As Apple nears the release of its first mixed-reality headset in 2023, iOS, Mac, and other hardware take a back seat: Report

Before its yearly Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June of 2023, Apple hopes to introduce the Reality Pro headset in the spring of that year.

Online rumours claim that Apple is “almost ready” to release its first mixed-reality headset. The headset, which is anticipated to be released under the name Reality Pro, has reportedly been in development for almost seven years and has seen numerous delays due to a variety of factors. It was previously believed that the launch would occur in January 2023 and that shipping would begin later that same year. Apple appears to be on track to also miss that window.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Cupertino is now “aiming” to introduce the Reality Pro headset in the spring of 2023, before its yearly Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June. Still scheduled for later this year and is shipping. According to the source, a small group of “high-profile” software developers had already used the headset for testing.

But more crucially, Apple appears to be putting a lot of faith in this headset to be its “hot new
introduction for this year,” enlisting support from a number of other hardware and software divisions to help it happen this time. According to the source, Apple will have “fewer key advances to show off this year” across both software and hardware, which could suggest that other projects could be put on hold.

Even while Apple is attempting to accelerate work (and concentrate) on Reality Pro’s own operating system, xrOS, the upcoming major updates to iOS, iPad, and macOS (iOS 17, iPad 17, and macOS 14) are reportedly expected to have less significant improvements than what was initially anticipated.

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With a similar design and the customary chip upgrade (to M2 Pro and M2 Max), the upcoming 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros will also be “marginal” improvements over current models, while the long-rumored high-end Mac Pro with 48 CPU cores and 152 graphics cores has reportedly been completely shelved.

Gurman anticipates no significant changes to the iPad or Apple Watch lineup this year, but the iPhone 15 may introduce some much-needed changes, such as the introduction of Dynamic Island across all models (this feature is currently only available on the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max in the current generation), haptic volume buttons on pro models, and a switch to USB Type-C.

Apple and apps: Wylde Flowers, GoodNotes creators’ insights into dealing with the iPhone manufacturer | Exclusive

One thing was a foregone conclusion when Melbourne-based developer Studio Drydock began creating Wylde Flowers. The game would serve as a representative of its basic values, which are to promote diversity and stand up for the underdogs. The developer chose Apple as a partner because it felt like the most logical choice, and their next game made perfect sense for Apple’s Arcade service. (Incidentally, Apple Arcade and Studio Drydock both launched in 2019 at approximately the same time.) In February 2022, Wylde Flowers was released, initially on Apple Arcade, then shortly after that on the Nintendo Switch and PC. It would later go on to win the same year’s Apple Arcade Game of the Year award.

The co-founder of Drydock Studios, Amanda Schofield, tells FE, “I will admit that it was a shock.” “Little by little before a game launch, you kind of see it all come together for the first time, and that was the first time that I really said, oh, there’s something special here, but I was just shocked by how obsessive our fans are for the world of Wylde Flowers,” she says, adding that the game has since sparked a frenzy among players who have been expressing their love through all sorts of things, from cosplay to fan art,

It’s clear that it’s not an experience that individuals have and then ignore. But it really sticks with them, and Schofield and the company value that a lot for excellent reasons. “Our squad has given this game so much of themselves, so for it to be accepted so wonderfully has just been a truly emotional experience,” the player said. “We’re quite proud,” she exclaims.

In the narrative farm life simulation Wylde Flowers, you take on the role of Tara, a young city girl who has recently relocated to the fictitious island of Fairhaven to be with her grandmother and assist her on her farm. She can take care of all kinds of “comfort” activities here, including farming, fishing, getting to know people, and, with any luck, finding love. The idea is by no means novel. Comfort games have been more widely accepted because of titles like Stardew Valley and even the most recent cult favorite, Animal Crossing. But Wylde Flowers also gives it a magical spin.

The fact that this game is completely voice-active from the start to the finish is one of its main USPs. According to Schofield, that translates to about 18 hours of dialogue over the course of a 30- to 60-hour game. We’re informed it wasn’t the original plan, which is hard to believe.

“To be honest, without the Apple team, the game you see today would have been considerably smaller. I don’t think I ever would have referred to it as a narrative game,” she says.

A question that allegedly “doesn’t get asked a lot in those kinds of meetings” was raised by Apple during one of their early sessions: could the game be made larger? Schofield recalls this incident. Due to the nature of the story they were seeking to portray, adding voiceover was high on their priority list. Apple not only gave the proposal its full attention, but it also supported it and pushed for its implementation.

Similarly, diversity was an important metric. The concept of Fairhaven was to create a setting where people of all ages, body types, sexual orientations, genders, races, and religions, among other characteristics, might enter and declare, “I am seeing myself for the first time in a game in a meaningful and relatable way.” Furthermore, despite having a friendly appearance on the surface, this world doesn’t hold back when discussing real-life topics like loss and intolerance.

Schofield asserts that “Apple Arcade may still be a fledgling platform, but the entire might of Apple is behind it,” adding that “there are just a small number of publishers in the world where you can claim that this is something that they will defend.” We have a partner who is global and has connections, and as a result, we are now much bigger than we would have been without.

Character development was given particular attention. In fact, Schofield goes so far as to claim that the characters’ expressions are “akin to those in a Disney or Pixar movie.” Over 350 cutscenes in six and a half hours can be found in Wylde Flowers.

However, even more significantly, “what we have found is that people watch Wylde Flowers the way they would binge a Netflix show,” which is evidence that all the work that Studio Drydock has put into the game, has been resonating with the general public. “If we’re asking people to sit through two movies, effectively, it needs to be really engaging,” she says.

Paper planes

College math student Steven Chan was accustomed to writing calculations down with a pen. And like the majority of us who have already done it, she was also leaving behind a jumble of crumpled-up paper filled with incorrect mathematics. It appears that the iPad couldn’t have arrived sooner.

Chan “naturally” jumped on board when Apple introduced the first iPad in 2010 and began playing with every note-taking tool at the moment. But he was unable to locate one that caught his attention. What did he do then? So he made the decision to pen one himself.

During his final semester, he spent practically all of his time working on the app, skipping all lectures, and only attending to homework and tests. He ultimately received some of the lowest grades he had ever earned during his time in college, yet he still managed to complete the application. Twelve years later, the GoodNotes app would go on to win the iPad App of the Year award.

“I treated it like a lifestyle business since I wasn’t sure how long that income could maintain,” Chan says FE. “For the first five years, it was just me alone, doing everything from coding to customer support to graphics design.”

He claims that at the time, writing on the iPad was still a fairly specialized use case, making GoodNotes a specialized app as well.

Because of the Apple Pencil’s accuracy and minimal latency, he says, “the moment for us truly came when it was announced in 2015 because it made handwriting on the iPad a viable option to pen and paper.”

GoodNotes went from being a specialized product to a commonplace one overnight. Additionally, Chan began expanding its workforce at this time, including Minh Tran, who is currently serving as its vice president of operations. Chan, it seems, had a lot of “excellent” ideas, and expansion was what was required to make them a reality.

With users in every country, Tran claims that “GoodNotes has genuinely become a global community.” She continues, “It’s a true friend for users, whether they need to work or study.”

The program claims to have 19 million active monthly users, and during the epidemic in the last three years alone, that figure has increased 10 times. Furthermore, users are spending an average of 106 minutes each day in the app, and 99 percent of downloads are organic.

“Our consumers have already produced 1.6 billion notebooks this year alone.” And in the previous three years, that number has increased 10 times as well. Our users were producing 300 laptops every minute in 2019. They are currently producing 3,000 books per minute.

According to its description, GoodNotes is a freeform digital paper [software] that enables professionals and students to take handwritten notes, annotate PDFs, and share their notes with friends and coworkers. Through paper layouts and pen styles, users can personalize their writing experience. Any paperwork can be photographed and imported into the app. Through its algorithm for handwriting recognition, they can look up any handwritten note. They can build and store elements as well as drag and drop any handwritten note into a web search.

Given that GoodNotes is only compatible with iPads and that the competition is quite fierce in that market, the team views receiving acknowledgment from Apple as a “huge milestone.”

Chan explains that “what really sets GoodNotes apart is our focus on bringing the pen and paper experience to the iPad [to life], and we really want to make that experience as good as possible so people won’t need to carry notebooks,” adding that “we really appreciate what Apple has done with their hardware-software integration to make this possible.”

With integrated study sets, users will be able to drag and drop their handwritten notes and diagrams into flashcards and create study sets directly from their own notes. Chan and Co. are currently working to deliver a bevy of enhancements to the program. Additionally being worked on are full-page typing and voice recording.