Augmented reality and virtual experiences have become one of the areas where companies want to invest heavily. An example of this is the growing interest in the metaverse where entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg and his company Meta are investing millions of dollars. the apple takes a long time working on her virtual reality glasses which is scheduled to launch in 2023. However, nothing is known about its software yet. In fact, the latest rumors suggest that realityOSthe supposed software of these glasses, could be accompanied by another called xrOS, which may not incorporate the same technology. We’ll tell you after the jump.
Virtual reality and augmented reality, is it the same thing?
As we said, the augmented reality and the virtual reality they have become essential technologies for the future. We see it throughout these years when more and more products and software integrate certain aspects of this technology, such as Apple’s development kits: ARKit and RealityKit.
But before diving into the news about Apple’s virtual reality glasses and their software, let’s look at the difference between the two technologies:
- The virtual reality is responsible for creating a complete self-generated digital world. In this world, the user can explore and experience in an immersive way. And to access it, we need special devices that allow this specialized immersion, like virtual reality glasses or mixed reality systems.
- Instead, the augmented reality It consists of the superposition of digital elements in the real world so that the user can see them and interact with them via a mobile phone or a tablet. And for this we do not need a specialized device.
There is a third key element that has been growing exponentially lately: mixed reality. It is nothing more than the combination of augmented and virtual reality in the same ecosystem. This would allow users to interact with real-time digital environments in an immersive way using specialized devices such as mixed reality glasses.
Mixed reality could go hand in hand with xrOS
For a long time we have heard that Apple glasses will carry an operating system dependent on iOS whose name would be realityOS. However, Bloomberg published a few days ago that a new name had emerged within Cupertino: xrOS.
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Mass production of Apple’s augmented reality glasses will begin in March 2023
Apparently, Apple works with two virtual reality operating systems dependent on other operating systems. In the case of realityOS, the system would depend on iOS, while xrOS would depend on macOS. It is unclear if this is for testing only, if the engineers have tested with both operating systems or if, on the contrary, Apple could consider launching two different products. What is clear is that the name of xrOS could be derived from “miXed Reality”, which could make sense in a mixed reality environment.
Beyond that, Apple has also trademarked trademarks such as Reality One, Reality Pro, or Reality Processor which could be the names of the supposed glasses we’ll see throughout 2023. We just have to wait and see if Apple is preparing something with these new operating systems or if it is just tests that have transcended the press.
