Apple Is ‘Wrapping up” Development of Mixed Reality Headset OS in Advance of 2023 Launch

One job listing for Technology Development Group is specifically targeted at engineers who will be building “tools, frameworks, and experiences to enable connected experiences within a 3D mixed reality world.” Gurman notes that this sounds similar to the “metaverse.”

You will be working closely with Apple’s UI framework and human interface designers, as well as the system capabilities teams.

This will challenge you to think outside of the box and help solve interesting and challenging problems in 3D applications.

Apple also hired Dave Scott, an ex-Apple senior manager who served as the team’s self-driving car project Titan leader until 2021. Scott, who was part of the Project Titan team, was responsible for leading teams “working in robotics related to cars,” but he left to serve briefly as CEO at a startup in healthcare.

Bloomberg says that Scott’s experience in robotics and medical technology could lead to some health applications for his headset.

Apple also transferred engineers who were working on other projects to its headset team. Yaniv Gur (a 20-year Apple veteran and a senior engineer director) is one example.

Gur was responsible for engineering the iWork apps (Pages, Keynote and Nums) and the Books, Notes, and News apps across all platforms. Geoff Stahl is the operating system chief of the headset team. Gur’s appointment indicates that the company has begun developing productivity apps for the headset.

Apple is expected to announce a form of its mixed reality headset in 2023. However, it is expected that it will be extremely expensive. It is unlikely that the first version will be available to mass consumers. Instead, it will be targeted at developers and “pro” users.