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WCCF: Former Apple Engineer Who Worked On VR/AR Headset Development Claims Company Is Under Huge Pressure To Ship The Product

https://wccftech.com/apple-under-pressure-to-ship-ar-headset/
The Reality Pro, which is rumored to be Apple’s AR headset’s official name, has reportedly been in development for seven years, and according to the Financial Times, the launch has been postponed several times. Now, one former engineer says that the company has been under pressure to ship it, though it is not confirmed which elements are responsible for this pressure.

“They have huge pressure to ship. They have been postponing the launch each year for the past [few] years.”
As you know, Apple is a publicly traded company, and board members often provide their views in certain areas. It is possible that the CEO, Tim Cook, was being pressured by these individuals to bring the headset to the market, though we are purely speculating at this time. Also, there are rumors that both Samsung and Google are preparing their own versions of a mixed-reality headset, so it could be possible Apple wants its AR headset to reach the market first to sway potential consumers.

At its rumored price of $3,000, the head-mounted is anything but affordable, and reviewers would likely brand the device as a niche product. With less than a million units reportedly being prepped, it is clear that the AR headset will not be a ‘home run’ for Apple, but at least its launch can cement the company’s position in the market, keeping the competition somewhat at bay with its rumored software integration with other products.

So it seems that the Apple VR headset was supposed to be launched multiple times, but it was delayed for more work due to caution by the design team. But according to this former employer, it seems Apple is being put under pressure by other forces unverified and not just internally, to ship the headset. Perhaps Apple themselves is expecting Samsung or TCL to get a foothold with another delay and wants to beat them to the punch?

in any case, with several years of delays, that does give some confidence the headset will be way more impressive than the others out right now, and with all the motion control gesture stuff they are looking into, Including separate accessories for finger precision, that's probably going to cost a pretty penny.

As the last leak showed, they are expecting 1 million headsets sold within the year. I think the issue about being pressured to jump into the VR market is mixed, because right now there's a slow period in the market, we only seen Pancake1 and PSVR2 release and Quest 2 is on decline and people are iffy on VR right now, so this is a good time to enter.

However, knowing TCL and Samsung, they will have products of good quality that may undercut the price of Apple, and if they have even half the stuff the Apple headset will have but less than a $2000-$3000 cost, that may also make this push to rush the headset out a major mistake if they can't get the cost down, or won't loss lead. Assuming that rumored price range is correct, usually on the farther end.

VR isn't like the other product categories Apple got away with on price, and Zucker has set lower cost as a precedent of success in VR. A Samsung or TCL less than $800, which is expected for the TCL which wants to get near Quest prices (no new details yet from Samsung), with quality features might cause some problems even if Apple is the king of new generation waggle 4.0.

If the really want to get that footprint and sell what they are targeting, 1 million minimum within a year, then if this rumored price is right, they will need with either market the heck out of subsidized options, have some of the best tech that is enough of a novelty to be as big or bigger than the 2015-2016 VR explosion, take the hit and sell it $1000-2000 less, or a combination of any of the three.

I assume the pressure is coming from partners Apple works with, which may even include FoxConn and Pegatron/Luxshare, since Apple had to partner with them for some headset manufacturing due to Foxconn being skeptical of the market, and maybe some very big financiers/investors who think Apple has missed too many openings and don't want them to miss this one. If it's been delayed from when it was supposed to have released the last several years as the engineer and other inside sources say, I can see that maybe some powerful external (as well as internal) influence has gotten pretty antsy and pissed off and don't want to wait any longer.
 

Dr_Ifto

Member
I mean, its been on the table a long time, and it is supposedly Tim Apple's legacy product. I would think so.

I dont think a non-gaming AR/VR headset can work in the market right now, but maybe Apple can change that. a 3k device is not going to sell in the economy right not. If people are saying a 550 device from Sony is too expensive in this market, then 3k is definitely too expensive.
 
I dont think a non-gaming AR/VR headset can work in the market right now, but maybe Apple can change that.

I have no idea why you think it won't have games, even some leaks about gaming have come out. It's going to do everything people who use their Iphones use, or at least that is the goal.
 

nightmare-slain

Gold Member
I have this feeling that if Steve was still alive this would have been killed off by now.
Totally disagree. I think headsets could be the new smartphones. Right now the "metaverse" seems like a joke but there is insane potential for it. And it'd allow Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc to get even more of your data.

We're still in the early days of headsets but if this is pulled off it could change the world (for better and worse) just like smartphones did between ~2007-2013.

I have no idea why you think it won't have games, even some leaks about gaming have come out. It's going to do everything people who use their Iphones use, or at least that is the goal.
Of course it will have games lmfao but it's not going to be a headset designed primarily for games. Apple wants this headset to be a smartphone replacement. So that means using passthrough cameras to see the real world and augmenting it with messages, emails, live weather, directions, video calls, etc. Playing games on it will just be one of the cool things it can do. As big as mobile gaming is it's not the primary use of smartphones.
 
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Wooxsvan

Member
Waiting GIF
 
Of course it will have games lmfao but it's not going to be a headset designed primarily for games.

Yeah, but that applies to the Quest 2 and many other headsets. There's actually not that many gaming focused headsets but there is still a push for the tech to work well with gaming regardless. Which explains most of the controller shapes for VR headsets.

Amazon and Google failed in gaming let's see how many billions Apple is gonna throw at it.

Apple Arcade is raking in cash.
 
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