According to the latest report, Memojis and SharePlay could be at the heart of the FaceTime experience on Apple’s long-rumored mixed reality headset. Gurman, who has often provided accurate insights into Apple’s plans, has previously said that Apple’s mixed reality headset will focus on gaming, media consumption and communications. The headset itself is rumored to run “rOS” or “realityOS,” internally codenamed “Oak.”
In his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman clarified his expectations for FaceTime in a real-world operating system, suggesting that it could revolve around two of the company’s existing experiences. Memojis and SharePlay.
Imagine a virtual reality version of FaceTime where you could be in a conference room with dozens of people and see not the actual faces of the attendees, but their 3D versions (Memojis). The headset will be able to determine a person’s facial expressions in real-time, making the experience quite realistic. Also expect heavy use of SharePlay in the new Reality OS, allowing multiple headset wearers to experience music, movies and games together.
Apple’s work on realityOS has been rumored since 2017, but this week a mention of the OS was discovered in App Store upload logs and in Apple’s open-source code, finally confirming its existence.
Apple introduced Memojis in iOS 12 in 2018, and SharePlay is a more recent addition, arriving last year with iOS 15.1. Speculation suggests that many of the new features Apple has released in recent years, such as ARKit, AR walking navigation in Apple Maps, and LiDAR scanning, are destined to serve its mixed reality headsets in the long run, allowing the company to make Users are familiar with some aspects of the headset and have publicly evolved it long before its release. It seems plausible that Memoji and SharePlay could also be part of this strategy.
Despite the enthusiasm that Apple’s headset project is “close to liftoff” this year, Gurman now believes that problems encountered in development could delay the device’s launch until WWDC in 2023.