My doubts about the Apple headset and mainstream VR

The hype for the Apple visor is very high, and everyone is waiting for it as a kid waits for Christmas. Poised to arrive around January 2023, it is considered by many the savior of XR, the hardware that will show the real possibilities of immersive realities and make finally VR mainstream. I was thinking about this topic this morning, and I want to share with you my stream of thoughts about Apple making VR mainstream, especially highlighting my doubts about it.

I agree with you all that Apple will give a big push to XR. Its upcoming hybrid AR/VR visor is expected to have very interesting features, and I have heard myself some intriguing rumors about it. It is rumored to feature a powerful M2 processor, a high-definition screen, and many sensors… so it seems a little technical jewel. And we know how Apple cares about UX, so I expect some innovations in usability and user-friendliness. As Robert Scoble highlights, Apple has also very interesting content to show, like movies and music, and some people will want to use this device to watch a good movie from Apple TV on a giant high-resolution virtual screen. Apple has also probably the most powerful brand in the world, so when the announcement about the Apple visor will happen, every single magazine in this world (mine included) will talk about it, and the web will be flooded with memes, analyses, social posts about it. We all know that: Apple is a great company with great marketing power, and for sure the day it will announce its headset, it will change our landscape, I have no doubts about it. But, at the same time, I think people are having too many expectations about it… let me tell you why.

The first reason is that Apple can dominate a market for how much that market is worth at that moment. Everyone talks about the “iPhone moment” that Apple may bring to XR, but the situation in immersive realities now is not the same that there was in the mobile phone market when the iPhone was announced. When the iPhone came out, everyone was using a mobile phone, usually from NOKIA (eh, the good old times of the 3310…). NOKIA itself was already producing smartphones, even if they were a bit clunky. Apple came out and said “hi, we made your phone much cooler, now it is like a small computer” and people started buying it. Is now everyone already using an XR headset? No. Most people are aware of VR headsets, especially thanks to Zuck, but many people still don’t buy them. The use cases are not clear, apart from gaming. There is not a market where Apple can enter and become a leader… it should be Apple able to create the market by itself. And it may happen, but it needs time, and it needs valid use cases. I think that at launch is a bit too early to expect all of this to become reality (pun intended).

Surely Apple has a great advantage over Meta: it can make people try headsets in the stores and show their value, so this is something that can help them in selling their devices. But they must show a compelling use case, otherwise, people will just go to the Apple Stores to try something out of curiosity. Will this use case be movies? Will this use case be gaming? (I don’t think so, Apple is not much into games). Will it be “the Word of VR”, a productivity app for the average consumer? In that case, they would have discovered the infamous “killer app of VR” and changed everything. Honestly speaking, I have no idea, but I’m sure that customers will need a clear use case for spending the $1-3000 of the rumored price.

Apple has brought many innovations these years: think for instance about the Airpods revolution or the M1 chipset which changed the laptop landscape. Think about ARKit. And when it entered a field, it has often dominated it: the Apple Watch is the most sold wearable, even if it came years after Samsung and other smartwatches brands. But… dominating a sector doesn’t mean making it mainstream. Many tech people I know wear an Apple Watch, but many of my non-techie friends, have still a normal watch, or they don’t even have it and use the smartphone to watch the time. ARKit has been an amazing revolution because I know how it is hard to make precise tracking with a single RGB camera, but I can’t think about a “killer mobile AR application” if we talk about the rear camera of the phones. I have almost no friends here in Italy with Apple TV. That is Apple, innovates, and dominates… but it can’t always make miracles. Some things have a market smaller than others, and others need time to grow. In my opinion, this is what will happen also with XR headsets. I don’t imagine people running out of their houses to buy Apple Visors on day one.

So I expect innovations… but you know, I’m a techie, and if you tell me that the Apple headset has an M2 processor and 17 cameras, I’m very excited and want to try it. Most other people, don’t care at all. Rumors talk about a high-end high-cost device, something akin to a “standalone Varjo”. But I don’t remember Varjo making PCVR mainstream. And I think it would have been the same also with an Apple on it. Again, tell me: what will be the use cases? This is the main point to look at, more than the number of cameras or the pixels on the screen, which are details interesting up to a point. Rob Scoble talks about movies, and for sure people that are cinema lovers and want the top audio and video quality will find this a very intriguing use case. But remember that most people watch Netflix series on a smartphone screen, so the majority of people don’t care at all. Why have the friction of an XR headset while I can watch my favorite series on the bus by just tapping on my phone? Usability, use cases… this is what makes the majority of people interested in a new device. And, interestingly, I’m hearing very little about these possible use cases in the leaks, while it should be the most interesting thing to know about.

If I had to bet, I would do that on niche use cases. Apple is a brand that delivers quality, and I think this device will be aimed at people wanting quality. Quality in watching movies, as Rob says. Or quality in doing a job: Apple computers are used a lot by creatives in many sectors, and probably this device will offer them the quality experience of Varjo, but with a standalone. I imagine professionals doing 3D modeling or sketching with an Apple headset. Even more, I expect the Apple brand to make the device very appealing for professionals doing showcases: when you are buying the new furniture for your kitchen, the design store in your city could make you envision how your house will be using an Apple headset. This is not only because of the quality of the experience it should be able to offer but also because showing the Apple brand will increase the perceived value of the store. I envision it becoming an “elite” device, which few people with dedicated use cases will own. And this could prepare the field for a future mainstream rollout: if most people can’t afford or need it, but see other people have the device, they become curious about it, and maybe become interested in trying it or buying it when the price goes down. That’s why I think that more than one iteration may be needed for the Apple headset to become more mainstream.

There are other reasons which make me a bit skeptical about the Apple hype. First of all, Apple is a brand that people like to show off: having an Apple Watch and an iPhone means that you are cool. But a headset is not something you usually carry around, so you lose this big value of flexing unless you have a context where to show it (e.g. your coworking). This makes the choice of buying a visor harder, something that will change completely when there will be the Apple glasses you can wear all day in front of your friends. Talking about the price, most people in the Valley forget how the world has different salaries from them: $3000 may be an acceptable expense in San Francisco for a gadget, but in Italy, for most people, it is worth 2-3 months of salary, so that would be a very hard call. And then we can’t forget about compatibility: Apple is usually compatible only with Apple things. I know people that would be interested in buying a new Mac laptop, but they don’t have the money, and also they have all their applications only compatible with Windows. There are virtual machines, and there is the possibility of installing Windows on a Mac, I know… but it’s anyway a big friction point. If you have 50 games in your Quest library, you are not willing to jump to the Apple headset… unless it has very interesting use cases. If you are not an iPhone owner, I guess the integration with the apps of this headset won’t be great. On the contrary, this could be a good selling point for iPhone owners and Mac fans: having a device that integrates well with the ecosystem they already own is great. So probably this is another niche Apple will target.

Honestly speaking, I don’t even think I’m saying anything surprising. Apple itself, according to the rumors, is not expected to sell many of these devices, but something like 1-2 million units. And Tim Cook always talks about AR, so it’s clear that his goal is the glasses, and this device is more of a toy in preparation for the big launch of the AR glasses. If you remember, when I was speaking with John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, during my embarrassing short interview with him, he told me that he expects XR visors not to become mainstream in the next 5 years, but to have the order of magnitude of sales of gaming consoles. Unity as a game engine has wide visibility on the upcoming hardware, so if he doesn’t see XR exploding next year, probably it won’t happen.

I have also gone through too many “this will make XR mainstream” moments to believe in some magic to happen. There was the cardboard, Magic Leap, the Oculus Go, the movie Ready Player One, Half-Life: Alyx, the Quest, and so on. There was a lot of hype about the consequences these things could create, but no one of them has made XR to explode. But all of them made immersive realities made a step forward. I came so at the conclusion that most probably there is not “a moment” that creates mainstream adoption, but many things that adding up will lead to it.

As I have said, I expect the launch of the Apple mixed reality headset as beneficial for the whole industry, because it will create a hype wave like the one Zuck created when rebranded Facebook to Meta. And I expect its device to bring some technical innovations, and this will be great for the whole ecosystem, because sooner or later also other brands will copy them. I expect some types of customers to find this device and its use cases very interesting, and some professional and prosumer niches adopting it. I also think it will be a big problem for its competitors: probably it will create huge troubles for Project Cambria and also some for Varjo headsets. But I don’t think it will make MR mainstream, and I don’t think it will change everything from a technical standpoint: even Apple has to abide by the laws of physics when creating its hardware.

In the end, I find also it a bit depressing that everyone is waiting for this headset as the savior of the market. When iPhone innovated the mobile phone sector, everyone was doing their best, and then Apple changed everything. It seems to me a bit like now everyone is just waiting for Apple: “for 10 years we did stuff in XR and it didn’t work much, so let’s hope that Apple solves the problems for us all”. Honestly speaking, I think this attitude sucks. What if Apple fails? Should we all close our businesses and start selling NFTs of monkeys? While I don’t agree with Meta on many things, at least I appreciate they’re trying to fight hard this battle about XR, and have also obtained decent results until now. Probably Cambria will be defeated by the Apple visor, but at least they tried to do something meaningful. I don’t see the same attitude from the other main tech companies, which seem only focused on AR glasses now.

Remember also who is our savior: Apple, that super-barred walled garden. The company that rarely agrees on standards and which is (not surprisingly) not a member of OpenXR. The company which imposed a 30% cut on its store as a standard and still prevents developers to have revenues outside it. The company that decided to create issues for its competitors by imposing strict privacy rules on its phones: don’t misunderstand me, I’m personally a fan of it, but it is impressive (and a bit scary) how this move has impacted the revenues of many other companies and de facto caused the layoffs at Unity. It’s a smart company with many positive sides, but it has also its downsides that we should consider, especially in a moment where everyone is talking about interoperability in the metaverse.

In the end, as usual, I have no idea of what I’m doing or what I’m saying. What you have read may all prove to be false, but I hope that it has elicited in you some thoughts about the release of the Apple headset and what it may mean for the market. And if you want to share your thoughts with me, please do that in the comment section here below or on my social media channels.

(Header image by Antonio De Rosa)