Apple to build a metaverse-like mixed-reality world: Report

Apple is reportedly bringing a 3D video service and a metaverse-like extended reality environment to the upcoming Apple VR headset.

While the company was rumoured to come up with the mixed-reality headset, to be called Reality One or Reality Pro,  early next year, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter, reiterated a few details about the upcoming Apple extended reality headset.  He said that it will be a high-end product that will cost between $2,000 and $3,000. 

"The high cost will come from the powerful hardware. Apple will be putting inside this headset, including the Mac-level M2 chip, more than 10 cameras, and the highest-resolution displays in the consumer VR market," clarified Gurman.

He also said that Apple is seeking out new talent to that end. The company is searching for a “software producer with experience in visual effects and game asset pipelines who can create digital content for augmented- and virtual-reality environments”. 
Additionally, the company seems to be looking for someone to aid the development of a 3D mixed-reality world. The person will “work closely with Apple’s UI framework, human interface designers and system capabilities teams—pushing you to think outside-the-box, and solve incredibly challenging and interesting problems in the 3D application space.” 

While it looks like Apple may be looking to build a metaverse-like world, the tech major has always detested the term 'metaverse' with Apple CEO Tim Cook also recently saying in an interview that he doesn't think an average person would know what the metaverse is. 

Last October, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook was rebranding as Meta and setting its sights on the metaverse, which he dubbed the “successor to the mobile internet.” But 12 months and after investing $15 billion. Meta’s market value dropped 57% this year, with the company laying-off over 11,000 employees world over. 

According to The Wall Street Journal, Meta currently has less than 200,000 monthly active users on its Horizon Worlds metaverse platform, though it had big hopes of hitting 500,000 users by the end of the year.  

Google is also building its own operating system for metaverse headsets as part of its Project Iris. A report published on The Verge earlier this year, the news site said that early prototypes are already under development and Google will introduce the devices sometime in 2024. 

In September, NVIDIA announced its first software- and infrastructure-as-a-service offering — NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud — a comprehensive suite of cloud services for artists, developers and enterprise teams to design, publish, operate and experience metaverse applications anywhere. 

There have also been reports of Apple in talks with big names in Hollywood, including Jon Favreau, who is said to be working on adapting the Prehistoric Planet,  a documentary streaming television series about dinosaurs that premiered on Apple TV+, for the upcoming AR/VR headset.