“DigiTimes is reporting this morning that Apple has partnered with U.S. game developer Valve to develop its rumored AR headset, which is expected to launch next year,” Tim Hardwick writes for MacRumors:
Apple reportedly has partnered with US game developer Valve to develop AR head-mounted display devices, which may be released in the second half of 2020 at the earliest, with Taiwan’s ODMs Quanta Computer and Pegatron said to handle the assembly job, according to industry sources. — DigiTimes
Notably, Valve worked with Apple in 2017 to bring native VR headset support to macOS High Sierra, leveraging the operating system’s then-new eGPU support with a Mac version of Valve’s SteamVR software. However, Apple’s latest partnership with the company is said to be focused on AR, not VR.
Apple will cooperate with Valve on AR headsets rather than VR devices, as its CEO Tim Cook believes that AR can make digital content become part of the user’s world and will be as popular as smartphones with consumers. This has also promoted Apple to step up the development of AR software by recruiting more engineers for graphic design, system interface and system architecture segments. — DigiTimes
MacDailyNews Take: In October, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote that Apple was working with third-party brands to launch its first head-mounted Augmented reality product in 2020.
Augmented Reality won’t hit its stride until we’re freed from having to hold up glass slabs in order to experience it. Once AR graduates to mainstream smart eyewear from Apple, the killer AR apps will come in a deluge – and Android phones will become even less desirable as they already don’t work with Apple Watch, Apple Arcade, Apple Messages, etc. Soon Android phones will become outcasts from the Apple Glasses revolution, too, leading to iPhone becoming even more coveted by the hoi polloi!
AR, which seems like a gimmick today, will become very, very important sooner than later. — MacDailyNews, October 21, 2019
Someday, hopefully sooner than later, we’ll look back at holding up slabs of metal and glass to access AR as unbelievably quaint. — MacDailyNews, July 28, 2017
Augmented Reality is going to change everything. — MacDailyNews, July 21, 2017
Like partnering with Motorola or IBM, never works….
Very bad comparsion. Valve’s Steam is still the #1 computer gaming and social platform.
They have a very healthy partnership with IBM ongoing presently actually.