will be huge.

Apple also has the tenacity to learn from its users. With the Apple Watch, it positioned it as a fashion product but quickly pivoted it to fitness and healthcare, something that’s turned Apple into the world’s biggest watchmaker. Something of that sort could happen with the headset too as developers and users dream up new ways of using the device, in ways Apple may also not have thought about.

The argument about Apple being late to this market falls flat because it has never really been the first with any of its products. Xerox had a graphical user interface before the Lisa and Macintosh. There were MP3 players before the iPod. Smartphones were there with touch screens before the iPhone, tablets existed for almost a decade before the iPad showed up, and smartwatches and wireless headphones existed before the Apple Watch and AirPods.

Apple creates the wow factor through a combination of targeted leaps in user experience, and custom technology which facilitates this but also further ties customers within the fabric of its ecosystem, with just an incredible ability to mobilise developers and creators to deploy unique experiences. Added on top is a marketing finesse known to no other company on the planet. It also helps that the brand enjoys ravenous love that is second to none or matched just by Ferrari in the automobile space.

Frankly, it’s the kind of love that’s just reserved for the most iconic sports teams. Only teams including FC Barcelona, Manchester United, the Indian cricket team, the New York Yankees, and the LA Lakers have that combination of history, magic and coolness that Apple’s brand has invoked in consumers and tech experts through the 47 years of its existence. It just can do no wrong. And that’s why its mixed reality headset will achieve what Microsoft, Google and Meta haven’t.

Sahil Mohan Gupta is Editor, Technology at Acko Drive. Views are personal.

(Edited by Theres Sudeep)