Apple's Other Secret Project: Virtual Reality?

Apple's Other Secret Project: Virtual Reality?

Is Apple going to launch a virtual reality headset alongside that electric car? Don't rule it out. According to the Financial Times, Apple has been growing a large research team in secret.

Tasked with looking into virtual reality and augmented reality, the team has already constructed some prototype headsets. We don't, however, know any details, like whether the company is focusing on standalone virtual reality headsets in the style of an Oculus Rift, headsets that would work in conjunction with an iPhone (like Samsung's Gear VR), or augmented reality headsets like Microsoft's HoloLens. It's possible Apple might be trying out a number of different uses, or that the company has come up with a new, novel way to approach virtual/augmented reality.

If you think Apple is going to spill the beans on what it's working on, well, the best you'll get is this vague statement from CEO Tim Cook during this week's earnings call: "It is really cool and has some interesting applications."

According to the Financial Times, Apple built up its VR team—now numbering in the hundreds—by poaching employees from places like Lytro and Microsoft. The company has also made a number of acquisitions (or acqui-hires) to boost its ranks: Faceshift, Metaio, PrimeSense and, its latest, Flyby Media.

Flyby Media specializes in augmented reality. Its first and singular app, Flyby Messenger, can scan one's surroundings and catalog the various items your smartphone or tablet sees. Friends can then send you messages to these objects—yes, that's right—and the app will notify you when you walk by them (assuming they're in the same place you left them, we gather). Rescan the object to get your message.

Apple likely doesn't care much about the messaging aspect, but it's said to be very keen on the company's recognition techniques—the exact kind of thing that would be useful for, say, a virtual reality/augmented reality hardware device. Flyby has also demoed other applications that can track your movement through a space by dropping dots over your smartphone's picture of your environment as a kind-of breadcrumb trail back to wherever you started from.