Apple has sent invitations to its upcoming WWDC keynote to select media outlets, including Road to VR.

Apple has historically not invited XR media to its events, let alone commented in any way on its XR R&D that has been reportedly happening behind the scenes at the company for years.

Road to VR is among the XR media outlets who have received an invitation to Apple’s WWDC keynote for the first time. Our friends at UploadVR confirmed the same.

It’s difficult not to interpret the invitations amidst the growing number of reports that Apple plans to reveal its first XR device at the keynote which takes place on June 5th at 10AM PT.

Apple’s official entrance into the XR space has been rumored for years, with many expecting it to be a boon for the industry thanks to Apple’s penchant for solving usability challenges, one of the core issues that has held XR back from more mainstream usage. Much speculation has happened about whether the company will lean most into AR, VR, or MR.

Alas, we’ll have to wait until we’re there to find out for ourselves just what Apple has up its sleeve.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Christian Schildwaechter

    So let’s hope that Apple will give everyone present during the keynote a development unit of their XR HMD without having to sign a restrictive NDA, so in two weeks RoadToVR and UploadVR can finally end our years long dependency on rumors and instead provide us with some actual facts and (p-)reviews. Or, since this isn’t particularly likely, that Apple will at least offer extensive on-site opportunities to try the HMD, instead of just presenting some slides and demos on stage. The statement that VR/AR/XR cannot be described or sufficiently explained by video, but has to be experienced in person will be true for Apple HMDs too, no matter how advanced they are. Maybe even more so, if their main selling point is the smooth integration into the user’s daily life.

    • kool

      I think apple is going all out on this presentation. It will show it’s full hand of software with celebrity endorsements to push excitement for a fall release. SDKs will go out but I don’t expect non devs to get one before September that’s when the final push for preorders will begin.

      • Guest

        Don’t drink the kool-aid or you might end up in Apple’s reality distortion field!

        • kool

          Is that where your commenting from?

        • Guest

          If I was I’d say we can afford to dump them at a third of cost and give our registered developers one for free!

  • ViRGiN

    Maybe we are going to replace “PCVR” with MacVR.

  • nullcodes

    If the Apple VR headset is based on Sony OLED .. it better not have moire like the PSVR2.

    • You mean mura and no, it uses microOLED.

  • Anonymous

    If Apple wants deep profit margin off VR hardware like it always did with phones, I can foresee this would fail given VR’s still non-commmodity status in daily life.

    With the BOM recently revealed to be $1500 it became increasing likely that Apple really will sell at $3000 that everyone had been saying in the past.

  • Till Eulenspiegel

    Apple now has their own production company Apple TV+, I think they may become the first to do a full length VR movie. I thought Sony would be the one, but they didn’t. Until now, only the porn industry has use VR to their advantage.

    A movie filmed in VR will be more immersive than 3D – it doesn’t even need to be 360 degrees, 180 will do.

    • XRC

      “Construct VR the volumetric movie” gives very good example of how powerful this technology can be when built well.

      Apple is creating great content for their TV market with “Silo” the hot new property.

    • Dave

      I’d much rather have 180 degree VR than 360 degree VR. You can sit in a chair and have basically all your peripheral vision filled. 360 you’d need a swivel chair (or to be standing) to watch properly.

  • WOOOOOOOOOOOW This is cool! Compliments guys… I’m actually so envious…

  • ViRGiN

    It definietly replaces deckard

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Deckard isn’t out or anything known about. And it all depends on pricing. If deckard is around $1000, it will be way more affordable as Apple’s $3000..

  • JanO

    At this point, I just hope Meta will announce Quest 3 at the upcoming gaming showcase…

    Not that I like’em any better, but at least we could then evaluate what the 2500$ price difference actually brings. For me though, at 3K$, Apple’s hmd is a no-go, just like ALL of their products… Good products, but bad value. Furthermore, seeing how they managed to get away with putting their fruity logo in users eye’s all the time with their laptop’s screens with the see-through design makes me wonder how manipulative they are going to get in VR/XR.

    Still, Meta has totally missed the boat on anything but gaming and Quest pro was a disaster… So I’m curious to see Apple’s take on VR/XR.

    These are the golden years guys… When VR actually gets mainstream, it will be so dumb down that I wonder if I’ll still be interested. Just look at what happenned to PC gaming…

    • dk

      wait that’s june 1st lol …they will definitely talk about it

  • dk

    I wonder what percentage of units of this new segment will be stored to be sold 10 years later at an auction :P

    • xyzs

      Ahah, probably lots.

  • Octogod

    Jealous!

  • xyzs

    The Meta Quests are about to loose their reference rank in a few days.

  • Bob

    Author should explain what XR means, not assume XR is a known acronym.

  • Bob

    Author should explain what XR is, not assume it is a known acronym.