Apple is expected to announce its first AR/VR headset in 2023 but the software that will power it has reportedly had a change of name.
The AR/VR headset will be Apple’s first entry into the market that is currently dominated by Meta and the Quest 2. Now, Bloomberg’s well-connected Mark Gurman reports that the software that will power the headset will no longer be called realityOS as was first thought. According to him, Apple is now calling it xrOS internally, although it isn’t clear yet whether that’s what the software will be called when marketing the product.
Gurman says that the XR “stands for extended reality, a term that encompasses both augmented and virtual reality”, with Apple seemingly keen to make people aware that the headset will handle both. The headset is thought to offer augmented reality capabilities like overlaying information on a user’s surroundings alongside traditional virtual reality capabilities – the sort that would be useful for watching content, playing games, and using productivity apps.
The headset itself is expected to be expensive, costing upwards of $2,000. That money will get you a device with more than a dozen cameras for motion tracking as well as Mac-like Apple-designed processing chips. Ultra-high resolution displays will make sure that everything will look great, we’re told, while iris recognition capabilities will also mean people can share a single headset and have their settings and apps appear whenever they wear it.