Apple follows Mark Zuckerberg into the metaverse with plan to launch VR headset - The Telegraph

Apple is poised to follow Mark Zuckerberg into the metaverse with the motorboat of a virtual world headset successful the coming months.

The iPhone shaper is expected to uncover a headset that tin plunge users into computer-generated worlds successful the spring, Bloomberg reported.

The headset has been successful the works for years arsenic Apple looks for its adjacent large innovation aft the occurrence of the iPhone.

Apple’s plans for a virtual world headset volition gully comparisons to Mr Zuckerberg’s determination to rebrand Facebook arsenic Meta and put billions successful probe into alleged metaverse technologies.

Tim Cook, Apple’s main executive, has antecedently poured scorn connected Mr Zuckerberg’s metaverse concept.

He told Dutch media successful October: “I ever deliberation it’s important that radical recognize what thing is and I’m not truly definite the mean idiosyncratic tin archer you what the metaverse is.”

Apple is ever highly choky lipped astir immoderate aboriginal merchandise launches, though rumours person circulated for years that it is moving connected a virtual world headset.

The company’s device, expected to look similar a brace of skis goggles, is rumoured to alteration alleged “mixed reality,” meaning it volition beryllium susceptible of afloat virtual world and augmented reality, wherever virtual images are overlaid implicit the existent world.

The headset has been delayed aggregate times. Bloomberg reported it had been pencilled successful for a uncover this month, but that has present been pushed backmost into the spring.

The Information antecedently reported Apple’s headset would see a artillery battalion that is worn connected the waist, making the goggles lighter than those of rivals.

Several large developers person already had a archetypal look astatine the device. It volition travel with a caller operating system, called xrOS. The headset could beryllium called the Reality Pro and spell connected merchantability aboriginal successful 2023.

Ming Chi-Kuo, an expert who covers Apple for concern manager TF Securities, said: “Apple’s headset improvement is down schedule… it is progressively improbable that Apple volition clasp a media lawsuit for the caller instrumentality successful January.”

Meta’s rebrand from Facebook has been met with scepticism, with its stock terms crumbling arsenic it invests tens of billions of dollars successful Mr Zuckerberg’s metaverse concept.

The institution has launched aggregate virtual world headsets. While its Quest devices person proved fashionable with exertion fans, they are not yet an indispensable gadget.

Meta has developed games and virtual worlds for its headset, but its metaverse societal network, Horizon Worlds, has remained barren and unpopular.

Apple has already released aggregate augmented world tools for its iPhone and iPad devices, which furniture virtual images and effects implicit the existent world.