As anticipation for Apple’s virtual reality and mixed reality headset builds, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is already praising the device. In a cryptic post on Twitter on Sunday night, Luckey simply tweeted: “The Apple headset is so good.”
Luckey’s comments come after testers have reportedly been left “blown away” by the product in early demos.
Luckey, for those unfamiliar, founded Oculus, one of the earliest startups to gain mainstream success in the AR/VR headset space. Oculus was later acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion. Operating as a division of Facebook at that point, he launched the Oculus Rift in 2016. Luckey helped engineer and design Oculus Rift, with the work dating back as far as 2011.
Come March 2017, however, Luckey stepped down from Facebook and stopped his involvement with Oculus. He eventually negotiated a payout from Facebook of at least $100 million, arguing that his departure was affected by his political beliefs after media reports revealed he had donated to a pro-Donald Trump group. Facebook, including comments directly from Mark Zuckerberg, has repeatedly said Luckey’s departure had nothing to do with his political beliefs.
Subsequent to his time at Facebook, Luckey founded Anduril Industries in partnership with a number of former Oculus executives. Anduril Industries focuses on developing autonomous system technology for defense purposes and has secured billions in funding from investors and billions in defense contracts.
In his post on Twitter, Luckey keeps his thoughts on Apple’s highly-anticipated headset brief but clear. “The Apple headset is so good,” he tweeted on Sunday afternoon. In follow-up comments, he said there’s high confidence inside Apple for the headset’s launch. He hasn’t responded to any other questioning on what exactly he’s basing his comments.
Whether or not Luckey has actually seen or used the Apple headset is unclear. It seems unlikely, if not impossible, that he’s gotten any private demo of the headset. The more likely scenario is that he’s communicated with someone inside Apple regarding the headset. It’s also possible that he’s spoken to developers that are working with Apple. The company has been privately working with third-party developers on software for the headset for at least several months.
Apple is set to officially announce its headset at WWDC on June 5. The product is expected to feature cutting-edge technology, including advanced hand and eye tracking, ultra-high-resolution displays, and Apple’s M2 chip, as well as house more than a dozen cameras and sensors in the headset chassis. The product is expected to be expensive, priced at around $3,000.
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