Apple launches mixed reality glasses
New mega success or non-starter?
Apple is set to launch a completely new product this spring: glasses that will link the digital and real worlds more closely. However, the competition in this segment is fierce.
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Apple is set to launch its long-awaited mixed reality headset soon. A formal announcement is still pending.
Jean Claude RaemyEditor Economics
The “Consumer Electronics Show” in Las Vegas (USA) is one of the most important technology fairs in the world. When it took place last week, many companies presented new products that take advantage of virtual and augmented reality.
Apple has held back on this, yet everyone was talking about the tech giant’s latest project: a mixed reality headset.
Specifically, it is about glasses that look like ski goggles and which enable both augmented and virtual reality experiences.
In the former, what is available in the real world is supplemented digitally. With the second, you are in a completely virtual environment – for example, video games. There should be possible uses for entertainment as well as for orientation, education or even video conferences. Virtual fade-ins into the real world should also be possible via the glasses.
This headset was already being considered in 2017 and should be launched in 2019, reports “Bloomberg”. After various delays, it should finally be ready in spring 2023. Under the name “Reality Pro”, the device should come onto the market before the Apple developer conference in June.
Is the interest big enough?
The hype is big. It would be Apple’s first launch of an all-new product in a long time. Some software developers have already received the device for testing. A whole new operating system called xrOS was developed for this purpose. However, Apple is said to not have much more really exciting in the quiver this year.
The device is rumored to cost up to $3,000 initially. Probably still too expensive for “mass suitability”, as Apple has achieved with the iPhone or the Apple Watch.
And it is precisely this suitability for the masses that is the big question mark behind this big Apple news for 2023. Competitor Meta has already launched similar mixed reality glasses called “Quest Pro” – with very modest success. In addition to Apple and Meta, other companies are working on similar technologies. The progress of such applications as well as the possible application scenarios are developing rapidly.
The big question is therefore whether Apple will be as successful with this innovation as with the iPhone. If you look at Apple’s sales in 2022, “wearables” (like this headset will be one), ipad and Mac together make up around half of sales with iPhones.