- Apple is reportedly planning to reveal its mixed reality goggles in June — its next major product.
- Some Apple execs are concerned with its high price and whether it will be popular enough, NYT reports.
- It’s expected to cost around $3,000, and some testers have said it’s uncomfortable, per reports.
Apple is gearing up for its next big thing — but not everyone within the company is confident in it, according to a new report from The New York Times.
For years, Apple has been working on a mixed-reality headset believed to be shaped like ski goggles. The iPhone company is reportedly planning to reveal the futuristic goggles, the company’s first major new product since the Apple Watch, in three months at a June event.
However, some current and former Apple executives and employees told the Times that there’s doubt and worries about the product within the company.
The headset, which mixes augmented reality and virtual reality, has some at Apple concerned with its high price, questions of how useful the product will prove to be, and whether it can perform in meaningful way in a largely nascent market, the Times reported.
Eight current and former employees told the Times that some within Apple have left the mixed reality headset project because they doubt its potential, while other employees have been fired for the headset’s slow development with certain features, including its integration with the Siri voice assistant.
Executives at Apple have also reportedly questioned the headset’s prospects to make a big splash at its initial release, per Bloomberg.
Apple did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
The first version of the device, which will cost around $3,000, requires an external battery that only lasts a couple of hours, and some early testers have said the goggles are uncomfortable, according to Bloomberg, which also reported that the headset doesn’t yet have a consensus “killer” app.
The headset is expected to have high-end displays and a physical dial to switch between VR and real life, The Information previously reported.
When the headset is released, it will be Apple’s newest major product since the company came out with the Apple Watch in 2015. The company has reportedly been working on the headset for seven years, and has missed deadlines in 2019 and 2022 for its planned release.
Some employees working on the headset have said the planned June release could be postponed again due to uncertain economic conditions, per the Times.
Despite a lack of enthusiasm from some within Apple, others among the company’s top 100 executives expect interest in the mixed reality headset will grow as more versions come out, Bloomberg reported. Apple is reportedly working on a version that costs $1,500 — half of what the initial headset costs — that will come out within two years of the first launch. Some executives think an Apple Watch-like sales trajectory, which saw the wearable product take off in subsequent years to become the market leader, is more likely than strong sales right out of the gate, Bloomberg reported.
Apple thinks it can sell about a million headsets in the first year of launching, per Bloomberg, which would break down to around $3 billion in revenue. Noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has tweeted his prediction that Apple will likely ship less than 500,000 units this year due to product shipment delays related to “software-related issues.”
With a potential slow start for the mix-reality goggles, it sounds like Apple doesn’t just have to convince the public of the new product’s potential — it still has some convincing to do internally too.
