Apple CEO Tim Cook has hyped the company's mixed reality headset in an interview with GQ, thus, indicating an imminent launch. It should be noted that even though Apple has been reportedly working to enter the mixed reality space, with its own headset, for the past 7-8 years. However, this is the first time a top company executive has explained why the tech giant may be interested in VR/AR hardware.
"If you think about the technology itself with augmented reality, just to take one side of the AR/VR piece, the idea that you could overlay the physical world with things from the digital world could greatly enhance people's communication, people's connection. It could empower people to achieve things they couldn't achieve before. We might be able to collaborate on something much easier if we were sitting here brainstorming about it and all of a sudden we could pull up something digitally and both see it and begin to collaborate on it and create with it," Cook was quoted as saying.
"And so it's the idea that there is this environment that may be even better than just the real world—to overlay the virtual world on top of it might be an even better world. And so this is exciting. If it could accelerate creativity, if it could just help you do things that you do all day long and you didn’t really think about doing them in a different way."
The company CEO also mentioned why the headset, which has been heavily rumoured about over the last couple of years, has taken so long to come out: “I’m not interested in putting together pieces of somebody else’s stuff,” he told GQ. “Because we want to control the primary technology. Because we know that’s how you innovate.”
Apple has so far not been too vocal about the development of the mixed reality headset, which has reportedly been under development for at least 7-8 years. The consumer market for Extended Reality (XR) headsets is still niche. Unlike VR and AR, mixed reality combines some aspects of AR and VR. However, many companies have tried, but failed to cash in on mixed reality technology.
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has also failed to succeed with its VR business. Zuckerberg officially unveiled the Meta Quest Pro, which is the company's new and first high-end and advanced Virtual Reality (VR) headset at Meta’s annual Connect conference in October last year. Meta Quest Pro became available for purchase on October 25 for €1,799.99 or £$1,499.99 or $1,499.99. The package included the headset, Meta Quest Touch Pro controllers, stylus tips, partial light blockers, and a charging dock.
Meta Quest Pro marked the social networking giant's entry into the high-end line of devices.