MD0-235 reality - Certified Storage Network Implementer Updated: 2023

Apple is set to launch its Reality Pro headset — its most anticipated new product in years — at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 5. I’m excited to see what the Cupertino firm unveils on stage, and there are plenty of reasons to hope that the device will revolutionize the industry.

But there are also things I’m deeply worried about with the Reality Pro, and there’s more than a slight chance that it could be an abject failure. Which outcome is more likely? Well, that depends on what Apple reveals to the world at WWDC. Let’s see what could go right — and absolutely wrong — with the Reality Pro.

Apple has waited for the right time

When Apple launches a product in a new category, it’s usually a success because the company has put in the time and effort to get it right. Apple is not the type of outfit to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks — no, it takes a much more measured approach to ensure it comes out on top.

For one thing, Apple has extremely deep pockets, and much of its riches can be funneled into extensive product and market research. It is constantly patenting interesting ideas that elevate its devices, and the Reality Pro is certainly no exception here. Plus, there are billions of Apple devices already out there, so the company has a very good idea of what its customers want.

Rather than rushing headlong into a new market without understanding what will work, Apple bides its time, sees how its rivals have failed, then comes out with something that (it hopes) is the best product around. That tried-and-true approach gives me confidence that Apple has done its homework with the Reality Pro and will give us something that blows us all away.

The Reality Pro is certainly different from past attempts at new products, as there are few true high-end, mixed-reality products already on the market. It’s really just the Meta Quest Pro and the Vive XR Elite. The VR industry as a whole, though, is much more developed and has long been in need of a shake-up by a major player like Apple.

There will be something for everyone

VR enthusiasts are Apple’s current demographic as a brand. The first wave of adoption has been in the gaming context, with hardcore gamers flocking to options from Meta or Valve. The untapped potential that mixed-reality headsets like the Meta Quest Pro and Lenovo ThinkReality smart glasses — or even newer concepts like the Spacetop — is for a larger work canvas.

Apple is expected to double down on this approach by offering both virtual and augmented reality in the Reality Pro — a combination known as mixed reality. According to the reports, you’ll even be able to quickly switch modes with a quick flick of the Apple Watch-like Digital Crown.

If the Reality Pro is going to succeed, it needs to appeal to different people, and I know that Apple knows that. By offering up virtual reality and augmented reality, work, and gaming apps, and much more, there could be something for everyone. Apple needs to make mixed reality something for everyone, in the same way that iPhones and MacBooks are.

The hardware

There’s been a lot of chatter about the Reality Pro’s rumored $3,000 price tag, which would make it much more expensive than most rival devices. But there’s a good reason for this high asking price, and it can definitely be seen as an encouraging thing (in some ways at least).

That’s because that lofty price tag is a result of all the incredibly advanced tech that Apple is reportedly stuffing into its headset. We’re expecting 4K displays, tons of cameras, eye- and hand-tracking tech, a super-lightweight design, and much more. A new report states that the displays will use micro-OLED panels with a pixel density of 4,000 ppi (pixels per inch) and brightness of up to 5,000 nits. We’ve never seen tech in a headset like this, and I have no doubt Apple will nail this aspect of it.

If Apple is this invested, it’s going to do all it can to make sure the headset is a hit — and that both newcomers and enthusiasts walk away impressed by the first demos. You can bet that the Reality Pro will be no half-hearted attempt, and will certainly look a lot less dorky than other headsets.

It’ll have strong developer support

Apple is usually pretty good at getting developers on board with its new projects. That’s essential because without third-party apps ready to go, the Reality Pro headset’s appeal will be greatly reduced.

That’s why it makes so much sense that Apple is launching the Reality Pro at WWDC. As the name suggests, this is a developer-focused event, making it the perfect time for Apple to pitch its new headset to the people whose help will be essential. Not only is there the big reveal at the keynote, but there will be a full week of hands-on classes and seminars for developers to learn how to make apps for the new platform.

By the time the product is actually available to buy for the average person, I’m fairly confident that Apple will have a full slate of content to try out, led by its own first-party apps no doubt. I still don’t have an idea of what those apps and experiences will be, but I know Apple will be targeting creative professionals given the nature of this product.

Problem No. 1: A solution in search of a problem

With all that said, the Reality Pro’s success is far from guaranteed. It’s all very well having an extremely advanced headset bursting with tons of great apps, but that all means nothing if customers aren’t interested.

And right now, it’s not at all clear that people are particularly interested in these types of headsets. Almost every device, from Microsoft’s HoloLens to the Meta Quest Pro, has struggled to break into the mainstream and captivate the public. The major hurdle seems to be at the heart of the technology itself. Apple will somehow need to make strapping a computer to your face seem palatable for everyone who has found it off-putting. This means it’ll need to be unbelievably comfortable, light, and stylish. Apple has a pedigree in this aspect of design, but it’s a serious obstacle to the success of the Reality Pro.

Whether the market isn’t ready or the products are duds doesn’t really matter — the point is that the situation is not exactly primed for Apple to take the world by storm. There’s a significant risk that the Reality Pro will feel like a solution in search of a problem. We’ll have to see.

Problem No. 2: An astronomical price

The other issue that no one can ignore is a simple one: the price. After all, $3,000 is an awful lot of money, even for an Apple product. Will the company be able to convince people it’s a hurdle that’s worth overcoming?

Reports have suggested that Apple isn’t expecting to sell many units of the Reality Pro, with perhaps as few as one device per store per day. Sales that low suggest a product in danger of being canceled, not one that breaks out into the mainstream.

Several sources have claimed that Apple is working on a cheaper follow-up headset that will cost half the price of the Reality Pro, but by that stage, the damage might already be done. That’ll be especially true if the hardware is the primary selling point of the Reality Pro. If that same experience can’t be recreated in a more affordable headset, that’s a problem.

Think of the original HomePod — it was way too expensive and sold so poorly that Apple eventually canned it (before bringing it back again). If Apple had offered the cheaper HomePod mini at the same time, things might have been different. But instead, Apple just put out a very pricey product with a price tag that made people wince. The Reality Pro shows the company could make the same mistake all over again.

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Pink and the myth of the colour wheel

Pink is a bright, bold, and happy colour with a long history. It’s been described in Homer’s Odyssey (800 BC) and was fashionable among the 18^th century upper class in Europe—both male and female—as a symbol of class, style, and luxury (Phillips, 2023). Elvis Presley drove a pink Cadillac and former first lady Mamie Eisenhower used pink extensively in her attire and with decorations in the White House (Phillips, 2023).

Here is the problem: Pink doesn’t exist!

If we ignore the strange world of quantum mechanics for a moment, light can be described as electromagnetic radiation that comes in different wavelengths. We perceive a narrow spectrum of this radiation as visible light. At the low end of the frequency spectrum¹ is red light and at the high end is violet. Artists often use a colour wheel to show the relationships between colours.

The problem is that light comes on a spectrum that doesn’t connect at its ends. If we sort objects, like apples, on a spectrum from small to large, there are medium sized apples in the middle. But we cannot combine the property of being large and small in a new way to create a big-small apple that is different from a medium sized one. The same is true for colour: The middle-point between red and violet is somewhere in the green range but there isn’t any light that corresponds to the areas between red and violet on a colour wheel. In a way, these are imaginary colours (this is why there are no pink or magenta lasers).

Sensation and perception

There is no light frequency or wavelength that corresponds to what we see as pink or magenta (Moyer, 2012). This fact led to the bizarre headline in Time Magazine stating that scientists aren’t sure if pink exists (Locker, 2012)². For the record: Scientists know a great deal about light and about how we perceive it. We see shades of pink or magenta when we sense red and violet (or blue) light in close proximity. There really isn’t any scientific debate about that. However, this issue highlights a profound aspect about us as human beings: What we perceive is not the external world around us but our brain’s interpretation of it.

Sensation has traditionally been described as a single unit of experience produced by stimulating a sensory receptor. However, the current state of research doesn’t support this idea anymore because experiences and awareness do not come directly from sensory receptors. We can sense things without being aware of them (Pang & Elntib, 2021;2023) and as the colour pink shows, what we are aware of is not simply the sum of what our senses pick up.

Our experiences—or what we perceive—are the heavily processed and filtered interpretations our brains give us (Huth et al., 2012; Schapiro et al., 2013). Viewed this way, sensations are a physiological response to external stimuli. In simpler words, sensations are how our bodies respond to the world around us. Perception on the other hand is how we experience our world (APA, 2007b). Sensations can occur unconsciously but perception is directly linked to conscious experience and forms one of the key dimensions of consciousness (see The Many Dimensions of Consciousness; Pang, 2023a).

Perception and reality

This view of perception is profound because it suggests that we have no direct access to the external reality around us. We only ever experience our brain’s internal representation of the outside world, which is limiting in two main ways:

Firstly, we only pick up a very small range of things. For example, we can only see a very narrow band of electromagnetic radiation—what we call visible light. X-rays, radio-waves, or even microwaves are essentially the same as light, but they all have frequencies that are outside of what we can perceive.

Many animals have magnetoreception, which means that they can sense magnetic fields—a bit like having an internal compass (Kirschvink et al., 2001). We are intrinsically oblivious to this part of reality; there are no real estate ads that praise the lush or harmonious magnetic field of a home but many that exalt the view from the property. While we know about the Earth’s magnetic field, there could be many aspects of reality that we are completely ignorant of. We don’t even know what we don’t know.

Secondly, as we discovered earlier, our brains filter, correct, and interpret the overwhelming amount of sensory data we encounter (Huth et al., 2012; Schapiro et al., 2013). This is crucial for us to make sense of the world around us and act within a complex environment.

A good example of this is the checkerboard optical illusion, where we perceive two squares of the same colour to be different shades because of the shadow of a third object. Our perception may be inaccurate, but it is much more useful: We can tell that ‘B’ (see image below) is one of the “light” fields on the checkerboard. We also recognise the dark streak as a shadow and the object in the corner as a cylinder. We don’t perceive a matrix of colours but distinct objects in a three-dimensional space and their relationships to one another.

Qualia and “what it is like…”

Our experiences, then, are different from what is actually out there in the world. This does not mean that an objective reality doesn’t exist, nor does it mean that what we experience is any less real—both are very real in their own sense—but it does mean that they are different. This is crucial when we talk about the mind and consciousness (see What is Consciousness?, Pang, 2023b).

Pink and magenta may not exist as a distinct wavelength of light (we can say that it doesn’t exist in the external reality) but there is a specific external configuration of light that make us perceive something as pink. So, the question of whether pink is real depends on whether we talk about our internal world of experience (where it’s very much real) or the external world (where it isn’t). Sadly, our conundrum about reality doesn’t end there. We can confidently say that a sound exists as vibrations travelling through the air. But why do vibrations sound like something to us? Why are some sounds pleasant and others dissonant? And why is experiencing a sound different from experiencing a colour?

Philosophers call these experiential qualities qualia (the singular form is quale). The American philosopher Thomas Nagel (1974) described experiences and consciousness as having a uniquely subjective aspect that he summed up in the question “What is it like to be something?” According to Nagel, being a bat has a distinct qualitative experience (it is like something to be a bat), whereas being a rock doesn’t have that (there is no “what it is like” associated with being a rock). Others have argued against the concept of qualia altogether (for example, Dennett, 1988).

Conclusion: Ultimate reality

Regardless of where we find ourselves in this debate, our brief journey from pink to sensation and perception has shown us that our internal experience is different from our external world—both factually and qualitatively. Which one is real? I would argue that both are but in different ways. Despite massive advances in psychology and neuroscience, we still cannot fully explain our internal experience based on what we know of the external world (and some say we never will; Chalmers, 1995). We cannot convincingly do the reverse either (although some have tried, for example Kastrup, 2022). This means that any complete description of reality has to include both the experiential and the physical.

Traitor or patriot—that’s the question lingering over Reality, writer/director Tina Satter’s HBO film adaptation of her Broadway play Is This a Room? about a whistleblower on the cusp of arrest. Its title is both the name of its protagonist and a reference to the nature of its tale, and Reality is a stagey dramatization about the flimsy line separating truth from lies, honor from treachery. Though its real-life story ultimately proves a little too one-note, it makes up for its thinness with a powerhouse lead turn from Sydney Sweeney as a woman caught in a nerve-wracking mess of her own making.

Its dialogue taken directly from transcripts of FBI interviews and recordings (and sometimes simultaneously depicted on-screen), Reality is set over the course of approximately two hours on June 3, 2017, at the small, one-level brick home of National Security Agency translator Reality Winner (Sweeney) in a not-very-nice section of Augusta, Georgia.

Arriving at the house with groceries in tow, Winner is greeted by Wally (Marchánt Davis) and Justin (Josh Hamilton). They’re both FBI agents, and they have a warrant to search Winner’s residence, her car, and her person—including her phone, which they request while still on the front lawn. Wearing, respectively, a short-sleeved checkerboard button-down (Justin) and an Under Armor polo shirt (Wallace) that are tucked into matching khaki pants, the men affect cheery casualness. Nonetheless, it’s clear from the get-go that this is not an informal meeting.

That impression is heightened by their ensuing chitchat about whether Winner has any firearms in the home (she does), and about their demand that she not go for them when they enter the building. Wally’s later request that Winner help unlock her phone, and then his abrupt act of pulling the device away when she tries to touch it, only reinforces the sense that, despite the sunshiny weather and pleasant talk, things are dire for Winner.

HBO

If it's obvious that Justin and Wally are putting on a genial façade in order to obtain Winner’s cooperation, it’s likewise apparent that Winner is using superficial comments—most of them having to do with her concerns about her dog and cat, whom she fears will flee out the front door if not properly managed—to mask the fact that she knows, or at least suspects, the reason for this drop-by.

Hewing closely to the letter of its source material, Reality builds suspense not only from these characters’ charged conversations, but from a slowly developing air of menace created by the arrival of an unnamed, goateed agent in a yellow shirt and wrap-around sunglasses whose gum-chewing and hands-on-hips comportment are far from reassuring.

Alternating between claustrophobic close-ups and medium shots that accentuate Winner’s dwarfed-by-guys circumstances, director Satter creates an atmosphere of simmering anxiety. For Winner, the world soon begins to take on a strange quality, with everything—tree branches rustling in the wind, a cat sitting in a toy truck across the street—suddenly looking surreal and threatening.

Justin and Wally eventually move this confrontation inside to an empty back room that features no furniture and is illuminated by a fluorescent light. Having expressed how impressed they are with her fluency in Farsi, Dari, and Pashto, the federal agents get down to business: namely, their belief that Winner has leaked classified information.

To compel her to open up, they prod her on the nature of her work at the NSA, her background in the Air Force, her security clearance, her interest in future deployments, and her conduct at the office. Their queries suggest that they have more intel than they’re divulging, and it’s not long before Winner is coming clean, piece by piece, about her infraction, which involved printing a report about Russia’s suspected interference in the 2016 election—specifically, their hacking of voting machines—and mailing it to The Intercept for publication.

Justin and Wally want to know precisely what Winner did as well as why, and the answer to that latter issue is hinted at in the first moments of Reality, courtesy of a snapshot of Winner working at a cubicle desk beneath TVs broadcasting Fox News. The incessant blare of fascistically minded right-wing disinformation is the unspoken (and then, overtly blamed) catalyst for Winner’s crime. What’s of greater interest to the film, however, is the in-the-moment ordeal of Winner, whose nervousness initially manifests itself via her big, darting eyes and fidgety clasping/unclasping hands.

Reality is a showcase for its headliner, who captures Winner’s friendliness, caginess, and terror through gradually changing body language and a voice that starts to waver under the strain of her situation. In jean shorts, a white shirt with rolled cuffs, and hair pulled back in a braid, Sweeney makes Winner seem small and ordinary. Intermittent cutaways to her Instagram posts—concerning the (suspicious?) vacation she recently took, her competitive weightlifting, and her AR-15—contribute to a portrait of the translator as a relatively ordinary woman who, like millions of Americans circa 2017, were at their wit’s end over the incoming commander-in-chief, and who was naturally distraught and unnerved by the bright spotlight of a federal interrogation.

At the same time, though, Sweeney (like the film) never excessively courts sympathy; Winner’s true motivations remain at least partially opaque, so that it’s possible to read her (and her offense) in multiple ways.

The tension between honesty and deception is central to Reality, with regards to both Winner’s cat-and-mouse game with Justin and Wally, and the government’s concealment of bombshell revelations about Russian interference that run counter to Trump and Fox’s avalanche of denials. By confining itself to the official record, the film never develops additional dimensions that might enhance its themes.

Still, after having her actors temporarily vanish from the screen whenever they reach redacted portions of the transcript, Satter ends her story with views of the classified report in question, as well as TV news clips of media pundits debating Winner’s case—thereby providing a closing critique of our fractured national discourse, and an ambiguous statement about the justness of doing wrong for what appears to be the right reasons.

HBO’s latest original film REALITY isn’t just ripped from the headlines—the film’s dialogue is literally lifted from a transcript of a 2017 FBI interrogation into Reality Winner, a former Air Force member who leaked classified documents about Russia’s interference into the 2016 election to the website The Intercept. The film is directed by Tina Satter, who first staged the story as a play titled Is This A Room in 2019.

In the film, Sydney Sweeney plays the titular Reality, with whom she spoke to at length and worked hard to personify accurately. “I had the constructs of her genuine experiences, memories and life, and wanted to make sure that I embodied her as much as I possibly could instead of creating a completely different person,” Sweeney told ELLE.com.

Sweeney, Satter, and the entire creative team worked to maintain and stay true to the story’s reality, lending to the title’s double meaning. Here’s a breakdown of where Winner is now and how much REALITY resembles her real life.

Reality Winner was sentenced to 63 months in prison, the longest for leaking government secrets to the media.

After The Intercept published the contents of the NSA (National Security Agency) file she mailed them—which described Russian hacking of U.S. voting software and phishing emails sent to election officials prior to the 2016 presidential election—Reality was pinpointed as the source based on the appearance of the documents, which were folded and creased indicating that they had been printed in person. Reality was one of only six employees who had accessed the relevant documents, and the only one who had been in personal contact with The Intercept via a personal email.

She was charged with “removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet,” to which she pleaded not guilty. After a trial in which she was repeatedly denied bond, she changed her plea to guilty and was given a five years and three months sentence followed by three years of supervised release, the longest sentencing for leaking classified information.

Her sentencing became politicized when then-President Donald Trump tweeted about the “double standard” of her sentencing compared to the Hillary Clinton email scandal. Many, including Reality’s lawyer Titus Nichols, believed the tweet was primarily taking aim at the Attorney General Jeff Sessions rather than expressing true support for Reality. Despite having voiced her distaste for him previously, Reality wanted Trump to pardon her but no such clemency was awarded.

In 2021 she was transferred from prison to a transitional facility in San Antonio, Texas on account of good behavior. As of December 2022, Reality was still on probation and living in Texas.

The dialogue in REALITY is the exact transcript of Winner’s interrogation.

Before the film even begins, a title card explains that everything we’re about to hear in the film is directly pulled from the real life dialogue between Reality and the two FBI investigators at her home in Augusta, Georgia.

Satter even goes so far as to show parts of the typed transcript on screen while characters are talking to show how she and the actors captured every pregnant pause, every “uhm” filler, and all of the mid-sentence stammering that occurred during the conversation that day. “I think the biggest challenge was the transcript itself,” Sweeney admitted. “There was just so much there. We filmed so much in a single day, and there was a boatload of dialogue all the time where they were talking in circles.”

Certain parts of the real transcript include redacted information—blotted out in thick black marking—which Satter stylized with blurry camera movements and blank screens. Those are some of the few moments in the film where audiences are reminded that they are watching a filmed version of the encounter.

REALITY recreates the FBI interrogation at Winner’s house.

REALITY’s opening scene is a rare addition to the real-life elements of the transcript.

Before FBI investigators arrive at Reality’s suburban Atlanta home, we’re introduced to the young intelligence worker at her drab cubicle. Shot from above, the scene is mundane as Reality sits at her desk pushing paper while Fox News blares on a TV near her. After a while, she gets up and heads home, the camera tracking her through the parking lot and on her drive home.

Satter has been open that the film’s dialogue is based entirely on the transcript, and these opening scenes notably contain no dialogue. While there’s no evidence this exact version of events occurred, the scene sets up a moment late in the interrogation when Reality finally breaks and admits that the continuous cycle of the right-wing news network and disinformation was disturbing to her. “I felt hopeless and seeing that information being contested back and forth, back and forth in the public domain…why can’t this get out there, why can’t this be public?” Reality, by proxy of Sweeney, says late in the film to justify her leak confirming Russian interference in the election.

The real Reality Winner consulted on aspects of the film.

Sweeney told The Hollywood Reporter at the Berlin Film Festival that her research for the role began first with watching interviews of the real subject before she finally got the chance to speak with Reality herself over Zoom. “We had regular contact, and I talked to her about the incident, but also about her life, the people she knew, her home, just about everything I could learn about her that I could draw from as an actor,” said Sweeney. “I’d have her speak for hours, and I would just start mimicking what she would say.” Sweeney also stated that Reality consulted on the wardrobe and with the art department in order to make the visuals as true to life as possible.

Satter also told ELLE.com that she had been in touch with Reality’s family since she first started working on the project. “I've been in touch with her family through the process, [dating back to] when I first made the play. At that point, Reality was still in prison and could not speak. She was released in June 2021, by which time I was doing really early prep for the movie, so I was able to start talking to her then,” she explained.

Reality Winner did talk at length about her pets during the interrogation.

A striking aspect of the film is how much Sweeney’s character talks about her pets and engages in non sequiturs about her rescued pet dog and her cat that is often curled up under her bed. It turns out, those aspects weren’t fabricated or exaggerated. “That’s some of the gold of the original transcript,” Satter said. “You can’t write that. It’s so good,” Sweeney added.

Radhika Menon is a freelance entertainment writer, with a focus on TV and film. Her writing can be found on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Bustle, and more.

After years of rumors, Apple is nearly ready to announce its first mixed-reality headset. This device will combine augmented reality and virtual reality features in a high-end headset with a brand-new operating system. Here’s everything we know about it.

What will Apple call its mixed reality headset?

Rumors suggest Reality Pro is the name of Apple’s mixed reality headset. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman first reported on the name. According to Gurman, a shell corporation filed the Reality Pro and Reality One trademark for Apple.

This device will likely run xrOS, which potentially stands for “extended reality operating system.” 9to5Mac pointed out that Apple is working on two different platforms: xrOS and realityOS, but it seems the first is for the Reality Pro headset and the other one for the future Augmented Reality device.

When will Apple announce its mixed-reality headset?

Image source: Apple Inc.

Several analysts believe Apple will announce its mixed reality headset during the WWDC 2023 keynote, which will take place at 10:00 a.m. PT on June 5.

Apple’s mixed reality headset: Design and specs

Analysts believe Apple’s mixed reality headset will feature an “innovative three-display configuration” with two micro OLED 4K displays and another AMOLED panel for low-resolution peripheral vision. Ross Young says each lens will have a 1.41-inch with 4,000 PPI and up to 5,000 nits of brightness.

Apple could introduce a device similar to mainstream headsets, but with a premium look, by adding a stainless steel frame and a high-end mesh for the head, identical to what the AirPods Max offer.

Bloomberg says the headset will be powered by Apple’s M2 processor with 16GB of RAM and additional technology for handling AR and VR graphics. The Information and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple could add even more tech to ensure it runs as smoothly as possible.

The Information also believes Apple could add iris scanning tech to its mixed reality headset to help users authenticate purchases, similar to what Face ID and Touch ID currently do.

Disappointing battery life

The battery could be one of the headset’s weaknesses, as Bloomberg reports that it will likely last for a couple of hours and might require an external battery. In his Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman posted additional details about the gadget’s battery tech.

The AR/VR wearable will come with a portable battery — a design compromise Apple had to make for the first-generation model. The headset would have been too heavy with the battery inside.

The mixed reality wearable will feature two ports. A USB-C connector can be used for data transfers. The charger port has a new design as well. The cable that goes into the headset has a round tip, and a magnet lets you attach it to the headset, but you’ll have to rotate the top clockwise to lock it in. That way, you don’t risk it falling during use.

The battery in your pocket will be inseparable from the cable attached to the headset. It’s about as big as an iPhone but thicker. It reportedly looks a lot like the iPhone MagSafe battery pack. It’ll also have a USB-C port for recharging.

Apple’s mixed reality headset features: iOS-like interface, gaming, collaboration, and fitness

The mixed-reality headset will be able to switch from VR to AR features by spinning an Apple Watch-like Digital Crown. It will show immersive video content, work like an external display for a connected Mac, and even replicate the functions of an iPhone or iPad. 

Users will be able to pinch their thumb and index finger together to perform an action without holding anything – different from other headsets that require a hand controller. FaceTime software, for example, will render a user’s face and full body in virtual reality in one-on-one chats. Additional users on a group call will appear as an icon or Memoji.

The xrOS operating system will have an iOS-like interface with MR-optimized versions of Safari, Calendar, Contacts, Files, Home Control, Mail, Maps, Messaging, Notes, Photos, Reminders, Music, News, Stock, and Weather apps.

Bloomberg also reports that Apple is preparing a version of Apple Books that will allow users to read in virtual reality. Gurman says Apple “is also working on a version of its Fitness+ service for the headset, which will let users exercise while watching an instructor in VR,” something Meta also tried to do with its Quest headsets.

The recently-launched Freeform collaboration app, which integrates a white canvas for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users, is also expected to launch for the mixed-reality headset as “an effort that [Apple] sees as a major selling point for the product.” Users will be able to work on virtual whiteboards together while in mixed reality, reports Bloomberg.

Interestingly enough, Apple wasn’t planning to focus on gaming with the mixed reality headset. Still, Gurman now says, “gaming will be a central piece of the device’s appeal, too,” although it’s unclear if the company plans to take advantage of Apple Arcade or if it will rely on third-party developers to bring MR games to the headset.

Price

The first-gen AR/VR headset will be more sophisticated and expensive than most anything available from Apple’s competitors. Analysts believe it will cost around $3,000, although a price that high would limit the market considerably. Meta Quest Pro, for example, costs $999.

Release date

It’s still unclear when customers will be able to purchase Apple’s mixed reality headset, but it will likely be at least a few months after its announcement during the WWDC 2023 keynote. It’s also unclear if the product will have a limited release in the US and a few other countries or if Apple will opt for a global rollout as it does with the iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac, and iPad.

The Apple Vision Pro is Apple's first official mixed reality headset. 

And let's be clear — when we say mixed reality, we mean it. While the headset may look like a contender for the best VR headset on the market, it is not designed to keep you immersed in a virtual world. Features such as EyeSight and Digital Persona ensure that not only are you still engaged with the physical world, but the physical world remains able to engage with you.