• Meta Technology is ahead of Apple and announces the Meta Quest 3, virtual reality glasses of 500 euros

Apple's worldwide developer conference, WWDC, is the annual event in which the company shows the new tools and functions that will have its main platforms, iOS -the operating system of the iPhone- and macOS -that of Mac computers-.

The name makes it clear. It is above all an event aimed at developers who create applications and services for the company's products and that every year brings together thousands of people in an event that before the pandemic was face-to-face and now mixed.

But WWDC also usually includes some important announcements, including new products, and this year everything indicates that it will be a key appointment for the company because it seems certain that it will dedicate part of the conference to talk about a new virtual reality platform and the glasses that will be responsible for inaugurating it.

It would be the fifth major computing platform of the company after the Mac, the iPhone, the iPad and the Apple Watch, and a somewhat risky bet both for the price of the first device that Apple will launch, which is suspected to be high, and for the fact that, so far, virtual reality does not seem to arouse great interest among most consumers.

MIXED REALITY

If the rumors are fulfilled, the focus of the event will be on a new platform of virtual reality and mixed reality (mixed and real and synthetic image) that will be called xrOS and the first virtual reality glasses that will use it, the Reality Pro.

The glasses are expected to have a high price, close to 3,000 euros, and although Apple will show the product during the event, it is likely that they will not reach stores until the end of the year.

The price would be justified by somewhat more advanced features than those usually have the virtual reality headsets aimed at consumers that companies like Meta have so far put on sale. Reality Pro, for example, will use two Micro OLED panels of 4K resolution capable of generating a very sharp image and with a wide viewing angle.

Several external sensors will also allow to capture the movement of the hands in space without the need for controls, gloves or special controls and on the internal screen the glasses can show the image of the real world thanks to several external cameras.

The reason for announcing them at its developer conference is that Apple needs that when these glasses reach the market, at the end of the year, there is already a wide variety of applications and games with which to take advantage of them. It is likely that Apple has also created some own applications to access emails or messages or show large virtual screens on which to work or watch series and movies.

The design of the Reality Pro will be similar to ski goggles and several analysts believe that Apple could separate the battery into an external module to hang on the belt that would lighten the weight of the helmet, one of the big problems in the products of which they will be from now on their main rivals.

It is unlikely that this platform will have the size or importance, for example, of the iPhone but the strategy in the coming years for Apple would be to create more affordable models and gradually condense all the technology of this first model into a more conventional looking glasses and therefore more attractive to the general public.

NEW MACBOOK

Another product that could see the light in this WWDC is a new Macbook Air that would have a larger screen and that would be sold as a complement to the current model, launched last year. The model would feature a 15-inch screen and use the same processor as the smaller Macbook Air, the M2.

Another possible renewal would be that of the Mac Studio, desktop computers aimed at professional users that Apple launched in March 2022 but have not yet received the update to the new generation of processors of the company.

Apple also promised that in two years all Mac models would abandon Intel processors to move to these new M manufactured by the company itself, with a more efficient architecture. The deadline has passed but the Mac Pro, the most powerful and modular Mac in the catalog, has not yet been updated, so in this conference Apple could also explain what the plans are for this range, despite the fact that its high price makes it a team with few potential users.

OPERATING SYSTEMS

Fewer rumors circulate about new versions of the company's operating systems. As every year, Apple will announce today the new software that will arrive in autumn to the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and other products of the company. In the coming weeks, the first beta versions of these operating systems will also be downloaded.

In iOS, the operating system of the iPhone, one of the novelties could be a new mode of horizontal operation that would turn the phone into a smart screen, for example, by being supported on the bedside table. Apple also plans to launch a new journaling app that automatically creates a summary of activities and sites visited throughout the day. The Health app will also include several new features related to mental and emotional health and could announce a complete redesign of the virtual wallet where credit cards and passes are stored.

Regulatory pressure, both in the US and Europe, will also force Apple to be more open with its app store and new policies are likely to be announced to allow, for example, third-party stores on its phones and tablets.

Little is known about the changes and novelties for macOS and iPadOS, but one of the platforms that will undergo a major redesign will be watchOS, the operating system of the Apple Watch. Instead of a list or grid of applications, the main interface will depend more on widgets – small applications with reduced functionality but always active – that will be easier to navigate. These widgets were one of the big novelties in iOS last year, so it makes sense that they now come to the clock.

Apple could also announce major changes to Siri. Attention in the world of technology has quickly shifted in recent months to advances in artificial intelligence, and Apple, although it presents news related to this discipline every year, does not seem to have the same interest in these tools as Google or Microsoft. New functionalities for your digital assistant and for your productivity tools could help change that perception and the best scenario to do so is, without a doubt, that of this conference.

  • Apple Inc.
  • Virtual reality
  • iPhone

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