Is It Time for Apple to Enter the Virtual Reality Space?

From patents filed to Tim Cook talking about VR, there’s been a lot pointing towards Apple’s imminent entry into VR

Apple might just surprise Virtual Reality enthusiasts this year. (Photo: The Quint)

From patent being filed to Tim Cook talking about VR, there’s a lot pointing towards Apple’s imminent entry into the Virtual Reality segment. But before we go harping and hyping the Cupertino, California-based company’s big entry into VR, let’s step back for a moment and analyse whether it’s actually time for Apple to go the VR way.

For starters, it’s important to acknowledge the trend in Apple products. It has been credited with changing a number of consumer technology segments, but how exactly has Apple done it? The answer is fairly simple. Apple waits for others to enter the field, make their mistakes, learns from those mistakes, then comes out with a product that unmistakably makes up for all of those errors. It has done it with the iPod, it has done it with the iPad, and in some ways, even with Apple Music last year.

However, 2016 may not be the year Apple comes out to play. Sure, there are products like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung’s Gear VR and others that deliver a VR experience in some form or the other, but none of these products have become mainstream yet.

Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset. (Photo: AP)

So, while Apple may have hired people from the VR industry, it may only be working on its first prototype. What we may get this year, at best, is a demo at WWDC, for a product that’ll be delivered next year.

It’s also worth considering that Apple won’t deliver an experimental product to the market. For a company that is obsessed with good customer experience, it would want to deliver a product that can live up to the Apple name. Right now, products like the Oculus and others deliver not good, but new experiences. These experiences take us to a different world, but we come out realising that there’s a lot of work still to be done.

In addition, Apple has barely had any time to get developers on board its VR plan. The company is famous for quickly churning out apps for its devices. The Apple Watch has perhaps been the only exception to this rule so far, but it’s not as dependent on apps as a VR headset would be.

Apple wouldn’t want to deliver the same ‘insert your phone and enjoy VR’ experience. If the iPhone is to be a part of the VR game, it’ll have to have something extra. While the company is legendary for coming up with new features, there are few that one can think of at the moment. So, just like the VR industry, it may take another year for Apple to enter this much-anticipated market.

(Som Dasgupta is a freelance journalist who thrives on everything tech. After all the time he’s spent around technology, he’d like to think he’s turned into a robot.)