This could be a real turning point in one direction, or another. Apple organizes from this Monday, June 5 its annual conference of developers (WWDC), with the opening, the highly anticipated announcements of Tim Cook, the big boss. Scheduled to last more than two hours, the high mass at Apple Park will cover, as every year, the new software features of iPhone, iPad and other MacBooks. But all the attention should be on another device.
After years of speculation and several false starts, Apple's mixed reality headset could (finally) come out of the secret laboratories of the Apple brand. Made of aluminum, carbon fiber and glass, it would superimpose virtual elements before our eyes and plunge us into artificial worlds. Nicknamed the "Reality Pro" by the specialized press, this pair of large glasses would offer a first public release before marketing later in the year.
There are several clear indications in this direction. "If you project yourself into the future and take a step back, you will wonder one day how you could have lived without augmented reality," Tim Cook had glimpsed last September in front of an audience of Italian students. "How you wonder how someone like me could grow up without the internet. I think it can be as important as that but it won't be a major change overnight," he said, fueling the suspense again and again.
AI, the other star of the conference?
Mark Zuckerberg's announcement last Thursday of a Quest 3 mixed reality headset is also no coincidence. Meta was aiming for commercialization in September but the opportunity was too good to take advantage of the light before Cupertino's rivals struck a big blow.
Apple teams should also follow one another on stage to give developers a glimpse of innovations on the future iOS 17 iPhone, the new features of MacOS or tvOS, the software of Apple TV. Something to inspire them to create new applications or enrich existing ones with new features. A prominent place should also be left in the presentation to a new iteration of the MacBook, one of the few computers that escapes the post-pandemic sales slowdown.
Finally, Apple should unveil its vision of the use of artificial intelligence while other Gafam have already marked their territory or responded to the appropriation by the general public of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT. Its strategy of integration into its products will be particularly scrutinized because it will be a reality more quickly in millions of homes than a hypothetical helmet.
> Follow with us the WWDC keynote from 18:30 on the Parisien.fr.
