Augmented Reality

In an interview with Brian Tong on the Apple Blitz XL podcast, Apple VP of sensing and connectivity Ron Huang explains that while the second-gen AirPods Pro earbuds also have the H2 chip just like its new USB-C model, the new ones are capable of communicating at 5GHz instead of just 2GHz.

He says that’s why the new USB-C AirPods Pro earbuds have enough bandwidth to do lossless audio wirelessly when combined with the upcoming Vision Pro.

Apple:

The H2 chip in the latest AirPods Pro and Apple Vision Pro, combined with a groundbreaking wireless audio protocol, unlocks powerful 20-bit, 48 kHz Lossless Audio with a massive reduction in audio latency

The new MonHun AR game from Capcom and Niantic is officially available ahead of the original September 14th release, according to Android Police. You can grab it from Google Play and the App Store.

Per an email sent to Magic Leap developers, the 2018 mixed reality headset will be officially retired December 31st, 2024, as the company focuses on updates to the Magic Leap 2 and future products. On top of no longer selling the ML1, that includes the following:

- OS Updates: Magic Leap will only address outages that impact core functionality (as determined by Magic Leap) until December 31, 2024. 

- Customer Care will continue to offer Magic Leap 1 product troubleshooting assistance through December 31, 2024.

- Cloud Services: On December 31, 2024, cloud services for Magic Leap 1 will no longer be available, core functionality will reach end-of-life and the Magic Leap 1 device and apps will cease to function.  

The headset was never the breakthrough product Magic Leap dreamed it might be — but it was an intriguing experiment worth remembering.

9to5Mac posted this clip with even more system sounds included in the visionOS beta 3 update released today.

Other Vision Pro software changes now match WWDC marketing images, suggesting previous builds were well out of date. The report also notes accessibility tweaks that adjust controls for people who can’t make a gesture with one of their hands, can’t use both eyes to navigate, and more.

And finally, there’s a notification included saying “Mouse input is currently not supported on visionOS.” How would Douglas Engelbart take that news?

It’s included in the beta 3 release of visionOS, as shared by @M1Astra. It’s short, echoey, has some sci-fi vibes, and sounds inspired by the classic Mac chime. I can see a vintage Macintosh SE making this boot sound while floating through space. We’ll see if this one sticks until the Vision Pro launches next year.

Two companies, BOE Technology and SeeYa Technology, raised their hands in interest to, at scale, build specialty Micro-OLED screens, The Information reports.

Most companies haven’t invested in building the complex screens, so finding cheaper suppliers — or just more competition — is important for Apple to get the price down on successors to the $3,499 Vision Pro that uses displays made by Sony.

Windows Report published new leaked images of the Lenovo Legion Go, its rumored Steam Deck competitor, and one image shows how the device may connect to AR glasses so you can play a game projected on a screen in the air.

This could be you!

With developer kits apparently going out, it was inevitable that someone would get some time inside one of Apple’s Vision Pro headsets without official authorization, and Apple Insider says a “fan” allowed them about two hours with a unit.

They didn’t get to take pictures (or, more importantly, screenshots) but noted similar experiences to ours from WWDC, saying, “...it feels like there’s almost twice the vertical field of vision on Apple Vision Pro, versus HoloLens,” and that the gesture controls already felt familiar.

Remember when we thought the Vision Pro would be called the Reality Pro? That was because of some sneaky shell company trademark filings by (probably) Apple last year.

Turns out Apple went ahead and transferred those trademarks to itself, according to Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter in Bloomberg today. It might not ever use them, but at least it won’t be surprising if it does.

Super apps aren’t the only tech obsession that Silicon Valley can’t let go of; I guess the artist formerly known as Facebook still has money to burn on trying to make smart glasses happen. (RIP Google Glass, Project Iris. Thoughts and prayers to Snap Spectacles.)

Reported Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, saying sessions have been underfilled so far. Given how careful Apple is being with the prerelease headsets a slow rollout of test units isn't surprising, but it may mean apps take longer than expected to adjust to a newly augmented reality.

We’ve known the date for Meta’s next developer event since the company revealed the details of its Quest 3 headset, and now there’s more information available.

The two full days of programming will include a Keynote hosted by Mark Zuckerberg, the Developer State of the Union, and breakout sessions covering a range of topics related to AI and virtual, mixed, and augmented reality. Those who attend in person will also have access to demo experiences, networking events, and more.

Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth was asked that question in an AMA he held over Instagram Stories on his profile on Thursday evening. His response:

The metaverse term is fine. There’s nothing wrong with the term. It does lack definition because we haven’t given it full definition yet.

He also argued that it’s similar to how people were trying to define the internet in the 90s (and said that the internet is still hard to define).

I don’t completely agree with that characterization — the metaverse feels much more nebulous to me than the internet ever did — but I am curious if the concept of the metaverse eventually goes on to be something more widely understood.

And Boz doesn’t seem worried, saying that “I think new technology is always like this.”

Based on a new trailer for Space Invaders: World Defense, it looks like you’ll wave around your phone to blast giant AR versions of the classic arcade game aliens. If you want to pre-register for the game on Android ahead of its expected summer release, you can do that now.

The timing for this news feels a bit weird; just yesterday, AR game maker Niantic, which has struggled to find its next Pokémon Go-sized hit, announced layoffs and game shutdowns.

Alex Heath builds on reporting at Insider in this week’s Command Line, noting that Google’s interest in AR / VR after jumping out to an early lead with Cardboard and supporting 360 video in YouTube is... meh.

“Google big bets are only as strong as the leader advocating for the bet/funding to continue,” one person who worked on Iris recently told me. “So for AR at the moment, Samsung is the sugar daddy supporting the team building goggles. If there is success with Samsung on goggles, then maybe Iris will have another shot at life? That’s the current level of commitment.”

Read more in this week’s Command Line, which is jam-packed with scoops and gossip.

Testut, who created the Delta emulator and alternative iOS app store Alt Store, posted a tantalizing toot showing what looks like an emulator museum running on the Vision Pro SDK.

“You won’t be able to install emulators on the Vision Pro without jailbreaking the $3,500 headset,” you say.

Yes, I know. Look, just let me have this.

RealityScan came to iOS last year, and now it’s available on Android. Epic says more than 200,000 people downloaded the iOS app.

In a pair of tweets, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple would “aggressively” upgrade hardware specs with an eye to the ecosystem around its $3,499 headset.

That includes bumping the iPhone 15’s ultra-wideband (UWB) chip to a new 7nm process and a likely update to Wi-Fi 7 on the iPhone 16. Wi-Fi 7 devices should support faster mesh networking features and lower in-home latency. Qualcomm has said it will enable “peak speeds up to 5.8 Gbps” to a single device.

In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman is again highlighting Apple Vision Pro successors. That includes a 2nd-gen Vision Pro with a faster processor, as well as a cheaper one that could arrive by late 2025, with a two-product split mirroring Apple’s phones, laptops, and tablets.

Gurman offered a theory on why Tim Cook never donned the headset WWDC — Apple execs don’t want to be turned into memes by unflattering pictures.