Apple Is Working On A Wide Range Of Mixed-Reality Headsets: What We Know – SlashGear

In addition to a watered-down AR/VR headset that will arrive with a more palatable price tag down the road, Apple has already started work on its second-generation flagships mixed reality headset. Gurman claims that despite packing a desktop-class M2-series processor as well as a co-processor, Apple’s first-gen Reality Pro headset is still not powerful enough for a handful of tasks. For example, it is reportedly able to generate realistic VR avatars for only two FaceTime video call participants, and not an entire group. To recall, thanks to its advanced cameras and tracking algorithms, Apple’s Reality Pro headset will generate Memoji avatars in real-time to let users start a FaceTime video call.

“It’s not powerful enough to output graphics at a level Apple would ideally like,” Gurman writes about Apple’s upcoming headset, adding that the company also has some software-side quirks to polish. The second-gen Reality Pro headset, however, will bridge the performance gap with a more powerful M3 or M4-series processor. Apple was originally planning a headset that could derive extra processing juice from a standalone hub wirelessly, just like an external GPU enclosure (or eGPU) plugs into a PC to let it handle games and other demanding tasks. However, former Apple design chief Jony Ive reportedly wasn’t a fan of the idea and nixed it.