On the Eve of Reality
An AI generated image I created of a Apple’s rumored “Reality Pro” VR/AR headset
Tomorrow, June 6th, 2023 Apple is widely expected to announce a completely new product category with a brand new product. This product is expected to be a type of Virtual Reality goggles/headset to ‘Augment’ the world around the user and provide an ‘immersive’ experience. Will this be a product like the iPhone or AirPods that completely sets the world on fire with the next must-have gadget? Not necessarily, and the following article is a last-minute attempt to explain why.
Love them or hate them, Apple has been at the forefront of new product revolutions for the past 40 years, specifically in the past 2 decades. Apple has released revolutionary hardware and software that forced the rest of the industry to pivot and chase them. Given this history, it’s only natural to assume that lightning would strike again with this new Apple Headset (Rumored to be called ‘Apple Reality Pro’).
Instead, it will be a fascinating hardware and software experience that will appeal mostly to the early adopters and the complete wackos (myself included) rather than the mass market. Apple Reality Pro will apear confusing and messy, yet clearly on the path towards a future revolutionary product.
Let’s think back to when personal computers just came out, they were costly, niche, and honestly clunky devices compared to what we have today. The Original Macintosh from 1984 sold for $2,495 (approximately $7,284.80 accounting for inflation). That computer as revolutionary as it was, didn’t provide a use case for everyone, instead, it focused on a few tasks it could do miles better than others and then slowly over time it expanded its use cases and brought the price lower and lower. That’s what Apple Reality Pro is going to do. It will look odd, it won’t have a feature that everyone will be dying to have immediately. But it’s the start of that slow march towards a future where augmented reality devices become commonplace.
Is Augmented/Virtual Reality really the future?
Changes in form factors drive innovation and start new paradigms. When the technology was ready to put the power of a computer into people’s pockets the smartphone revolution began. Further, because smartphones were designed to be taken everywhere they could do many things better than traditional computers. Smartphones succeeded because their form factor allowed them to be used more conveniently and in more ways than traditional computers. When this headset comes out many people will say that “it just does what phones and computers can already do”, this take misses the point because it’s not about what you do it’s about how you do it. Headsets will do some things that phones can do and, for now, they will do a small subset of those things better than smartphones. In tomorrow’s event, I’ll be keeping my eye on the potential of what is announced not just the first iteration.
Why make something that doesn’t appeal to the mass market?
When Apple first released the iPhone Steve Jobs bet the company on its success. Apple had made popular MP3 players and had built solid computers but Steve Jobs knew that smartphones would one day replace the iPod and would surpass the iMac as the next generation of mass computing devices. Apple in 2023 is too big to bet the entire company on something (can you imagine Apple spending all its $385 Billion cash reserves on a single project). Instead what Apple is doing is investing in one area that could potentially replace the iPhone in 5-15 years. Will this headset be an iPhone killer right away? No. One day Apple (and other competitors) will have the technology to put all the cutting-edge technology into a pair of glasses. This pair of glasses would be able to take in the world around you, provide you with helpful contextual information based on your surroundings, and allow you to communicate with others without having to pull a phone out of your pocket. For now, this technology will be limited to a clunky weird headset that will inevitably be ridiculed by the media and be outside the price range of the majority of people.
Why now?
Why not. Apple has the money and resources to take a chance on a whole new product category. Apple, unlike most companies. is in a blessed position in that it doesn’t need this new product to be an instant success. Apple can wait, refine its current offering, and learn what people use it for. And it can do all of this while keeping its eye on the horizon waiting for the technological stars to converge onto the perfect mass-market form factor.
On the eve of the launch of Apple’s Augmented/Virtual Reality headset, it seems clear to me that this is just the first milestone on a long road where Augmented/Virtual Reality devices become commonplace. Apple Reality Pro be the first iteration of a vessel where ambient computing will flourish and help people focus on their thing, whatever that thing may be. We’re on the precipice of a long-term paradigm shift, and I can’t wait to be a part of it.
