Apple’s mixed reality headset will feature a physical dial to switch to a real-world view, a waist-mounted battery, small motors to automatically adjust its lenses, and more, according to Information.
the paid report claims to reveal a wide range of specific features never before seen for the headset, including:
- A waist-mounted battery, connected via a MagSafe-style magnetic power cable to the headband of the helmet. A battery charge lasts no more than two hours, but users can swap out the battery for longer sessions.
- A design that uses aluminum, glass and carbon fiber to reduce its size and weight. The cameras are largely concealed for aesthetic reasons.
- A small dial in the shape of a digital crown on its right side that allows users to quickly switch from the virtual world to the physical world. Unlike the Apple Watch, it won’t offer haptic feedback.
- Apple has developed different headbands, including one for consumers made of a material similar to Apple Watch sports bands with built-in speakers, and one for developers.
- Magnetically attached personalized prescription lenses for eyeglass wearers.
- Small motors to automatically adjust its internal lenses according to the interpupillary distance of the wearer, providing the largest possible field of vision for each individual.
- A 120 degree field of view, like the Valve Index – more than the Meta Quest Pro’s 106 degree field of view.
- The H2 chip for a very low latency connection with the second generation AirPods Pro and future AirPods models.
- Two chips, including a main SoC, including CPU, GPU and memory, and a dedicated image signal processor. Both are made with a 5nm process, which means the headset misses the advances expected on other Apple chips later this year. The chips communicate through a custom streaming codec that Apple was forced to develop due to unacceptable latency.
- The dedicated ISP translates distorted images captured by external cameras into a faithful video representation of the user’s surroundings with low latency. The chip contains high-bandwidth custom memory manufactured by SK Hynix.
- The ability to run existing iOS apps in 2D.
Third-party Bluetooth headphones apparently don’t work well with headphones and suffer from too much lag, and there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack on the device. Apple has focused on making recent and future AirPods models work with low latency when paired with headphones. The second-generation AirPods Pro and the headphones both contain the H2 chip, which is said to offer an “ultra-low latency” mode when paired. Apple has also reportedly debated whether AirPods should be required for communication activities on the headset to better protect privacy.
Early prototypes of the headset used large external batteries designed for power tools strapped to the wearer’s waist, before Apple integrated the battery directly into the headband like the Meta Quest Pro. From 2022, Apple would have shifted the power source to a battery pack intended to be worn around the user’s waist, connected via a cable to the headband – a design advocated by former Apple design chief Sir Jony Ive.
While it was once said that the headband would be interchangeable like the Apple Watch bands, this is no longer the case as engineers faced technical challenges with the headband acting as a power conduit for the headphones. .
Apple said it favors hand tracking and voice recognition for controlling the headset, but it’s been testing a “wand” and “finger dice” as alternative control input methods.
The headset is not expected to come with a dedicated game controller, and Apple apparently hasn’t focused on gaming for the device. That being said, the company has a plan to allow Unity to be its first partner to deliver full in-helmet VR experiences through its game engine.
Apple is focusing on on-device video conferencing, with digital avatars that have a high level of accuracy when mimicking a user’s facial expressions and body movements. He also created software to allow users to perform activities such as dragging the Maps application off a Mac screen and using it to display a 3D model of a city on a table, and dedicated resources to educational resources for the device.
Information also reaffirmed the presence of several previously revealed features and independently confirmed others highlighted by sources such as Bloomberg, Nikkei Asiaand DigiTimes:
- The headset has a large, outward-facing display on its front. This can show the headset wearer’s facial expressions to those around them, seeking to reduce feelings of isolation when using the device.
- The outward-facing screen features an ultra-low refresh rate and lower power consumption, just like the always-on display of the Apple Watch and iPhone 14 Pro.
- Micro OLED inner screens for each eye with 4K resolution, manufactured by Sony, forming an overall 8K image.
- Each eye is tracked by at least one camera, allowing the headset to accurately show the user’s gaze on an avatar. Eye tracking also allows the headset to do foveal rendering to save power by only rendering full resolution images directly where the user is looking.
- More than a dozen cameras and sensors capture both facial expressions and body movements, including the user’s legs. Apple apparently did away with cameras to capture eyebrow and jaw movements when it developed machine learning to achieve this.
- Short and long range LiDAR scanners map surfaces and distances in three dimensions.
The report claims that Apple supplier Pegatron assembled thousands of prototype units of the headset last year at a facility near Shanghai, after passing through several prototyping stages and entering technical proof of concept testing. He added that the device was initially slated to launch in 2022.
Additionally, Apple reportedly discussed pricing the headset at around $3,000 or more depending on its configuration, according to four people with knowledge of the matter speaking to Information.
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