Summary:
In this week’s edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman reported that Apple’s upcoming mixed-reality headset, widely expected to be unveiled at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, will feature a new, proprietary charging connector.
In addition to the new connector for power, the headset will also have a USB-C port for data. According to Gurman, Apple’s new proprietary power connector has a round tip that inserts magnetically into the headset, and it locks in when rotated clockwise to prevent it from coming unplugged during use.
Previously, Gurman reported that the “Reality Pro” or “Reality One,” as he believes the headset will be called, will be powered by an external battery that users can stash away in their pocket. Per the renowned leaker, this design decision was made to reduce the headset’s weight and improve comfort.
Gurman said that the power cable will be permanently attached to the external battery, and he also offered additional details about the pack itself.
The pack, which should power the headset for about two hours, looks like Apple’s iPhone MagSafe battery pack. It’s about the size of an iPhone but thicker. The pack is designed to be charged via USB-C and will be powered up using the same adapter included with the MacBook Pro.
Since the battery pack will only offer about two hours of use for the headset, Apple will likely sell extra packs that users can switch out to extend the overall battery life. What’s more, it looks like each extra battery pack will have its own, inseparable power cable.
Apple’s first AR/VR headset will be a premium offering, with an expected sticker price of a whopping $3,000 USD (a little over $4,000 CAD). For that price, it will come chock full of top-of-the-line components and features like multiple 4K OLED displays, an array of more than a dozen camera modules, eye-tracking functionality, and more.
Earlier this week, a report indicated that an early tester of Apple’s AR/VR headset was “blown away” by it. We probably won’t have to wait too long to see it for ourselves, since WWDC 2023 is coming up in just over a month.
