After macOS, iOS and iPadOS we learn that Apple’s future operating system will be called xrOS. A system designed for Apple’s future mixed reality headset, which could be launched next year.
Apple’s mixed reality headset has been around since 2015, but its operating system finally has a name! Customary of exclusive information around the company’s products, journalist Mark Gurman of Bloomberg claims to have had the validation of this name: xrOS. Where “xr” obviously stands for “mixed reality”, a type of headset mixing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Understand that the headset could both immerse you in a cut-off experience (VR) or add elements to what you really see (AR).
Read also: Apple’s AR/VR headset would be launched in very limited quantities (nov. 2022)
From xrOS, nothing has transpired of its substance, but we know who is at its head: Geoff Stahl. A longtime employee who is the Director of Software Technology at Apple. A true “king” of the graphics world, this former soldier (8 years in the US Navy) is a signal processing cador. A member of the Khronos Group, which designs the specifications for the 3D Vulkan API (competitor of Direct X), he has supervised most of the graphics technologies of the various Apple products in recent years. Key information: it is particularly on the GPU side that Apple’s products shine – in mobile gaming, Apple remains the champion. However, graphic power is essential in the field of AR/VR/XR headsets.
Read also: Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1, the reference platform for future AR glasses (nov. 2022)
According to Bloomberg, the model of creating compatible apps that made iOS successful is part of xrOS. As well as the presence of Apple’s “core” apps such as Messages and Maps. Productivity applications from the iWorks suite could be part of it since the head of development of these programs has been integrated into the project. From there to say that the helmet will first be pro, there is only one step… Which we will not do, even if many projects around these helmets are essentially pro – we have seen HTC refocus on these uses in particular.
A front company to protect the name
If Bloomberg succeeded in ensuring that “xrOS” would indeed be the name of the future operating system, it is notably through the analysis of the behavior of a front company. A real empty shell, the screen company (or shell corporation in the jargon) is called Deep Dive LLC and belongs to… another screen company.
Read also: Apple: we may already know the name of its virtual reality headset (August 2022)
What is interesting about Deep Dive, in operation since 2017, are two of its actions. The first was to register the name of xrOS in many countries ranging from the USA to Australia, from Japan to the United Kingdom. The second action was to block a US trademark registration of “XROS” by a Chinese company. And all the acts of registration of reserved rights in the various countries relate to “head-mounted screens” providing “augmented or virtual reality experiences”.
According to Bloomberg, doubt remains as to the commercial name used by Apple in its communications with the general public – realityOS remains an option. But at its core, Apple’s future headset operating system will indeed be xrOS.
Bloomberg