On June 5th, to kick off WWDC 2023, Apple is expected to reveal the company’s long-awaited move into the mixed reality With its “Reality One” XR headset. One of three potential options will determine its initial success.
First, Apple may have found an absolute game-changer of a scenario that elevates the Apple Hheadset into a must-have product. I think it’s unlikely that Apple has a global killer app… there are smart minds at work for every headset manufacturer, and they have just as much smarts as Apple’s staff.
Then there’s the most likely possibility: Apple doesn’t have anything significant. Instead of coming out with a silver bullet, Apple’s headset will address all of the current use cases handled by existing headsets from other manufacturers and (at least from Apple’s point of view) improve the experience very slightly. Each of those tiny advantages would give Apple a slight edge in many markets. For a first-generation, that could be marketed as a win.
The final possibility for me is that Apple really does have nothing over the competition. No matter the gee-whizz technology, the styling, or the ergonomics, Apple’s solution would do little more than match the competition.
Of course, the real win is that every Apple headset will be tied into an Apple account, and presumably, any software for the headset will run through the Apple Store. Just like that, Tim Cook and his team will quietly create a walled garden. The early adopters will stay with Cupertino’s solution through multiple iterations…
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s headset will be more technologically advanced in terms of hardware and offer more polished software than any existing AR/VR/XR headsets on the market. Spences’ second option, where Apple’s headset addresses all of the current use cases handled by existing headsets, improving on each, is the most likely option. Apple will then use the early adopters to find out what users want and focus on those use cases in subsequent iterations and software updates, à la Apple Watch – and we all know how that turned out!
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This cynical guy might be right but to simply claim other companies have equally smart guys ignores the fact that in each of Apples previous new product announcements that was at least generally true too, yet almost inevitably that did not do the opposition who talked so big remember any good at all. Seems odd that someone claiming to be an expert on such matters has such a short memory. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day so even if he is in this case turns out to be more right than wrong, that particular naive comment of his is still crass in the extreme in its lack of insight..