Key Apple officials wary of upcoming AR/VR headset

There is less than a month until the beginning of Apple’s annual developer conference. WWDC 2023 will be the Cupertino company’s first major event of 2023, and it is expected to serve as the venue for the official unveiling of the Apple AR/VR Headset, reportedly dubbed the Reality Pro.

The device is one of the company’s most ambitious projects and with it Apple hopes to usher in a new post-iPhone era. Or so the story goes. According to a recent article by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, many senior Apple officials have their doubts about the headset.

Notably, Apple CEO Tim Cook was ostensibly not “deeply engaged in the specific design of the headset”. Additionally, other “key figures” such as Craig Federighi (Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering) “have also kept their distance” and have “seemed wary of the headset”.

It should be noted that Apple does not place particularly high hopes on the commercial performance of the first-generation mixed-reality headset. As Gurman notes, “the company doesn’t see the headset being as immediately transformative as the iPhone” but believes it could eventually stand on equal footing with products such as the iPad and the Apple Watch.

Frankly, this would still be an incredible feat given the relatively niche nature of virtual and augmented reality technology at the moment. For the time being, Apple’s Reality Pro will mostly target professionals and will be marketed as a tool facilitating the creation of AR/VR content. Granted, such a move is not entirely surprising considering the projected $3000 price tag.

The big question surrounding the Reality Pro is the true extent of Apple’s intentions when it comes to AR/VR, and whether the company really believes the latter will be the next big thing as Tim Cook once said. Judging by Gurman’s piece, the Cupertino company might not be all that invested in AR/VR in the first place.