Is Apple just thinking too differently?

In the world of technology, there is a long and storied tradition of people insisting Apple is about to fall on its face — and being wildly wrong about it.

Whether Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer claiming the iPhone would fail to countless commentators asserting that Apple’s latest move was disastrous, the phenomenon of predicting Apple’s doom is almost a sport amongst tech watchers.

With reliable rumours that Apple may be set to a launch a “mixed reality headset,” however, the skepticism is now coming from somewhere quite different: the company’s own employees.

As reported in The New York Times recently, Apple’s rank and file are skeptical of the company’s plan to launch this new headset, with “concerns about the device’s roughly $3,000 (U.S.) price, doubts about its utility and worries about its unproven market.”

It appears some of Apple’s own are, to pilfer a phrase from the company’s famous marketing, thinking different.

The dissent is surprising, but also correct. A mixed reality headset is not just an unproven idea, but one that faces an uphill battle. And while it’s always a risk to bet against Apple — they are, after all, the biggest tech company in the world for a reason — with the headset, the maker of the iPhone may be about to do something it hasn’t done in some time: make a huge mistake.

The headset in question is part of a broad shift toward virtual reality or augmented reality. In its purest form, it involves putting on a headset that subsumes your sight and hearing into a virtual world. This is the “metaverse” of Meta: a virtual world populated by cartoon avatars and shockingly sterile virtual gatherings.

For its part, Apple’s headset is described as being like a pair of ski goggles with a battery pack worn on the hip and that feeds real-time video from the world around you into little screens in front of your eyes.

In part, the ostensible idea is to map information over the world so that you might, say, get directions while walking around. But the report from the Times also suggests how much “reality” one gets can be dialed in, so that you might have a mix of real-world visuals and digital while out and about, but also use the headset to watch a movie at home.

If it all sounds terribly futuristic, it tends to fall apart a bit when one asks a rather plain question: well, why would anyone want that?

This seems to be the lingering issue with virtual reality or headset technology: they have the unfortunate knack of disconnecting you from the world and the people around you. While virtual reality’s boosters talk a lot about presence or co-presence — buzzwords for the feeling of being embodied or with others in virtual space — reports so far suggest that, if anything, it all feels horribly alienating.

Then there is the cost, as reports have the Apple device pegged at $3000. At that price, not only will the product be highly niche, the classic tech model of building out an ecosystem will, for obvious reasons, be severely constrained.

There are a few things going on here. Apple is so successful because it sells tens of millions of iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Watches every year. The company and its CEO Tim Cook are looking for the next big hit — some new product category to dominate with Apple’s trademark blend of hardware, user experience, and ecosystem. Cook is looking for a legacy, and from reports, he appears to be pushing his staff to make it happen sooner than later.

Simultaneously, the tech world more broadly is also looking for that post-smartphone sector that will integrate into people’s lives even more deeply and immediately.

From that perspective, it’s obvious why Apple and others are chasing this idea: what could be more personal and relevant than a device that literally lays information over your perception of the world?

It’s not that there isn’t utility in the idea, either. Having information about a neighbourhood projected in front you could be helpful. Moreover, designers and other creatives might find the idea of creating virtually via a headset to be quite fruitful. Perhaps a movie or game projected right into your eyes will be immersive in a way that other screens simply can’t manage.

There is, too, the idea that early, clunky devices can make way for sleeker, more user-friendly models down the road. Recall that the first iPhone had neither an App Store nor the ability to cut and paste.

But being able to imagine some abstract benefits to a product is a far cry from a company creating a real-world success.

In a world in which people both young and old are already complaining about technology already being simply too much, the idea of a headset that swallows your senses is a tough sell. And while Apple might always surprise us — they do, after all, have a track record of doing just that — for once it’s a lot easier to imagine the naysayers are, at least in this case, correct.