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Apple

New AirPods Pro Support ‘groundbreaking ultra-low latency audio protocol’ for Vision Pro

From roadtovr

With the early 2024 release of Vision Pro quickly approaching, Apple is steadily updating its products to prepare for the new headset.

In addition to an upcoming spatial capture feature on iPhone 15 Pro, Apple also says its latest AirPods Pro wireless earbuds (2nd-gen, now with USB-C) will support lossless audio with ‘ultra-low latency’ to ensure that what you see and what you hear are closely synchronized for an immersive experience.

What Apple is calling a “groundbreaking wireless audio protocol” is powered by the H2 chip in the AirPods Pro 2 and Vision Pro. The specifics of the protocol haven’t been divulged, but the company says it will deliver 20-bit, 48 kHz lossless audio with a “massive reduction in audio latency.”

Image courtesy Apple

Low latency in XR is important because a headset’s visuals need to be as low latency as possible in order to keep users comfortable. Having audio that’s just as responsive (in order to keep sight and sounds in sync) sometimes comes at the cost of quality. The audio protocol Apple is now touting seems designed specifically to maintain lossless audio while also keeping latency as low as possible.

The AirPods Pro 2 have been out for a while, but when the company revealed its latest phones earlier this month with USB-C connectors for the first time, it also took the time to release the refreshed version of the Airpods Pro 2, now with USB-C as well.

This is also when we saw the first mention of the new low latency audio protocol; though considering that the original AirPods Pro 2 (with lightning connector) also has an H2 chip, we certainly hope it will also support the new protocol. As for the non-Pro version of AirPods—which only have an H1 chip—it isn’t clear if they will get support. We’ve reached out to Apple for more clarity on which devices will be supported.

Apple Confirms Vision Pro Still Slated to Release in Early 2024

From roadtovr

Apple’s “Wonderlust” product launch event featured the official unveiling of iPhone 15 and both Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2. While XR wasn’t a major focus of the event, Apple confirmed its upcoming mixed reality standalone Vision Pro isn’t seeing any delays to push it off its early 2024 release.

First unveiled at WWDC in June, Apple CEO Tim Cook said last night during the product event that Vision Pro is still “on track for release in early 2024.”

Vision Pro, which comes along with the very ‘pro’ price tag of $3,500, has reportedly been the subject of multiple delays in the past. The MR headset was widely thought to arrive sometime in 2022, although several successive reports maintained it was delayed multiple times since then.

With an “early 2024” launch in site, Apple seems to be making some of the right moves in the background, as the company has already opened up applications for developer units which are undoubtedly already in the hands of studios.

Meanwhile, the Cupertino tech giant also announced it’s prepping iPhone 15 Pro to take stereoscopic video which can be viewed on Vision Pro. It’s an interesting choice, as features on company’s most premium ‘Pro’ phone offerings tend to trickle down in successive generations. Here, the phone’s ultrawide and main cameras work together to create what Apple calls a “three-dimensional video.”

iPhone 15 Pro is Apple’s First Smartphone With Spatial Video Capture, for Viewing on Vision Pro

From roadtovr

Apple today announced its iPhone 15 lineup of smartphones, including the iPhone 15 Pro which will be the company’s first phone to capture spatial video for immersive viewing on Vision Pro.

While Apple Vision Pro itself works as a spatial camera, allowing users to capture immersive photos and videos, I think we can all agree that wearing a camera on your head isn’t the most convenient way to capture content.

Image courtesy Apple

Apple seems to feel the same way. Today during the company’s iPhone 15 announcement, it was revealed that the new iPhone 15 Pro will be capable of capturing spatial video which can be viewed immersively on the company’s upcoming Vision Pro headset. The base versions of the phone, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, won’t have the spatial capture capability.

Details on exactly how this function works are slim for the time being.

“We use the ultrawide and main cameras together to create a three-dimensional video,” the company said during its announcement. But it isn’t clear if “three-dimensional” means stereoscopic footage with a fixed viewpoint, or some kind of depth projection with a bit of 6DOF wiggle room.

Given that the iPhone 15 Pro cameras are so close together—not offering enough distance between the two views for straightforward stereo capture—it seems that some kind of depth projection or scene reconstruction will be necessary.

Image courtesy Apple pro 

Apple didn’t specifically say whether the phone’s depth-sensor was involved, but considering the phone uses it for other camera functions, we wouldn’t be surprised to find that it has some role to play. Curiously, Apple didn’t mention spatial photo capture, but ostensibly this should be possible as well.

While users will be able to watch their immersive videos on Vision Pro, Apple also said they’ll be able to share the footage with others who can watch on their own headset.

While the new iPhone 15 lineup will launch on September 22nd, Apple says the spatial capture capability won’t be available until “later this year”—which is curious considering the company also said today that Vision Pro is “on track to launch in early 2024.” Perhaps the company plans to allow creators to access the spatial video files for editing and use outside of Apple’s platform?

Apple Reportedly Departs from Tradition with Creation of Dedicated XR Product Team

From roadtovr

According to a Bloomberg report from Mark Gurman, Apple is changing things up with the creation of a new Vision Products Group (VPG), which is tasked with developing the company’s recently unveiled mixed reality headset, Vision Pro.

The report maintains that with the creation of VPG, Apple is departing from its “functional” management structure, which was introduced by Steve Jobs in the early ’90s.

Effectively, Jobs distributed the company’s product development efforts across more general departments, such as hardware, software, design, services, etc, instead of sectionalizing hardware development into individual product teams, like Mac, Watch, iPad, iPhone, etc.

Apple Vision Pro | Image courtesy Apple

The so-called Vision Products Group is reportedly independent from Apple’s main software and hardware engineering and other departments, including its own internal versions of those teams which report to unit head Mike Rockwell.

Gurman maintains that VPG still collaborates with other parts of Apple though, including design and operations teams overseen by COO Jeff Williams, Johny Srouji’s chip unit known for the company’s M2 and R1 processors, and iOS/macOS frameworks headed Craig Federighi’s software engineering group.

Some reportedly believed the dedicated group would be disbanded, making it follow the company’s functional management structure. It has however both persisted beyond the Vision Pro’s June unveiling at WWDC and was branded to reflect that the group is tasked with creation of Vision Products, implying the team will be sticking around for multiple product cycles yet to come.

Apple Reportedly Cuts Production Targets for Vision Pro Due to Manufacturing Complexity

From roadtovr

Apple has allegedly slashed production targets for Vision Pro due to manufacturing issues related to the mixed reality headset’s complex design, a Financial Times report maintains.

Unveiled during Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in early June, the $3,500 Vision Pro represents the first big step into XR for the company. Launching sometime next year, Vision Pro is a high-end headset that combines virtual reality displays with color passthrough cameras, allowing it to do both VR and AR tasks.

Apple’s China-based contract manufacturer Luxshare, allegedly the sole assembler of the device, is now preparing to make fewer than 400,000 units of Vision Pro in 2024, according to the report, which cites “multiple people with direct knowledge of the manufacturing process,” including sources close to Apple and Luxshare.

Supply chain rumors also allege that two of Apple’s China-based component suppliers only have enough parts to produce around 130,000 to 150,000 Vision Pro units in the first year. It was previously thought Apple was operating with an internal 12-month sales target of one million units.

Manufacturing complications apparently hinge on Vision Pro’s micro-OLED displays and outward-facing, curved lenticular display, the latter of which allows a sort of digital passthrough view of the user’s eyes.

In our hands-on, we noted Vision Pro packed top of its class lenses and displays, something Apple says is “more than a 4K TV for each eye.”

The company is reportedly unhappy with supplier productivity. It’s said the most expensive component is its internal displays, and getting enough of those micro-OLEDs to be defect-free has purportedly been a significant hurdle. Additionally, Financial Times reports the micro-OLED displays used in the headsets demoed to press at its June launch were supplied by Sony and the chipmaker TSMC.

Meanwhile, Apple is said to be working with Samsung and LG on a second-gen version of the headset, which will be reportedly cheaper than the first, which is launching sometime in 2024 for $3,500.

Oculus Founder Explains What Apple Got Right & Wrong on Vision Pro

From roadtovr

Apple Vision Pro is about to set a lot of expectations in the industry of what’s ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ about mixed reality, something the fruit company prefers to call spatial computing. Oculus founder Palmer Luckey weighed in on his thoughts, and coming from one of the main figures who kicked off the VR revolution of today, it means something.

Speaking to Peter Diamandis in a nearly two hour-long podcast, Luckey delved into many areas of his work over the years, touching on the role at his defense company Anduril, his role in kickstarting the modern era of VR, and basically everything under the Sun that the tech entrepreneur is doing, or thinks about when it comes to augmented and virtual reality.

Undoubtedly the hottest of hot button issues is whether Apple is doing mixed reality ‘right’ as a newcomer to the space. Luckey is mostly positive about Vision Pro, saying it’s patently Apple.

“I think there were things that I would do differently if I were Apple,” Luckey tells Diamandis. “They did basically everything right—they didn’t do anything terrible. I mean, I think Apple is going after the exact right segment of the market that Apple should be going after.”

Luckey maintains that if Apple went after the low end of the market, it would be “a mistake,” saying the Cupertino tech giant is taking “the exact approach that I had always wanted Apple to take, and really the approach that Oculus had been taking in the early years.”

Apple is admittedly going at XR with little regard for affordability, but that’s not the sticking point you might think it would be. To him, the $3,500 headset packs the best components for the premium segment, including “the highest possible resolution, the highest quality possible displays, the best possible ergonomics.”

In fact, Apple’s first-gen device shouldn’t be about affordability at this point, Luckey says. It’s about “inspiring lust in a much larger group of people, who, as I dreamed all those years ago, see VR as something they desperately want before it becomes something they can afford.”

Image courtesy Apple

In the world of component configurations, there’s very little that catches Luckey off guard, although Vision Pro’s tethered battery ‘puck’ was choice that surprised the Oculus founder a little bit. When it comes to offloading weight from the user’s head, Luckey says shipping a battery puck was the “right way to do things.”

“I was a big advocate of [external pucks] in Oculus, but unfortunately it was a battle that I lost in my waning years, and [Oculus] went all in on putting all batteries, all the processing in actual headset itself. And not just in the headset, but in the front of the headset itself, which hugely increases the weight of the front of the device, the asymmetric torque load… it’s not a good decision.”

One direction Apple has going that Luckey isn’t a fan of: controllers, or rather, the lack thereof. Vision Pro is set to ship without any sort of VR motion controller, which means developers will need to target hand and eye-tracking as the primary input methods.

“It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of VR input, and I think that’s probably one of the things I would have done differently than Apple. On the other hand, they have a plan for VR input that goes beyond just the finger [click] inputs. They’re taking a focused marketing approach, but I think they have a broader vision for the future than everything just being eyes and fingers.”

Luckey supports the company’s decision to split the headset into a puck and head-worn device not only for Vision Pro in the near term, but also for future iterations of the device, which will likely need more batteries, processing, and antennas. Setting those expectations now of a split configuration could help Apple move lighter and thinner on head-worn components, and never even deal with the problems of balancing the girth and weight seen in the all-in-one, standalone headsets of today.

In the end, whether the average person will wear such things in the future will ultimately come down to clever marketing, Luckey maintains, as it’s entirely possible to slim down to thinner form factors, but devices may not be nearly as functional at sizes smaller than “chunky sunglasses”. To Luckey, companies like Apple have their work cut out for them when it comes to normalizing these AR/VR headsets of the near future, and Apple will most definitely be seeding their devices on the heads of “the right celebrities, the right influencers” in the meantime.

You can check out the full 15-minute clip where Luckey talks about his thoughts on Apple Vision Pro below:

Apple Vision Pro Debrief on the Voices of VR Podcast

From roadtovr

Apple’s announcement of Vision Pro is reverberating throughout the industry. Beyond just a new headset, the company’s entrance into the space introduces new ideas that are now being discussed around the tech-sphere. To dig further into what Apple Vision Pro means for the XR industry more broadly, I spoke with host Kent Bye on the Voices of VR podcast.

Kent Bye has been consistently documenting the XR space since 2014 through his prolific podcast, Voices of VR, which now spans more than 1,200 episodes.

Over the years I’ve had the fortune of joining Bye on the podcast during pivotal moments in the XR industry. With the long-awaited release of Apple Vision Pro, it was once again time for a check-in; you can listen here to episode #1,217 of the Voices of VR podcast.

Beyond my previously published hands-on impressions with the headset, our discussion on the podcast covers some of the broader implications of Apple Vision Pro, including how the company’s ecosystem plays a major role in the value of the headset, whether or not the headset’s ergonomics are aligned with its use-case vision, and the ways in which Apple’s entrance into the space feels like a reboot of the industry at large.

Bye also interviewed several others for their takes and impressions of Apple Vision Pro. You can check out episode #1,216 to hear from Sarah Hill, CEO of Healium, and Raven Zachary, COO of ARound; episode #1,218 with Ian Hamilton, Editor at UploadVR; and episode #1,219 with Scott Stein, Editor at CNET.

Voices of VR is a listener-supported podcast; if you like what you hear, you can support Bye’s work on Patreon.

Watch Apple’s WWDC Keynote Right Here at 10AM PT

From roadtovr

Apple’s WWDC keynote is today, and the company is heavily expected to reveal an immersive headset for the first time. Here’s where to see the action live.

Apple’s WWDC keynote will be held at 10AM PT on June 5th (your timezone here). You can catch the official livestream from Apple embedded below:

Follow for Up-to-the-minute Updates

I’ll be on-site at Apple Park for the WWDC keynote, and maybe more than that… if you want the most up-to-the-minute updates for what comes after the keynote, follow along on Twitter: @benz145.

What to Expect

We’re expecting that Apple’s WWDC keynote will first focus first on its existing products, including major updates to its mobile and desktop operating systems, with the potential for a revamped 15-inch MacBook Air.

But of course the thing we’re looking for is the rumored announcement of Apple’s first XR headset, which we expect will come at the end of the keynote—though we’re still 50/50 on whether or not it’ll be preceded by the words “one more thing,” which the company hasn’t dropped since 2020.

Rumors for what an Apple XR headset might actually do or look like have varied substantially over the years, though recent leaks suggest the following:

  • Resolution: Dual Micro OLED displays at 4K resolution (per eye)
  • FOV: 120-degrees, similar to Valve Index
  • Chipset: Two 5nm chips. Includes a main SoC (CPU, GPU, and memory) and a dedicated image signal processor (ISP). Chips communicate via a custom streaming codec to combat latency.
  • Battery: Waist-mounted battery, connected via MagSafe-like power cable to the headset’s headband. Two-hour max battery life, although hot-swappable for longer sessions.
  • Passthrough: ISP chip contains custom high-bandwidth memory made by SK Hynix, providing low latency color passthrough
  • Audio: H2 chip, providing ultra-low latency connection with the second-generation AirPods Pro and future AirPods models. No 3.5mm and possible no support for non-AirPod BT headphones.
  • Controller: Apple is said to favor hand-tracking and voice recognition to control the headset, but it has tested a “wand” and a “finger thimble” as alternative control input methods.
  • Prescription Lenses: Magnetically attachable custom prescription lenses for glasses-wearers.
  • IPD Adjustment: Automatic, motorized adjustment to match the wearer’s interpupillary distance.
  • Eye Tracking: At least one camera per-eye for things like avatar presence and foveated rendering
  • Face & Body Tracking: More than a dozen cameras and sensors capture both facial expressions and body movements, including the user’s legs.
  • Room Tracking: Both short- and long-range LiDAR scanners to map surfaces and distances in three dimensions.
  • App Compatibility: Said to have the ability to run existing iOS apps in 2D.

It’s very likely that this is only an initial announcement of the company’s headset, with a heavy focus on what developers will be able to do with it (need we remind you, this is Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference). We don’t expect it to launch until later this year at the earliest, but when it does it’s not clear if Apple will position the device like a sort of early adopter development kit, or market it to consumers outright. The latter seems less likely considering the rumored price between $1,500–$3,000.

While Apple pretty much never launches any product as a ‘dev kit’, an XR headset might be such a shift for the company and its army of iOS developers that they will need that interim step to hone the experience ahead of a full blown push to consumers. We’ll find out soon enough.

Apple Invites XR Media Outlets to WWDC Keynote for the First Time

From roadtovr

Apple has sent invitations to its upcoming WWDC keynote to select media outlets, including Road to VR.

Apple has historically not invited XR media to its events, let alone commented in any way on its XR R&D that has been reportedly happening behind the scenes at the company for years.

Road to VR is among the XR media outlets who have received an invitation to Apple’s WWDC keynote for the first time. Our friends at UploadVR confirmed the same.

It’s difficult not to interpret the invitations amidst the growing number of reports that Apple plans to reveal its first XR device at the keynote which takes place on June 5th at 10AM PT.

Apple’s official entrance into the XR space has been rumored for years, with many expecting it to be a boon for the industry thanks to Apple’s penchant for solving usability challenges, one of the core issues that has held XR back from more mainstream usage. Much speculation has happened about whether the company will lean most into AR, VR, or MR.

Alas, we’ll have to wait until we’re there to find out for ourselves just what Apple has up its sleeve.

Oculus Founder Demoed Early Version of Apple’s XR Headset, Calls It ‘Excellent’ and ‘A Huge Deal’

From roadtovr

Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus who left the company in 2017, appears to have insider knowledge of the upcoming Apple XR headset, which is expected to be unveiled at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) next month. To Luckey, Apple’s hotly awaited entrance into the space is apparently “so good.”

Update (May 17th, 2023): In a Twitter spaces chat with Peter H. Diamandis, Luckey described a bit of his experiences with an earlier version of Apple’s headset, noting in the May 4th interview that he hasn’t seen the final version:

“The Apple headset is very, very good. I’ve not seen the final headset, but I have seen an earlier version of the headset and it is excellent. It is going to be a huge deal. It is going to be expensive, but I think that they’re following a pretty smart strategy, which is to make VR into something everybody wants before it’s something that everybody can afford, which was kind of our position in the early days when we started Oculus. The Oculus Rift was sort of a flagship headset, and was [setting] the bar for what VR could be. In many ways, nobody’s even beaten the first Oculus Rift CV1 today in terms ergonomics, lightweight-ness, a lot of the adjustability—and I think Apple is going to do a great job of that.”

The original article continues below:

Luckey hasn’t quantified his experience beyond this, or even said that his impressions indeed come from a personal demo of Apple’s long-rumored mixed reality headset, which, like Meta Quest Pro, is thought to be capable of both virtual reality and passthrough augmented reality thanks to outward facing cameras. Whatever the case, the VR pioneer is sufficiently impressed with whatever the fruit company has in store.

Luckey, who founded defense company Anduril after his 2017 Facebook departure, is no stranger to candidly voicing his opinions on headset design. When unicorn AR startup Magic Leap released its ML1 headset in mid-2018, he called it a “tragic heap,” further stating the AR headset was “a tragedy in the classical sense.”

Palmer Lucker donning ML1 | Image courtesy Palmer Luckey

At the time, Magic Leap was just as secretive about its hardware as Apple is today. And Luckey’s opinion was undoubtedly tinged by the company’s self-generated hype which grew in the shadow of that secrecy.

“Magic Leap needed to really blow people away to justify the last few years,” Luckey wrote in his review of the headset. “The product they put out is reasonably solid, but is nowhere close to what they had hyped up, and has several flaws that prevent it from becoming a broadly useful tool for development of AR applications. That is not good for the XR industry.”

Does this mean Apple is actually delivering on the hype and pushing the ball forward with the reported $3,000 headset? Even with an avalanche of patently unverifiable leaks to go on and Luckey’s word, we truly won’t know until that ‘one more thing’ is announced on stage. Then again, you simply never can tell with Apple. We have our calendars marked for the June 5th WWDC keynote, so join us then to find out.