Although he didn’t name Apple’s Reality headset rumors, Cook expressed his enthusiasm for the combination of AR and VR in a lengthy interview with GQ.
- What’s happening? Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared on the cover of the 2023 GQ Global Creativity Awards, and he has some pretty unexpected things to say about augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies.
- Why care? An Apple Reality-branded AR/VR headset could be unveiled at WWDC this June, and Cook has further fueled anticipation ahead of the big reveal.
- What to do? Read all interviews on GQ.
Apple headset and Tim Cook’s thoughts on AR and VR
The timing of this interview is more telling than its content, as it comes right after recent reports from The Information, Bloomberg, and Financial Times alluding to rare dissent from some executives who appear to fear the company is rushing to launch a headset. to the market without a clearly defined goal.
Apple sent none other than its chief executive to sit down with GQ and discuss AR and VR two months before the headset’s supposed WWDC reveal.
Cook is still excited about augmented reality:
If you think about augmented reality technology itself, just taking one side of AR/VR, the idea that you can overlay the physical world on things in the digital world can greatly improve people’s communication, their connection.
And this:
It can give people the opportunity to achieve what they could not achieve before. We could be working on something much simpler if we were to sit here and talk about it, and all of a sudden we could get something digitally, see it, collaborate and create with it.
And this:
And so the idea is that there is an environment that can be even better than just the real world – overlaying a virtual world on top of it can be an even better world. And it’s exciting. If it could speed up creativity, if it could just help you do what you do all day long and you really didn’t think about doing it any other way.
But hasn’t Cook thrown away AR products like Google Glass before? “We always thought glasses weren’t the smartest move,”he previously told The New Yorker’s Ian Parker. Was he short-sighted then, or changed his mind?
My thinking is always evolving. Steve taught me well: never marry yesterday’s beliefs. That always, if you are told something new that says that you were wrong, admit it and move forward, instead of continuing to squat and explain why you are right.
On people who are skeptical about Apple entering a new market:
If you do something on the edge, it will always have skeptics. Can we somehow make a significant contribution to what other people do not? Can we own primary technology? I’m not interested in collecting pieces of someone else’s material. Because we want to control the underlying technology. Because we know that’s how you innovate.
During the interview, Cook neither confirmed nor denied the rumors about the headset’s existence. Of course, currently one of Silicon Valley’s biggest secrets is that Apple will show a sophisticated headset that is a mixture of AR and VR.
Earphones for sale ahead of time
Reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo recently stated that the mass production of the headset has been delayed due to hardware issues, ecosystem issues, the economic downturn and other factors. However, in the latest issue of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said that Apple is still going to announce the product at WWDC, which will be held June 5-6 this year.
Apple Inc. has chosen June 5, 2023 as one of the most important days in its history. This is the date the company plans to introduce its first mixed reality headset, which the company sees as the start of a post-iPhone era,” he wrote.
Will the headset still be presented at WWDC?
The WWDC presentation makes sense as it will allow Apple to showcase its new “xR”software platform, which should power the headset and software development kit so developers can build apps before the hardware launches.
The Apple Newsroom announcement promises a “special all-day event”at the Apple Park campus. Perhaps most tellingly, Susan Prescott, head of developer relations, called Apple’s WWDC this year “the biggest and most exciting yet.”
What’s more, the official press release quoted Prescott as saying that the Cupertino-based tech giant “can’t wait”to host “this very special event.”