The first Apple viewer isn’t ready yet, but Tim Cook wants it now! CEO Tim Cook and Apple operations manager Jeff Williams are at the forefront of pushing the launch of the AR/VR headset later this year, despite opposition from the company’s design team.
According to the Financial Times, Apple’s industrial design team has warned management that the devices in the “headset” category are not yet ready for launch and that it still takes time to present a fully functional product. On the other hand, Apple’s operations team wanted to ship an early version of the product in the form of a VR-focused ski goggle-like headset that would allow users to watch 3D videos, perform interactive workouts, or make FaceTime calls with avatars. virtual.
Tim Cook, who was Apple’s chief operations officer before becoming CEO, sided with Jeff Williams, ignoring objections from Apple’s designers and pressing for an early launch with a more limited product. Speaking to the Financial Times, the former Apple engineers who worked on the device described “enormous pressure to ship within a short time”.
A former engineer said the best part of working at Apple was coming up with engineering solutions to meet the “crazy requirements” of the design team, but that has apparently changed in recent years following the departure of Jony Ive , when Apple started to pay more attention to substance and less to super innovative design solutions.
Apple’s headset has reportedly been in active development for seven years, twice as long as the original iPhone prior to its launch. The device is seen as directly tied to the legacy of ‘Tim Cook’, as it is Apple’s first new hardware platform developed entirely under his leadership.
The company expects to sell only about one million units during its first year of sales at a price tag of about $3,000. The first viewer should therefore be aimed more at developers and professionals, while the more “consumer” and cheaper model should arrive in 2024.