Apple mixed reality headset

Augmented and virtual reality differ in their degree of user immersion. While virtual reality is completely immersive, in which the user only sees computer-generated imagery, augmented reality adds computer-generated imagery in the context of the user's real physical surroundings. Mixed reality headsets, such as Microsoft's HoloLens 2, combine both.[1]

Apple has been developing augmented reality headsets since at least 2016, when CEO Tim Cook announced to investors large investments in the technology.[2] Chief designer Jony Ive presented a concept video to company executives at a corporate retreat in 2018. The company historically did not launch emerging technologies but tended to enter and change markets proven to exist. This development period saw changes in design leadership, with Ive leaving in 2019 and his successor, Evans Hankey, leaving in early 2023.[3] Skeptical members of the augmented reality development project left the project with doubts of its potential and social effects.[3][2] Others were fired for slow progress. Engineer Mike Rockwell led the development of a mixed reality device,[3] recruited from Dolby.[2]

One product in development, a mixed reality headset in a ski goggle-like design and carbon fiber frame, features displays in 4K resolution to view fully immersive content, such as films, or use two external cameras on the device that would capture the outside world. This headset would be supported by a hip pack battery and a "reality dial" to control the degree of the wearer's real-world shown on the display. If released, the product would serve as a bridge to a separate augmented reality glasses product,[3] sometimes known externally as Apple Glasses,[1] which would have wider appeal[3] but has been put on indefinite hold due to technical challenges.[4]

Apple focused its mixed reality headset development on business and design applications, such as videoconferencing and meeting with others in a virtual space (copresence). (Apple avoids using a publicized term for this virtual space—the metaverse—as jargon.) The company also planned for creative applications, such as letting creators draw images in freehand, with the headset tracking their hand gestures.[3] Apple additionally commissioned director Jon Favreau to create custom entertainment to be experienced on the headset.[2] Other planned capabilities involve fitness, gaming, sports, books, and compatibility with most iPad apps,[5] a "scattershot" approach meant to hedge uncertainty about the device's killer app.[6] The company developed prescription lenses to use with the mixed reality headset, as the user cannot fit glasses under the headset.[3] Apple planned to set the device's entry point high, appealing to a business market rather than the general consumer,[3] and to ship far fewer initial devices than their prior product debuts: 1 million headsets (10 percent of the VR market), as opposed to 19 million first-generation Apple Watches.[7]