Apple virtual reality wasn’t really talked about until just a few days ago when we all heard that iPhone sales were slumping. The company hadn’t even hinted at working on any sort of virtual reality program, and then Tim Cook went ahead and said virtual reality wasn’t a niche product. It’s very interesting that just a day after my own scathing editorial on Apple’s woes, The Financial Times writes up a piece about a secret Apple virtual reality team. The Times very first paragraph reads as if Apple has already won the virtual reality market, media misdirection at its finest.
Apple has assembled a large team of experts in virtual and augmented reality and built prototypes of headsets that could one day rival Facebook’s Oculus Rift or Microsoft’s Hololens, as it seeks new sources of growth beyond the iPhone.
The Times also says Apple’s secret team includes hundreds of employees from “targeted acquisitions” as well as former Hololens and Lytro staffers. The “detailed” report from The Times doesn’t offer much more than speculation and many “people familiar with the matter” statements so we’ve really got nothing more than media hype at this point.
As stated in my editorial, Apple is good at misdirection and with sales slumping across the board, they turn to what they do best, shine the light away from the negative. I certainly hope that Apple is getting into the VR game but The Financial Times saying that Apple’s “headsets could one day rival” the competition, well that’s flat out fanboy journalism.
There are certainly signs that Apple is heading into VR, I can agree with The Times in that, but let’s actually wait to see what they’re going to bring to the table before we hand them the trophies.
What do you think of Apple virtual reality? Good move by the company? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
[button link=”http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d9d3b86c-c67f-11e5-808f-8231cd71622e.html#axzz3yflQabQ0″ icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: The Financial Times[/button]Last Updated on January 23, 2017.
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