Apple CEO Tim Cook and COO Jeff Williams have been pushing for the Reality Pro mixed reality headset to hit the market this year, according to the Financial Times.
Apple’s first mixed reality headset will have suffered numerous postponements, but everything suggests that it will arrive well in 2023. Originally scheduled for the end of 2022, Apple had finally postponed the launch for the first time, before suffering another postponement. due to software problems.
Now, Apple is planning to present its product during the WWDC conference in June 2023, and this information has just been corroborated by the Financial Times. According to the outlet, Apple CEO Tim Cook has sided with COO Jeff Williams, to launch a first-generation mixed reality headset this year. This decision would be quite surprising, as it would presumably go against the advice of the company’s design team.
Apple’s headphones aren’t ready for launch yet
According to information from our colleagues, the AR / VR headset is simply not ready to be launched for the moment. The company’s industrial design team estimated that the devices in this category were not finished and preferred to wait until a light product such as AR glasses had reached maturity several years later.
For their part, the leaders of Apple want at all costs to rush the launch of the product. The operational team led by Jeff Williams wanted to deliver a technologically advanced helmet as soon as possible, even though the device was bulky and expensive. However, this goes against the historical strategy of the American manufacturer, which generally waits for a technology to reach maturity before launching its products, even if it means being late.
Tim Cook would have supported the opinion of the operational team, which means that the company will now go all out to launch its headset this year. Cook and Williams are aware of the state of the market and believe thatit makes sense to enter the fray now, although the first-generation headset will be expensive and unappealing to consumers. The first generation will be far from the most interesting, but Apple hopes to iterate and improve over time. Either way, Apple is expected to sell millions in the first year.