Apple declared a few weeks ago that Dan Riccio, who has long served as Apple’s hardware engineering director, will step down and devote himself to a ‘new project’ within the company.
According to the latest report, sources familiar with Apple’s plans showed that Riccio’s current focus is on Apple’s upcoming augmented reality, virtual reality, or mixed reality headsets.
The current head of Apple’s augmented reality device project is Mike Rockwell, but the development of the device under his leadership seems to have encountered one or two obstacles, but the report did not elaborate on what obstacles have appeared.
Although Rockwell will still be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the project, Richio will ‘finally oversee’ the company’s augmented reality development work that is stated to involve ‘more than 1,000 engineers.’
Riccio has now handed over the top management of most consumer products such as the iPhone to an executive named John Ternus. Apple announced that Tenus will replace Richio as the head of the hardware engineering department.
Rizio also handed over the development of new camera and display technology to Johny Srouji, an executive responsible for Apple Silicon’s chip design and engineering. Apple is also developing its own display and processor to replace the corresponding parts purchased from other suppliers such as LG or Samsung.
However, augmented reality is still the top priority in new device development. Apple CEO Tim Cook has previously said that he believes augmented reality technology may become a turning point for Apple just like the iPhone.
The competition between Apple and Facebook in this area has become an undercurrent in the recent dispute between the two major technology giants on privacy issues.
Last week, a report quoted some people close to Apple as saying that Apple is developing an ultra-high-end 8K virtual reality headset that may be priced at $3,000. But so far, most of Apple’s public R&D work is about augmented reality rather than virtual reality.
Apple has been steadily developing ARKit, a developer API that permits developers to utilize cameras and sensors on iPhone and iPad to create augmented reality experiences.
Apple occasionally discusses virtual reality technology. Although Cook said that he believes that augmented reality is a more transformative technology, there are rumors that virtual reality will be supported in the company’s Metal graphics API.
Additionally, Apple will cooperate with virtual reality device developer Valve when the iMac Pro is released. The new device can support SteamVR headsets.
It’s too early to say what Apple’s first virtual reality headset will look like. Although the company calls it a virtual reality headset, the helmet also supports recording the surrounding environment and displaying it to the user, so augmented reality may still be part of the plan.
Apple is likely to rely on SteamVR technology to provide developers with a tool for virtual reality experience. Perhaps the main users of this high-priced headset are developers and professionals. Reports on virtual reality headsets say that the public may see the first Apple virtual reality headset sometime in 2022.
(Via)
