A smattering of artist renderings on what Apple’s forthcoming new Reality Pro goggle might look like.
When Apple goes into a new product category, they do their homework. Rarely the first to enter a new tech space, they usually enter a few years later, with products that are refined, intuitive, and often, beautiful.
On the eve of their WWDC 2023 launch, there is much anticipation over their first new product announcement in years. Dubbed Reality Pro, their Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality goggles have a lot of interest, though this might be their most fraught product category yet.
VR is a trend that hasn’t really caught fire, despite billions of dollars of investment from the likes of Meta, Samsung, Google and more. The plain fact that people might not want a bulky pair of ski goggles on their faces means that Apple’s entrant is by no means guaranteed a success.
Apple has spent around five years and $5 billion dollars developing the new tech, but even internally, there have been detractors among leadership whether the VR/AR trend was worthy devoting so many resources to.
Their new announcement is expected to reveal a high-end ‘prosumer’ set of goggles, with an external battery that is worn on your hip, and a price of $3000, putting it well above the price ranges of Meta’s top end models.
With an amazing track record, and the trillion dollar valuation, it’s clear Apple can weather the storm, even if the Reality Pro is a failure. Or, if they play their cards right, and create a platform that developers want to join, we could all be donning ski goggles in the future. Whether that’s something we look forward to, remains a separate question.
