This Is Why Apple Needs to Embrace VR

One of the more obvious MWC trends was virtual reality. Samsung made a strong button for its Gear VR headset and LG got into the game with its ain 360-degree headset.

Opinions My sources believe Samsung now has an edge over Apple and most of the competition considering its $99 headset is more powerful than Google Cardboard. Plus, the necktie-in with Galaxy devices will help information technology sell more smartphones, a tactic LG seems to be trying, likewise.

Early research suggests interest in VR headsets tied to smartphones is very high. Although they're nowhere near as powerful as Sony's PlayStation VR or Facebook's Oculus Rift, they do deliver what I would phone call a semi-immersive VR experience; training wheels for VR, in a sense. If Samsung and LG tin can employ VR headsets to drive more interest and sales of their smartphones, one has to wonder if Apple should follow arrange?

Rumors abound that Apple has hired some top-level VR experts. Mayhap it volition follow in Google'southward (rumored) footsteps and create a standalone VR headset that could be more competitive at the high finish. It might be interesting if Apple practical its pattern and UI magic to an iPhone-based VR headset priced similar to or perhaps even slightly in a higher place Samsung's $99 price, and got its customers hooked on VR the aforementioned way the Android crowd is doing.

So, will Apple tree do something like this? I know from talking to many iPhone customers that they experience left out of this new and heady area of tech. Yes, some are using Cardboard headsets, simply they want something more powerful that is tied to iOS, with a caput-mounted UI.

But if history is any indication, this probably won't happen. Apple's modus operandi is to watch a market develop and gauge involvement in any new engineering science before it creates i itself. Only expect at MP3 players, smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches.

I would welcome a high-end Apple VR headset that blows something like Gear VR out of the h2o. But if low-price VR headsets help drive sales of rival smartphones, I can't see Apple hanging dorsum likewise long.

VR is not going away, and whether it is used at the low stop with a smartphone or at the loftier end with a PC, the marketplace is moving fast. Hopefully Apple tree will respond to this growth opportunity soon.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.

Nigh Tim Bajarin

Tim Bajarin

Tim Bajarin is recognized as one of the leading industry consultants, analysts, and futurists covering the field of personal computers and consumer engineering. Mr. Bajarin has been with Creative Strategies since 1981 and has provided enquiry to most of the leading hardware and software vendors in the manufacture including IBM, Apple, Xerox, Compaq, Dell, AT&T, Microsoft, Polaroid, Lotus, Epson, Toshiba, and numerous others. Mr. Bajarin is known every bit a curtailed, futuristic annotator, credited with predicting the desktop publishing revolution three years before it hit the market place, and identifying multimedia as a major trend in written reports equally early as 1984. He has authored major industry studies on PC, portable calculating, …