Apple is working on an AR/VR headset for 2020: my thoughts over this news

On Friday, a report on CNET shook a bit the XR community revealing that Apple is working on an AR/VR headset for 2020. The report quotes “a person familiar with Apple’s plans” and basically says that:

1. Apple is working on an AR/VR headset;
2. The codename of the device is T288;
3. The headset will be released on 2020;
4. The headset will have 8K resolution per eye;
5. The headset should work wirelessly: there will be a box, that contains custom Apple processors, that will be the brain of the HMD and will communicate with it via 60Hz WiGig Wi-Fi. So the box would make all the calculations and the renderings and then stream everything to the glass, that so could remain light and usable. At the current stage, “the box resembles a PC tower” but it is not a Mac.

And that’s it: this short list is the “tl;dr” of the whole article by CNET. An article that has become pretty popular, since every time that Apple makes something in an industry, it for sure changes all the market dynamics. And we are all waiting for Apple to come to the XR universe to see if it can disrupt this ecosystem as it made with smartphones at the good old Jobs’s times. The iPhone has changed completely the idea of the phone and who knows if Apple could repeat itself with AR glasses (even if Jobs, with his great vision, is not here anymore and lately Apple’s innovations have not been that disruptive anymore).

Some people have asked me an opinion on this and so I’m going to tell you what I think about this news.

Well, honestly I’m not hyped by this leak. I’m really curious about what Apple will do in the AR/VR ecosystem and I love rumors (I even published some myself, like this one about Oculus Monterey), but in this case, I’m not excited. And I’ve seen the same attitude by all the major VR journalists, experts, and influencers. The reason is that there are too many strange things in this news.

Let’s take point 1: Apple is working on an AR/VR headset. My reaction reading it has been

We all know it. They also acquired various startups (like VRVana that made AR/VR glasses and SMI that made eye-tracking) to create that. And regarding point 3, the release date of 2020, again:

These are old leaks and rumors. And considering the fact that Apple is committed into AR and that times are coming for an AR headset to be at least usable (currently there are too many problems), it is surely possible that for 2020 will see an eyePhone to come out.

Regarding the codename, Ben Lang of Road To VR expresses some legit doubts:

As for the reliability of this information, it’s hard to gauge. I’m surprised to hear a codename mentioned, as secretive Apple projects have been known to use multiple codenames across compartmentalized groups as a means of rooting out leakers.

If this is the case, the leaker will be immediately identified and rooted out. Not a good news for him/her. This may also mean that the leaker has only limited knowledge of the device and this would also explain the little number of information contained in the report.

8K resolution per eye is a possible target. But Ian Hamilton of UploadVR remembers how Michael Abrash (someone that has some knowledge over AR and VR), predicted 4Kx4K per eye displays for 2021.

I’m a little confused by these numbers. Apple reportedly working on a headset for 2020 with “8K” per eye. Here’s @oculus chief researcher Michael Abrash suggesting we’ll have “4Kx4K” per eye by 2021. pic.twitter.com/AHglhzpzSt

— Ian Hamilton (@hmltn) April 27, 2018

Apple is aiming at 8K per eye in 2020. Since I’m not very good with this K-numbers, I’ll express this with resolution numbers: according to Abrash, we’ll have 3840×3840 pixels per eye in 2021, while according to the leak, we’ll have 7680×4320 per eye in 2020. And we’re talking about standard displays… if we talk about HoloLens, the current resolution is 1268×720 per eye, so I think we’re far behind those numbers. Of course, technology evolves and Google should for instance showcase a prototype of a super-high-resolution display in the upcoming days, but I just wanted to show that even this part of the news is a bit strange. Not to consider the fact that I hope that Apple is working on a light-field display and not on a standard one for its device…

The point 5 is what puzzles me even more: Apple, the company that is famous to create great experiences for the user, would sell you this futuristic device alongside a gigantic dildo-box that you have to put on your desk to use it.

Seriously, it has no sense. It is unusable. AR is great if you can move around the whole house and the whole city… if it requires a big box to work, functionalities are really limited. Then I don’t get why it can’t directly use a Mac for this purpose… why the need for an external device? The Meta 2 works connected to a PC, wireless VR works using a PC… having another box on the desk has no sense to me.

The impression that I have is that all this leak regards some internal experimentations that Apple is making regarding its upcoming AR/VR device, but I’m not sure about how much of this is true. For instance, they may be experimenting with various display prototypes and among them, there could be 8K ones. Maybe the box is the prototype of something like the little computer that you put in your pocket for Magic Leap, or maybe they’re experimenting in creating a standalone device (like Hololens) that can also work attached to a Mac via Wi-Gig to use the full computational power of your computer. Who knows. But honestly, this rumor leaves me more questions than answers…