Apple and its augmented and virtual reality software, realityOS or xrOS?

Augmented reality and virtual experiences have become one of the fields where companies want to invest heavily. An example of this is the growing interest in the metaverse where entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg and his company Meta are investing millions of dollars. apple takes a long time working on his virtual reality glasses whose launch is projected for 2023. However, nothing is known about its software yet. In fact, the latest rumors suggest that realityOSthe supposed software for these glasses, could be accompanied by another called xrOS, that might not integrate the same technology. We’ll tell you after the jump.

Virtual reality and augmented reality, are they the same?

As we said, the augmented reality and the virtual reality they have become essential technologies for the future. We are seeing this throughout these years where more and more products and software integrate some aspect of this technology, such as Apple’s development kits: ARKit and RealityKit.

But before delving into the news regarding Apple’s virtual reality glasses and their software, let’s take a look at the difference between the two technologies:

• The virtual reality is responsible for creating a complete digital world generated autonomously. In this world the user can explore and experience in an immersive way. And to access it we need special devices that allow this specialized immersion, such as virtual reality glasses or mixed reality systems.
• Instead, the augmented reality It consists of the superimposition of digital elements in the real world so that the user can see and interact with them through a mobile phone or tablet. And for this we do not need a specialized device.

There is a third key element whose growth has been exponential in recent times: mixed reality. It is nothing more than the combination of augmented and virtual reality in the same ecosystem. This would allow users to interact with digital environments in real time in an immersive way using specialized devices such as mixed reality glasses.

Mixed reality could come hand in hand with xrOS

For a long time we have been hearing that Apple glasses will carry an operating system dependent on iOS whose name would be realityOS. However, Bloomberg published a few days ago that a new name had emerged within Cupertino: xrOS.

Apparently, Apple is working with two virtual reality operating systems with dependency on other operating systems. In the case of realityOS, the system would depend on iOS, while xrOS would depend on macOS. It is unknown if they have only been tests, if the engineers have been testing with both operating systems or if, on the contrary, Apple could be thinking of launching two different products. What is clear is that the name of xrOS could be derived from “miXed Reality”, which could make sense in a mixed reality environment.

Beyond this, Apple has also registered trademarks such as Reality One, Reality Pro or Reality Processor that could be names of the supposed glasses that we would see throughout 2023. We just have to wait and see if Apple is up to something with these new ones. operating systems or if they are only tests that have transcended the press.