Remember back in May when it looked suspiciously like Apple was trademarking the term RealityOS through a shell company? Well, another shell company — which coincidentally uses the same lawfirms as Apple in various territories — has just bagged the terms “Reality One”, “Reality Pro” and “Reality Processor”.
The trademarks were spotted by Bloomberg, which spotted that the brands were bagged here in New Zealand, as well as Australia, the US, EU, UK, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica and Uruguay.
They were actually nabbed by a company called “Immersive Health Solutions LLC”, which has only been incorporated since February. It was registered by another shell company — Corporation Trust Co — a firm that Bloomberg describes as “typically used for filings by firms looking to avoid detections.” Oh, and it also grabbed that aforementioned RealityOS brand.
It could all be a massive coincidence, of course. Maybe Corporation Trust Co and Immersive Health Solutions are coming up with a whole range or Reality based products. But if not, it’s interesting to speculate about what each one of these things could be in Apple’s hands.
RealityOS and Reality Processor seem pretty self explanatory. The former would be an operating system and UI designed for people wearing a futuristic headset, while the latter would likely be the hardware required to make the experience usable. It’ll most likely be a modified version of Apple’s M-series of mobile chips optimised for high-resolution graphics (remember that VR/AR headsets have to output to screens on both eyes simultaneously.)
But what about Reality One and Reality Pro? Given Apple loves flattering its big spending customers by slapping “Pro” branding on its top-end products (MacBooks, iPhones, AirPods, iPads — all of them have Pro versions), then maybe it’s a sign that we’re getting two headsets? Reality One could be a (relatively) inexpensive version for hobbyists, and Reality Pro could have all the bells and whistles you could possibly want with a price tag to match. (Figuratively, of course — literal bells and whistles haven’t really been part of modern VR to date.)
We shall have to wait and see — and probably won’t know for sure until next year. Though there’s a slim chance that we may get a glimpse at the upcoming iPhone 14 launch next week…
