VR News and Info

Why we just might get a peek at Apple Glass on March 8

Apple announced an event on March 8, 10am PT, which you’ll be able to see right here.  The event has the tagline “Peek performance” and there is some speculation that we might get to see the Apple Glass AR/VR headset at the event.  Is there any basis to the rumor and what might be revolutionary about Apple Glass?

For the longest time, industry commentators have talked about a rumored AR/VR headset from Apple, which is rumored to be called Apple Glass.  There are a couple of reasons that the March 8 event might show a teaser of Apple Glass.  First, as pointed out by TechRadar, the floating Apple logo in the teaser video could be interpreted as an AR or mixed reality demo of the Apple Glass.

Second, Apple hid an AR Easter egg about the March 8 event.  If you go to Apple.com on your iPhone or iPad, you’ll see the March 8 event announcement (which is not visible on the desktop website).  If you tap on the Apple, it will eventually download an Apple Reality AR file of the event logo.  The file can be shown as an AR object on your surroundings, or as a 3D object that you can manipulate.

I moved the AR logo onto one of our walls to generate the lead picture for this story.

What could we expect about Apple Glass?  Oculus Quest is already pretty amazing but Apple Glass might not be as much a VR headset as a mixed reality or AR headset.

AR headsets such as the Microsoft Hololens can enable you to see an AR object in your surroundings.  The problem is that they have a very tiny field of view.  I would compare it to looking at the back of a GoPro LCD screen.  With such a small screen, there’s no illusion that the AR object really exists in your room.

To solve the limited field of view of AR headsets, other headsets such as Varjo XR use a different strategy — they are actually VR headsets, but they have a high resolution full color passthrough view that let you see your surroundings, as if you are not wearing a VR headset.  In that space, you can show any virtual object, with an unlimited field of view.   Besides Varjo XR, Meta’s Project Cambria is also rumored to have a similar mixed reality capability, and Apple Glass could very well have the same capability.

The floating disco apple in the teaser video for the Peek performance event could indeed be shown in a mixed reality headset.  It would be like seeing the AR logo object, but instead of having a view that’s limited by the size of your phone or iPad, you could see it with an unlimited field of view.

I have an excellent record for predictions about 360 cameras and VR, but I don’t have a good record for Apple predictions so take this with a grain of salt.  Anyway, you can watch the event here on March 8: