You could be typing in thin air when you wear your Apple AR/VR headset.
LetsGoDigital
Apple’s rumoured AR/VR headset could have a feature that allows you to type in thin air, according to a new report.
While Apple is yet to officially announce the AR/VR headset, previous reports suggest that it will be called Reality Pro. Now a new report from the same person suggests that Apple is testing a feature that will allow headset wearers to type on an imaginary keyboard.
That person is Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, writing as part of his weekly Power On newsletter. According to them, Apple is currently testing a new text input feature. Gurman says the typing will be “in-air” but adds that the tests aren’t currently going all that well.
“A key feature for text input — in-air typing — is available on the latest internal prototypes,” Gurman writes. “But it’s been finicky in testing.”
Gurman goes on to suggest that anyone who picks up Apple’s very first AR/VR headset should probably “pair an iPhone to use its touch-screen keyboard,” rather than rely on this new in-air typing.
While you might want an iPhone to type on, Gurman’s report also says that one won’t be needed for the initial setup.
If the rumours are true, Apple’s Reality Pro headset will cost around $3,000 in its initial iteration. But we’re told to expect a cheaper version to launch at some point towards the end of 2024 or in 2025, possibly retailing for around half the price of the original. That cheaper model is thought to be called Reality One, according to trademark filings. Gurman also says that a second generation of the Reality Pro is already being worked on, too.
That second Reality Pro headset will reportedly focus on performance, with Apple upgrading the CPU beyond the M2 chip that is expected to power the model launching later this year. As for when that will be, nobody really knows at the time of writing.