Apple’s Vision Pro headset uses iris scanning for logins with Optic ID
Apple’s Optic ID as depicted in the WWDC Keynote. | Image: Apple
Apple is introducing Optic ID, its latest biometric security authentication technology and the first from the company to be based on the details of your iris. Optic ID will be used to unlock Apple’s new Vision Pro mixed reality headset that was introduced today at the WWDC 2023 event.
According to Apple, Optic ID works by analyzing a user’s iris through LED light exposure and then comparing it with an enrolled Optic ID stored on the device’s Secure Enclave. During the WWDC keynote, Apple’s VP of technology development group, Mike Rockwell, said the system could detect iris differences even with identical twins.
Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge
Face ID was introduced in 2017 on the iPhone X.
Apple’s existing biometric authentication systems include Touch ID, a fingerprint sensor, and Face ID, which authenticates your face using projected infrared dots and a depth sensor. Both of these systems were introduced on the iPhone, but Optic ID, Apple’s third overall biometric system, is being introduced on the Vision Pro. Optic ID will be used for everything from unlocking Vision Pro to using Apple Pay in your own headspace.
As with every Apple security feature, the company is stating Optic ID “never leaves your device,” and the information is completely encrypted. We won’t get a sense of how accurate and fast Optic ID will be compared to Face ID until we get a full hands-on on the Vision Pro. One of the last widely released consumer tech devices with an eye scanner was the Samsung Galaxy S8 in 2017 — but hopefully, Apple has made some advancements since then that aren’t as easily defeated by hackers.
With Zoom IQ — the app’s AI-powered assistant — hosts can now generate summaries of meetings and send them to users through Zoom Team Chat or email, all without actually recording the meetings. It’s hard to tell how accurate (or detailed) the meeting summaries are without trying them out for ourselves, but it still seems like a much quicker way to get a recap on anything you’ve missed, as opposed to watching an entire prerecorded meeting.
In addition to AI-generated meeting summaries, Zoom is launching the ability to compose messages in Team Chat using AI. The feature leverages OpenAI’s technology to create messages “based on the context of a Team Chat thread” and also lets you customize the tone or length of a message before you send it.
Image: Zoom
All of these features build upon what Zoom’s IQ assistant already offers, such as the ability to create meeting highlights and chapters. In the near future, Zoom plans on rolling out several other AI-powered features through its partnership with OpenAI and Anthropic.
That includes the ability to write emails with AI using context from previous meetings, phone calls, and emails as well as a way to summarize threads in Zoom Team Chat “with the click of a button.” Zoom is also working on a way for you to use AI to “discreetly” obtain an in-chat summary of a meeting when you arrive late, create whiteboard drafts with text prompts, and automatically organize ideas into categories during brainstorming sessions.
According to Zoom, the company “collects data from users’ interactions with the Zoom IQ features, including inputs, messages, and AI-generated content” and could use this information to train Zoom IQ AI models (but not third-party ones) unless you choose not to share data with Zoom. Alongside Zoom, other productivity platforms, including Salesforce’s Slack and Microsoft 365, have begun incorporating AI features as well. Slack, for example, lets you reply to colleagues with ChatGPT and could soon have AI attend Huddles on your behalf, while Microsoft has rolled out an AI Copilot for its 365 apps.
For now, though, only Zoom IQ’s meeting summaries and chat compose features are available as a free trial “for a limited time” to subscribers of Zoom One (Enterprise Plus, Enterprise, Business Plus, Business, Pro) and some Zoom legacy bundles (Enterprise Named Host, Enterprise Active Host, Zoom Meetings Enterprise, Zoom Meetings Business, Zoom Meetings Pro). It’s unclear how much these features will cost after the free trial, however, but Zoom spokesperson Lacretia Taylor tells The Verge that the company will reveal pricing information “in the coming months.”
Spotify cuts 200 roles from its podcast division
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge
Spotify is axing approximately 200 roles from its podcasting division as part of a “strategic realignment” of the vertical. The cuts were announced today, June 5th, in a company memo published by Sahar Elhabashi, Spotify’s VP, head of podcast business, with the figure representing around 2 percent of Spotify’s total workforce.
The company will also be combining Parcast and Gimlet — two high-profile podcasting studios acquired by Spotify in 2019 — into a single Spotify Studios operation. While 11 podcasts from these networks were already axed last year, popular productions like Stolen, The Journal, Science Vs, Heavyweight, Serial Killers, and Conspiracy Theories will continue to be produced under the newly formed Spotify Studios name, alongside additional original programming from The Ringer. “Both studios will greenlight new shows with an increased focus on always-on programming that drives strong, loyal audiences and attracts advertisers,” Elhabashi wrote.
While Spotify will continue to produce original content, Elhabashi’s memo makes it sound like Spotify is thinking far more seriously about how it can capitalize on the broader podcasting ecosystem. Elhabashi says the company plans to expand the analytics capabilities within Spotify for Podcasters to help boost audience numbers and says the company is beefing up its advertising offerings to “help more creators make meaningful money.” And even though today’s memo is announcing layoffs in the podcasting division, Elhabashi still notes that Spotify will expand its podcasting roles dedicated to creator partnerships.
“We are expanding our partnership efforts with leading podcasters from across the globe with a tailored approach optimized for each show and creator,” Elhabashi wrote. “This fundamental pivot from a more uniform proposition will allow us to support the creator community better. However, doing so requires adapting; over the past few months, our senior leadership team has worked closely with HR to determine the optimal organization for this next chapter.”
Today’s announcement follows a larger round of layoffs for Spotify back in January, in which the company let go of 6 percent of its then 9,800-strong workforce. Some of the employees affected by those layoffs had come to the company as part of Podsights and Chartable — two podcast measurement and analytics platforms acquired by Spotify for undisclosed sums in February 2022. Almost one-third of union members from both Parcast and Gimlet were also cut in October last year. That makes this the third time that Spotify has cut its podcasting division in the last 12 months as the vertical struggles to turn a profit, despite reporting back in April that ad revenue for podcasts had grown by 20 percent year over year.
That said, Spotify isn’t blaming the cuts on a lack of interest in its podcast products. In the memo, the streaming giant claims to be the biggest podcast publisher in the US, on top of being the most-used audio podcast platform in “most corners of the world.” Spotify has certainly paid for the privilege, however, having spent over $1 billion since 2019 on tech, studios, and landing exclusive deals with the likes of Joe Rogan, Kim Kardashian, and Michelle Obama — the latter of which has already departed from the platform.
After the company reported a net loss of around $248 million for its first quarter this year, Spotify vowed that its era of big spending on podcasts is over and promised to operate more efficiently this year. It’s worth noting that while profitability remains a concern for Spotify, growth certainly isn’t — the company also reported that its platform attracts over half a billion monthly active users, a whopping 22 percent increase compared to last year. Paid subscribers also increased by 15 percent year over year, now sitting at around 210 million. The streaming giant still has a goal to hit 1 billion listeners by 2030, and its drive to procure original podcasting content, while expensive, may still prove to be a worthwhile investment.
WWDC 2023: all the news from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
Virtual reality, a bigger MacBook Air, updated OSes, and more are on the docket.
WWDC 2023 is going to be a big one for Apple. The company is rumored to be introducing its long-in-the-works VR headset, a super high-end model that’s meant to prove what its tech is capable of and why virtual reality might be a compelling future.
The conference is typically where Apple unveils the next versions of its many operating systems, and we’re expecting the same marathon of updates this year, too. Expect new features in macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS — plus the likely announcement of a new operating system designed for VR devices.
Alongside all of that, there’s also a chance we’ll see some new Macs, including a larger MacBook Air. There have also been rumors that Apple will make changes to open up its operating systems to comply with regulations in Europe, which could present major opportunities for developers.
This year’s conference is once again being held primarily online, but Apple is also hosting an in-person component at its Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, on opening day. The event kicks off on June 5th with a keynote presentation that’ll likely start at 1PM ET / 10AM PT. The presentation is once again being streamed online.
Google trials passwordless login across Workspace and Cloud accounts
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
Google has taken a significant step toward a passwordless future with the start of an open beta for passkeys on Workspace accounts. Starting today, June 5th, over 9 million organizations can allow their users to sign in to a Google Workspace or Google Cloud account using a passkey instead of their usual passwords.
Passkeys are a new form of passwordless sign-in tech developed by the FIDO Alliance, whose members include industry giants like Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Passkeys allow users to log in to websites and apps using their device’s own authentication, such as a laptop with Windows Hello, an Android phone with a fingerprint sensor, or an iPhone with Face ID, instead of traditional passwords and other sign-in systems like 2FA or SMS verification. Because passkeys are based on public key cryptographic protocols, there’s no fixed “sequence” that can be stolen or leaked in phishing attacks.
Image: Google
Google isn’t ditching passwords just yet, but Workspace and Cloud users can now use passkeys as an alternative sign-on method.
Passkey support for Workspace administrators, who have the authority to enable passkey sign-on within their organizations, will be gradually rolled out over the next few weeks. The ability to skip passwords is disabled by default and must first be enabled by administrators. Even when disabled, however, users will still be able to create and use passkeys for 2FA authentication.
It’s hoped that passkeys will eventually replace passwords entirely, but that’s going to take time. Adoption has been steady, though, with passkey support embraced by platforms like Apple and Microsoft and password managers like Dashlane and 1Password.
Today’s announcement follows passkey support being introduced to standard Google user accounts back in May. The Chrome web browser was also updated with passkey support in December, though passkeys can only be used on third-party sites and services that have rolled out their own support for the passwordless tech. That’s a relatively short list right now — 1Password is keeping track of which sites and services support passkeys if you want to stay up to date.
Major Reddit communities will go dark to protest threat to third-party apps
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Some of Reddit’s biggest communities including r/videos, r/reactiongifs, r/earthporn, and r/lifeprotips are planning to set themselves to private on June 12th over new pricing for third-party app developers to access the site’s APIs. Setting a subreddit to private, aka “going dark,” will mean that the communities taking part will be inaccessible by the wider public while the planned 48-hour protest is taking place.
As a Reddit post about the protest, that’s since been cross-posted to several participating subreddits, explains:
On June 12th, many subreddits will be going dark to protest this policy. Some will return after 48 hours: others will go away permanently unless the issue is adequately addressed, since many moderators aren’t able to put in the work they do with the poor tools available through the official app. This isn’t something any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible to keep doing what we love.
The protest comes after the developers of several third-party Reddit apps have said the future of their services have been threatened by the company’s new pricing. The developer behind Apollo, for example, said that at its current rate of making 7 billion requests per month, it would need to pay $1.7 million for access to Reddit’s API, or $20 million a year. “I don’t see how this pricing is anything based in reality or remotely reasonable,” developer Christian Selig wrote. “I hope it goes without saying that I don’t have that kind of money or would even know how to charge it to a credit card.”
However, one of Reddit’s employees has argued that the new API charges should be affordable if third-party apps are efficient with the API calls they make. “Our pricing is $0.24 per 1000 API calls, which equates to <$1.00 per user monthly for a reasonably operated app,” they wrote. “Apollo as an app is less efficient than its peers and at times has been excessive — probably because it has been free to be so.”
But the developers behind other third-party Reddit apps have expressed similar concerns. Reddit is Fun said it would have to pay a figure “in the same ballpark” as Apollo to continue to operate and that it “does not earn anywhere remotely near this number.” The developer behind Narwhal said it will be “dead in 30 days” as a result of the charges.
The potential for third-party apps to cease operations is particularly problematic for subreddit moderators, who say they often rely on these tools to manage their communities. “In many cases these apps offer superior mod tools, customization, streamlined interfaces, and other quality of life improvements that the official app does not offer,” moderator BuckRowdy wrote in an open letter that’s since been co-signed by the moderators of numerous other subreddits. “The potential loss of these services due to the pricing change would significantly impact our ability to moderate efficiently.”
As well as the new API pricing, the open letter also raises concerns about the ability of third-party apps to show ads (a key source of revenue), and new restrictions that would prevent NSFW (not safe for work) content from being made available via the API.
Reddit has seen several protests like these throughout its history. In 2021, for example, hundreds of Reddit communities locked down to protest the site’s handling of a controversy around a former UK politician it had hired (Reddit later confirmed it had cut ties with the individual). Moderators took similar collective action the previous year in protest over Reddit’s hate speech policies.
Twitter’s U.S. Ad Sales Plunge 59% as Woes Continue In internal forecasts, the company projected that ad sales would keep declining, handing a tough challenge to its new chief executive.
Everything we know about Apple’s mixed reality headset
Illustration: Kristen Radtke / The Verge
Apple is rumored to be announcing its long-rumored virtual and augmented reality headset at WWDC 2023. Here’s a timeline of all the details that have emerged about the device over the years.
People have been speculating about Apple’s entry into the world of virtual and augmented reality headsets for the better part of a decade, but it’s increasingly looking as though 2023 might be the year the company might finally announce and release a device into the world. Specifically, the prediction is that the company will debut the headset at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
Although Apple has never officially confirmed that it’s working on the headset, there have been plenty of reports over the years about what form it could take. The most recent rumors suggest it’ll be called the “Reality Pro,” a so-called “Mixed Reality” device capable of both virtual and augmented reality experiences. Users will be able to switch between AR and VR using a digital crown-style dial.
A short history of every time Apple CEO Tim Cook praised augmented reality
Laura Normand / The Verge
The rumored debut of a “Reality Pro” headset is right around the corner, but Tim Cook has been singing the praises of AR for years.
With Tim Cook as CEO, Apple has become the most valuable company in the world, having passed a $3 trillion market cap in the past and sitting at around $2.6 trillion as of this writing. For all of his nearly 12 years as the head of the company, though, there hasn’t been one single product tied to him the way the iPhone, iPad, and revitalized Mac computers are so inextricably linked to Steve Jobs.
But while Cook’s impact on the company has largely been in his operational mastery and the massive pay-off of his strategy in pivoting to services, he’s consistently found time to talk about one platform as potentially game-changing without fully committing to the tech through actual new product releases: augmented reality.
That was despite Cook’s denigrations of early AR headgear like Google Glass. This would become a running theme: AR good, VR not so good. In September 2021, he went as far as to call himself “AR fan number one.” Although he once called virtual reality “really cool,” he’s also said it’s “for set periods, but not a way to communicate well” while taking swipes at the metaverse in an interview last year.
Now, on the eve of a presumed announcement of Apple’s new “Reality Pro” mixed reality headset, it's much easier to see where it was all going. The company has been slowly integrating the technology that will presumably breathe life into the new device for years, adding AR features to its iPhone and iPads that, while none of it has ever made more than a momentary splash, may have been crucial development experience for Apple.
One example is the 2019 Minecraft Earth demo at WWDC that showed a hint of Apple’s capabilities without tipping its hand about any new hardware. As you’ll see in his various comments from 2016 onward, while Cook mentions gaming, it sounds like his vision for the Reality Pro is much broader, viewing it as a collaborative technology consistent with Apple’s overall philosophy about creating tech that integrates with your life.
Here’s a brief history of all the times Tim Cook said he was convinced AR was the future.
We have been and continue to invest a lot in this. We are high on AR for the long run, we think there’s great things for customers and a great commercial opportunity. The number one thing is to make sure our products work well with other developers’ kind of products like Pokémon, that’s why you see so many iPhones in the wild chasing pokemons.
There’s virtual reality and there’s augmented reality — both of these are incredibly interesting. But my own view is that augmented reality is the larger of the two, probably by far.
[AR] gives the capability for both of us to sit and be very present, talking to each other, but also have other things — visually — for both of us to see. Maybe it’s something we’re talking about, maybe it’s someone else here who’s not here present but who can be made to appear to be present.
I think AR [augmented reality] is extremely interesting and sort of a core technology. So, yes, it’s something we’re doing a lot of things on behind that curtain that we talked about.
October 2016: In an appearance at Utah Tech Tour, Cook goes into detail about how crucial AR may become and why he views it as superior to VR — while stressing that AR presents significant technology challenges before it can be adopted for mass consumerism.
In terms of it becoming a mass adoption [phenomenon], so that, say, everyone in here would have an AR experience, the reality to do that, it has to be something that everyone in here views to be an “acceptable thing.”
And nobody in here, few people in here, think it’s acceptable to be tethered to a computer walking in here and sitting down, few people are going to view that it’s acceptable to be enclosed in something, because we’re all social people at heart. Even introverts are social people, we like people and we want to interact. It has to be that it’s likely that AR, of the two, is the one the largest number of people will engage with.
I do think that a significant portion of the population of developed countries, and eventually all countries, will have AR experiences every day, almost like eating three meals a day, it will become that much a part of you, a lot of us live on our smartphones, the iPhone, I hope, is very important for everyone, so AR will become really big. VR I think is not going to be that big, compared to AR. I’m not saying it’s not important, it is important.
I’m excited about VR from an education point of view, I think it can be really big for education, I think it can be very big for games. But I can’t imagine everyone in here getting in an enclosed VR experience while you’re sitting in here with me. But I could imagine everyone in here in an AR experience right now, if the technology was there, which it’s not today. How long will it take?
AR is going to take a while, because there are some really hard technology challenges there. But it will happen, it will happen in a big way, and we will wonder when it does, how we ever lived without it. Like we wonder how we lived without our phone today.
October 2016: Cook tells BuzzFeed News that while “VR has some interesting applications,” AR is superior to VR because “there’s no substitute for human contact. And so you want the technology to encourage that.”
Augmented reality will take some time to get right, but I do think that it’s profound. We might ... have a more productive conversation, if both of us have an AR experience standing here, right? And so I think that things like these are better when they’re incorporated without becoming a barrier to our talking. ... You want the technology to amplify it, not to be a barrier.
I’m excited about augmented reality because unlike virtual reality which closes the world out, AR allows individuals to be present in the world but hopefully allows an improvement on what’s happening presently. Most people don’t want to lock themselves out from the world for a long period of time and today you can’t do that because you get sick from it. With AR you can, not be engrossed in something, but have it be a part of your world, of your conversation. That has resonance.
I regard it as a big idea like the smartphone. The smartphone is for everyone, we don’t have to think the iPhone is about a certain demographic, or country or vertical market: it’s for everyone. I think AR is that big, it’s huge. I get excited because of the things that could be done that could improve a lot of lives. And be entertaining. I view AR like I view the silicon here in my iPhone, it’s not a product per se, it’s a core technology. But there are things to discover before that technology is good enough for the mainstream. I do think there can be a lot of things that really help people out in daily life, real-life things, that’s why I get so excited about it.
I think it is profound. I am so excited about it, I just want to yell out and scream. The first step in making it a mainstream kind of experience is to put it in the operating system. We’re building it into iOS 11, opening it to developers—and unleashing the creativity of millions of people. Even we can’t predict what’s going to come out.
There’s some things that you can already get a vision of. We’ve talked to IKEA, and they have 3D images of their furniture line. You’re talking about changing the whole experience of how you shop for, in this case, furniture and other objects that you can place around the home. You can take that idea and begin to think this is something that stretches from enterprise to consumer. There’s not a lot of things that do that.
You’ll see things happening in enterprises where AR is fundamental to what they’re doing. You’re going to see some consumer things that are unbelievably cool. Can we do everything we want to do now? No. The technology’s not complete yet. But that’s the beauty to a certain degree. This has a runway. And it’s an incredible runway. It’s time to put the seat belt on and go. When people begin to see what’s possible, it’s going to get them very excited—like we are, like we’ve been.
October 2017: At an event at Oxford, Cook responds to a student who asks what technology he would consider “transformative.” Cook says there are widespread uses for AR:
I’m incredibly excited by AR because I can see uses for it everywhere. I can see uses for it in education, in consumers, in entertainment, in sports. I can see it in every business that I know anything about.
I also like the fact that it doesn’t isolate. I don’t like our products being used a lot. I like our products amplifying thoughts and I think AR can help amplify the human connection. I’ve never been a fan of VR like that because I think it does the opposite. There are clearly some cool niche things for VR but it’s not profound in my view. AR is profound.
October 2017: In an interview with Vogue UK, Cook says while Apple wasn’t looking to build a “giant database of clothes,” it would support companies in the AR space who were doing this work.
If you think about a runway show in the fashion world, that’s a great application of AR because some of these, you want to see the dress all the way around, you do not want to just see the front.
There already are over a thousand apps with powerful AR features in our App Store today with developers creating amazing new experiences in virtually every category of app aimed at consumers, students and business users alike.
Put simply, we believe AR is going to change the way we use technology forever. We’re already seeing things that will transform the way you work, play, connect and learn. For example, there are AR apps that you interact with virtual models of everything you can imagine from the human body to the solar system. And of course you experience them like you’re really there.
Instantly education becomes much more powerful when every subject comes to life in 3D. And imagine shopping when you can place an object in your living room before you make a purchase – or attending live sporting events when you can see the stats on the field. AR is going to change everything.
This is not quite what came to pass (more on that later).
October 2017: Post-ARKit launch, Cook admits he thinks AR technology for headsets or glasses isn’t yet up to par as far as Apple is concerned.
I can tell you the technology itself doesn’t exist to do that in a quality way. The display technology required, as well as putting enough stuff around your face — there’s huge challenges with that. The field of view, the quality of the display itself, it’s not there yet.
We don’t give a rat’s about being first, we want to be the best, and give people a great experience. But now anything you would see on the market any time soon would not be something any of us would be satisfied with. Nor do I think the vast majority of people would be satisfied.
Most technology challenges can be solved, but it’s a matter of how long.
February 2018: During Apple’s Q1 earnings call, Cook described “great excitement” around augmented reality among customers.
Augmented reality is going to revolutionize many of the experiences we have with mobile devices, and with ARKit, we’re giving developers the most advanced tools on the market to create apps for the most advanced operating system running on the most advanced hardware. This is something only Apple can do.
October 2018: Cook tells NowThisNews during an interview about Apple’s Watch that AR is poised to become indispensable.
I think that one day we will wonder how we ever lived without it. We can have a much more enhanced conversation with the power of AR. The future is now.
January 2020:Cook tells an audience in Dublin, Ireland, that augmented reality “is the next big thing” and that it will “pervade our entire lives.” He gives an example of a company using AR and describes its potential uses.
Yesterday, I visited a development company called War Ducks … in Dublin – 15 people and they’re staffing up and using AR for games. You can imagine, for games it’s incredible but even for our discussion here. You and I might be talking about an article and using AR we can pull it up, and can both be looking at the same thing at the same time.
I think it’s something that doesn’t isolate people. We can use it to enhance our discussion, not substitute it for human connection, which I’ve always deeply worried about in some of the other technologies.
April 2021: During an interview with journalist Kara Swisher Cook agreed with her that augmented reality is “a critically important part of Apple’s future.” He imagines AR being used in health, education, retail, and gaming.
I’m already seeing AR take off in some of these areas with use of the phone. And I think the promise is even greater in the future.
I am so excited about AR. I think AR is one of these very few profound technologies that we will look back on one day and went, how did we live our lives without it? And so right now you can experience it in thousands of ways using your iPad or your iPhone, but of course, those will get better and better over time.
Already it’s a great way to shop, it’s a great way to learn. It enhances the learning process. I can’t wait for it to be even more important in collaboration and so forth.
So I’m AR fan number one. I think it’s that big.
After a comment from Justine about the future impact of AR, he continued:
I mean, simple things today that you can use it for, like if you’re shopping for a sofa, or a chair, or a lamp, in terms of really experiencing it in your place, we’ve never been able to do that before until the last couple years or so. And that’s at the early innings of AR. It will only get better.
“I am incredibly excited about AR as you may know, and the critical thing in any technology, including AR, is putting humanity at the center of it. That is what we focus on every day,”
I think that we’ve had a great conversation here today, but if we could augment that with something from the virtual world, it would have arguably been even better. So I think that if you, and this will happen clearly not too long from now, if you... zoom out to the future and look back, you’ll wonder how you led your life without augmented reality. Just like today, we wonder, how did people like me grow up without the internet.
If you think about the technology itself with augmented reality, just to take one side of the AR/VR piece, the idea that you could overlay the physical world with things from the digital world could greatly enhance people’s communication, people’s connection.
We might be able to collaborate on something much easier if we were sitting here brainstorming about it and all of a sudden we could pull up something digitally and both see it and begin to collaborate on it and create with it.
Baron then paraphrased Cook’s proposal that users could measure a glass pane or put some art up on the wall. Cook also said Apple isn’t trying to follow up anyone else’s efforts:
Can we make a significant contribution, in some kind of way, something that other people are not doing? Can we own the primary technology? I’m not interested in putting together pieces of somebody else’s stuff. Because we want to control the primary technology. Because we know that’s how you innovate.
What’s Apple’s plan for AR?
Clearly, Tim Cook has been bullish on AR for a long time. Until we see the new headset, the extent of Apple’s foray into AR will have been the 2017 launch of ARKit — which use iPhones’ and iPads’ cameras and sensors to overlay images in 3D space when the device is pointed at a given area — for iOS 11. ARKit is available across Apple’s devices, which has spurred a lot of cool little projects by amateur AR enthusiasts. When it launched, The Verge wrote that the tech had the potential to allow Apple to catch rival Google in the AR space.
Ultimately, AR on phones, for most people, probably means the occasional quick measurement or level check when you can’t find your bubble leveler. And let’s not forget plopping a virtual chair in your room, which is an admittedly cool use of AR. But one of the most striking examples of what a combination of AI and augmented reality can produce was the recent introduction of TikTok’s “Bold Glamour” face filter, which had been used in over 58 million videos by mid-May.
In short, the company’s AR work on phones hasn’t been the sort of bombshell that Cook’s words hint at. It’s not clear yet that the Apple mixed reality headset’s debut will be any different, at least in the short term.
But it's a first-run product that will probably come with first-run problems that will need dedicated work from Apple and good third-party support to ensure long-term success. There are supporters and detractors both inside the company and out, but given Cook’s enthusiasm and the Reality Pro’s long development period, it’s probable Apple is in it for the long haul.
It shouldn’t be all that surprising that Apple has taken its time making the Reality Pro, or whatever it’s actually called. This is, after all, the company that introduced the AirPower wireless charging pad, showed it off to the world, then canceled the product because it wasn’t up to company standards — and that was just a charging accessory, not a potential new computing paradigm.
Update September 16th, 12:40PM ET:Added quote from his post-Apple event interview with iJustine.
Update June 5th, 2023, 12:40PM ET:Added quotes from this April GQ profile and additional information about the headset ahead of its rumored introduction at WWDC 2023.
Augmented reality needs an iPhone moment
Apple turned the iPod into a status symbol. A headset might be a taller order. | Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
‘This is the single greatest thing that could happen to this industry.’
As Apple prepares its long-rumored jump into augmented reality on Monday, doubts have shadowed every step of the way. There are reports of frequent changes in direction and skepticism inside Apple’s ranks. The device has allegedly been hard to manufacture and required numerous compromises. The process has taken years longer than Apple expected. And at a rumored $3,000, even Apple reportedly expects slow short-term sales.
But among AR professionals, the mood is jubilant. “This is the single greatest thing that could happen to this industry,” says Jay Wright, CEO of VR / AR collaboration platform Campfire 3D. “Whether you make hardware or software. We’re excited about it.”
Building on positive reviews from industry trailblazers like Palmer Luckey, AR hardware and software makers say Apple can finally validate a decade of attempts to take the technology mainstream. Some of this optimism is driven by Apple’s rumored specs, including a lightweight design and a supposedly extraordinarily high-spec screen.
Proponents point to Apple’s history of entering a market once other companies have laid the groundwork, as it did with phones. But much of it can be summed up in two statements: Apple can sell hardware, and Apple is cool.
Apple is widely expected to reveal the headset, potentially called the “Reality Pro,” at WWDC, which kicks off on June 5th. #Apple#WWDC#AppleHeadset#Tech#TechTok
No tech category needs Apple’s “it just works” promise more than AR. (This format is sometimes called “mixed reality” or “XR,” just to underscore how muddled the consumer pitch is.) Pure consumer VR — while a small market — has coalesced around relatively popular genres like fitness apps, a few common storefronts like SteamVR and the Quest store, and a widely used controller scheme.
AR has no such guarantees.
Its hardware is wildly varied, ranging from bulky headsets with sophisticated tracking to smart glasses that do little more than show alerts. Its software is often geared toward hyper-specialized business uses. There’s no settled consensus on control schemes.
Based on numerous leaks, Apple’s headset uses what’s called “passthrough” AR. It features high-resolution screens and is capable of running full VR applications, but it’s also studded by cameras that can pass through a high-resolution image of the real world — according to rumors, you’ll hit a “reality dial” to switch between AR and VR. That means it can offer the illusion of a real world with virtual objects overlaid on it.
Passthrough avoids some of the problems that AR glasses like Magic Leap and Microsoft HoloLens face, like translucent virtual objects and a limited field of view. Meta, the biggest player in consumer headsets, chose the style for its Quest Pro design last year. But the Quest Pro had a grainy, washed-out video feed and offered limited practical applications for its AR mode. A virtual office, for instance, required a convoluted syncing process with your Mac or PC. And Meta has generally focused on the lower end of the VR and AR market — it’s also including passthrough as a selling point on the upcoming $499 Quest 3.
By contrast, multiple people speculated that Apple’s headset could be like the Tesla Roadster: a flashy, expensive sports car that sold people on the concept of electric vehicles. “Apple makes devices in a way that are actually useful and comfortable to people and make people care about it,” says Jacob Loewenstein, SVP of 3D social platform Spatial, which has appeared on numerous AR and VR devices.
The exact uses of Apple’s rumored tech aren’t known yet. CEO Tim Cook has said AR is for “communication” and “connection,” and it will reportedly feature FaceTime capability that can render a person’s face and body. It’s said to also offer access to iPad apps, games, entertainment via Apple’s TV app, and a version of Apple Fitness Plus. “One of the reasons why I think Apple is immensely successful in many of their ventures is they’re not just launching a device, they’re launching an ecosystem,” says Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen, who covers the VR / AR market. “It’s that combination of different applications applied to different use cases for different users — that is the ‘killer app.’”
Apple reportedly isn’t expecting a large early market for the device — it’s revised its expectations downward to under a million units a year, compared to 200 million or more iPhones. Still, despite the device’s rumored cost, some predict a gold rush of app designers trying to replicate the success of early iPhone developers. “I’ve been like, wait, why am I not making some goofy version of some application that everyone likes — like, being one of the first to-do apps on the Apple headset?” says Gabe Baker, VP of browser-based VR collaboration platform Frame. “There’s going to be so much garbage out there, and there’s going to be some cool stuff, too — it’s going to be a fun time.”
Apple has an ambivalent relationship with web developers, who form a niche but notable subset of the AR / VR industry. Safari has badly lagged at supporting WebXR, a common standard for browser-based immersive experiences, on iOS. But the browser is reportedly launching on its headset, which will put web-based AR in the spotlight. “We’re cautiously optimistic that Apple will actually make Safari a viable application on their upcoming hardware,” says Baker. “Meta has shown that the web browser can actually be a vehicle for high quality immersive content, hands-down, and I think Apple will want that on their headset.”
The iPhone’s decade-plus dominance has demonstrated plenty of downsides to “it just works.” Apple has mastered the walled garden, and many app developers who work inside it aren’t happy with the results. It’s spent years fighting some prominent developers like Epic and Match Group in court, and others have testified in Congress about having their apps locked down and undercut by Apple’s own copycats.
But for AR and VR developers, the alternative to an Apple walled garden may be a desert. Many apps — particularly non-gaming ones — have pivoted onto more conventional computing devices as one headset after another has failed to capture a consumer market. A key exception has been Meta, which has defied expectations with its Quest 2 for VR. That’s raised the opposite problem: a system where some developers and regulators worry Meta could monopolize the nascent industry, and some competing hardware companies have expressed irritation at the Quest’s rock-bottom, ad-subsidized prices.
“I think the other thing that’s compelling is the arms race that it starts between Meta and Apple. We’ve never really had these two titans go head to head before on a new platform,” says Loewenstein. And even for hardware makers, Apple’s entry isn’t necessarily a bad thing — the AR glasses market is small enough that any new attention to the space is welcome.
Despite the excitement inside the industry, Apple is still pushing into a field that has bested some of the biggest companies in tech. Google and Microsoft have both debuted AR headsets with flashy consumer-friendly applications (in Microsoft’s case, an AR edition of Minecraft) only to end up with a far less ambitious enterprise-focused product. So has the lavishly funded startup Magic Leap.
Moreover, few people seem to think passthrough AR is an endpoint for the medium. As Nguyen points out, a passthrough headset poses basic safety risks compared to a more glasses-like system: if its video feed stutters or goes dark, it temporarily blinds the user. That makes it risky to use outside a controlled home or office environment. “I see the Apple device as being a replacement of my iMac,” says Nima Shams, VP at DigiLens, a longtime maker of optics for glasses-style headsets. “I don’t see the device being a replacement of my iPhone.” Apple has reportedly been working on a transparent, non-passthrough headset, too — but it’s not what anyone expects to see on Monday.
There are pragmatic reasons to believe Apple’s better positioned than these companies. For one thing, the tech has matured significantly since Google started testing Glass in 2012, Microsoft announced HoloLens in 2015, and Magic Leap revealed its first product in 2018. For another, Apple has a consumer hardware track record that virtually no other company can match. That includes not only carefully produced industrial design and interfaces like trackpads but, in recent years, its own fairly powerful chips. “If we were facing rumors of a similar headset made by someone not Apple, I don’t think it would be all that successful,” says IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani. “Apple has huge scale, huge developer support, huge consumer support — and no one else comes even close to that.”
But the most emotionally compelling argument is simply that Apple can make even weird-looking products — like AirPods, compared to everything from Q-tips to sperm — socially acceptable. As Loewenstein puts it, “the key has always been very, very simple: is this thing useful? Is this thing comfortable? And is this thing cool?” Meta has demonstrated VR’s value for games, but the company’s uncoolness is a running joke, from the famous picture of an MWC audience strapped into headsets to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s much-maligned legless avatar. “I think Apple has the cool factor.”
And if it doesn’t? Well, if you’ve stuck around the world of consumer AR for this long, you can probably handle disappointment.
Blaseball season is over for good
Blaseball is no more. | Image: Alex Castro / The Verge
Born during covid, Blaseball was a bizarre text-only fantasy baseball simulator that imagined, essentially, baseball as played in a world of otherworldly horrors.
I regret that I never got to play Blaseball, and now it looks like I won’t get to because developer The Game Band is shutting it down. The company is laying off its Blaseball development team and will provide them with severance pay, healthcare extensions, and a dedicated staff member for job search help.
It was a remarkable example of procedural storytelling. Blaseball players could bet on the games to win points throughout a given week, where chance encounters, Dungeons & Dragons-style could rend games, and reality itself, asunder. At the end of the week, Blaseball’s community could spend their points to vote on new rules for the game, and in true D&D fashion, anything could happen. Or at least that’s what I gather from this delightful recap of what became known as The Discipline Era:
We have folks in 3D Art, Community Management, Engineering, Game Design, Production, Product Design, or QA that we’d love to find a good place for.
If you are hiring, please reach out. We have some exceptional people to introduce to you.
As a quick summary of some of the highlights, The Discipline Era saw a hellmouth open that devoured the Moab desert, three eldritch gods in the form of a giant peanut, a huge floating microphone that may have been a player’s ghost or something, and, naturally, a massive squid that seemed to mostly hang out, but once tried to eat someone. A powerful grand slam blasted the spacetime continuum apart, splitting Los Angeles into infinite parallel versions of itself, prompting its name to be changed from The Los Angeles Tacos to The Infinite Tacos.
After pissing off The Great Shelled One by not respecting its idols, it entombed the three most idolized players in giant peanut shells. The community somehow resurrected them, and there was some sort of supernatural financial kerfuffle?
Also, there was crow weather.
Samuel Fung created a wonderful write-up for The Verge that covers the season from a player’s perspective, and it’s well worth a read.
Anyway, of its discontinuation, Blaseball’s developers said this:
The short of it is that Blaseball isn’t sustainable to run. Since Blaseball’s inception, we’ve been fighting against the amount of work it takes to keep Blaseball true to itself while financially supporting the team and keeping our staff healthy. We’ve tried countless solutions to make it work, and we’ve come to the conclusion that this fight isn’t one we can win in the long run. The cost, literally and metaphorically, is too high.
Blaseball developed an incredibly devoted online fandom, one that even established a merch store full of fan-created apparel, Blaseball cards (ahem... TLOPPS cards), mugs, and more, where all profits were given to charity. The store will continue to operate until June 30, 2023, and will then be shut down as well.
It sounds like it was a beautiful three-ish year run, and I’m sad I kept forgetting to be a part of it.
Star Wars: KOTOR II for the Switch won’t get its game-finishing DLC
KOTOR II’s game-finishing DLC isn’t coming. | Image: Aspyr Media
The Nintendo Switch port of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II is not getting the free Restored Content DLC that developer Aspyr Media promised at launch, the company announced late yesterday on Twitter. Instead, the studio is offering a consolation prize of free Star Wars game keys for anyone who has bought the game, which Aspyr says can be done through its support page (though it doesn’t specify how).
The apology games include the original KOTOR Switch port, KOTOR II on Steam, Star Wars: Episode I Racer, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and others.
The Restored Content DLC started as a fan-made mod that incorporated parts of the game that were cut from its original release, as some considered the game to be incomplete in its published form.
Aspyr’s Switch port of KOTOR II was somehow even less complete at launch. Like, you couldn’t actually beat the game. The developer admitted to being aware of the problem, and issued a fix the following month. After that flawed execution and a poor showing at a demo with Lucasfilm and Sony, Aspyr’s parent company, Embracer Group, shuffled the port of the first Knights of the Old Republic game over to Saber Interactive, citing a desire to “ensure the quality bar is where we need it to be for the title.”
We’ve reached out to Aspyr for more information, and will update if we receive a response.
How the Shoggoth Meme Has Come to Symbolize the State of A.I. The Shoggoth, a character from a science fiction story, captures the essential weirdness of the A.I. moment.
The MSI Prestige 16 Studio Evo could be the most exciting Windows laptop of 2023
* rubbing hands together * Yes. Yessssss.
Amid all the excitement over generative AI, valuations, and such, consumer PC news was a bit of an afterthought at Computex 2023. That’s why I was so excited to discover this gem buried in the middle of MSI’s very loud and crowded show floor booth: the Prestige 16 Studio Evo. This is coming in the second half of this year, with pricing still to be announced, and I am very eagerly waiting.
First things first: This device has received Intel’s coveted “Evo” certification. The reason this is exciting is that, to my knowledge, no device with a GeForce RTX GPU has received the Evo certification since the program’s inception in 2020. (It’s possible there’s one out there somewhere I don’t know about, but even if so, it’s still a very rare phenomenon.)
The reasons for this are somewhat obvious. To earn the Evo certification, Intel requires that a device offer a certain level of battery life and performance within a certain weight class, which is difficult to achieve with a power-hungry discrete GPU inside. But the Studio Evo can include up to a GeForce RTX 4060 — and that’s a legitimate GPU that should lend a big hand in gaming and graphic work, unlike some of the weaker MX chips that you often see in these thin-and-lights, which aren’t too distinguishable from Intel’s integrated offerings these days. MSI’s representatives were very clear with me at the booth that the RTX 4060 model, specifically, is Evo-rated.
Small numpad for your number needs.
Now, in my experience, the Evo label is not always guarantee of things like speedy performance and all-day battery life. Nevertheless, the fact that an RTX 4060 system was performing efficiently enough that Intel would even consider it for the program excites me greatly.
Recommending a really solid Windows laptop for content creators right now is tough, and I think there are real openings in the market this Prestige 16 could fill. It can be a real pain to use programs like Premiere Pro and Blender on a 14-inch screen, and I often advise professionals to go bigger if they can. But 15-inch and 16-inch devices with discrete GPUs inside them can get really heavy really fast — which is also not great for many video folks, who may need to carry their laptop to shoots alongside lots of other bulky gear. I’ve been waiting — like really, eagerly waiting — for a 16-inch device with a discrete GPU to come along that isn’t a total tank. A solid battery lifespan would really seal the deal.
The Prestige 16 Studio Evo is 3.3 pounds — close to pound and a half lighter than the 16-inch MacBook Pro. I can tell you, having held the thing, that it is very light. LG Gram light. “Are you sure this isn’t an empty chassis?” light. It would be a dream to carry around in a packed backpack. I’m wistful just remembering what it was like to pick this up.
This was after I’d attempted to smudge the lid. Not too bad.
That’s especially true because the finish feels a solid step above what I’ve experienced from MSI before — this company often puts out laptops that are covered in fingerprints like, five seconds after unboxing. I tried very hard to smudge the Prestige’s lid on the show floor, and I actually couldn’t.
The Prestige 16 Studio Evo also has a 99Whr battery, which is the largest battery you can bring on a plane (and thus, the largest you will likely see in a consumer laptop).
Look at those ports. Gorgeous!
Here, more.
There’s one more nifty thing about this product, which is that it looks like it might be one of the first 14th-Gen Meteor Lake laptops we’ve seen in the wild. The spec sheet in the booth just lists “latest Intel Core i7 processor,” and — as Notebookcheck also discovered — the processor in the show floor unit was simply listed in Device Manager as “Genuine Intel(R) 0000” and showed 22 threads. It certainly is not a 13th-Gen mobile i7, since there’s not a 22-thread offering in that lineup.
Now, I don’t want to get my hopes up or jinx anything. But I’m wondering whether maybe, just maybe, this is a good sign for the efficiency of the upcoming Meteor Lake generation. After all, many of today’s workstation laptops have bad battery life and a hefty chassis for a reason: Intel’s current heavyweight processors are inefficient and hot.
The phrase “MacBook Pro alternative” is thrown around a lot. But this Prestige is shaping up to be one of the closest contenders I’ve seen in 2023 so far. Now, let’s wait to hear about the price.
How to control what boots up with Windows
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
When Windows boots up, it’s not just the operating system loading itself into memory: a variety of other apps, tools, and services start up as well, configured to automatically start up with Windows. And depending on what you’ve installed, many of them may be starting up without your knowledge or consent.
Sometimes this can be very useful, especially when you don’t have to worry about forgetting to launch something important. You want to make sure your antivirus software is always running, for example, and that your media server or backup software is always available. On the other hand, as you add more and more applications to your computer, a lot of them may be set to automatically start up with Windows, which means it takes longer for Windows to get ready for use, and there are more programs constantly running in the background, taking up precious system resources.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that Windows gives you plenty of control over which applications start up with the operating system itself, so you can streamline the list to make sure only the most useful tools are included.
Check what’s running
First of all, it helps to know what you’re dealing with: restart Windows, and after logging in, give your computer a few minutes for everything to load up. Then you can take a look at what’s running.
The most obvious places you will see which apps have loaded are on the taskbar and in the system tray (down in the lower right corner, by the clock). Look for the small arrow pointing up; if you click on that, it will show you all the loaded apps whose icons didn’t fit in that right-hand space.
Check the system tray to see which apps started up with Windows.
For a more detailed look at what’s running on your system, right-click on a blank area of the taskbar and choose Task Manager. On the Processes tab, you’ll see your main applications (all those that are currently running) at the top, with background processes listed underneath. These background processes handle jobs such as looking out for hardware accessories or managing file syncing and won’t necessarily have a user interface.
If you scroll further down the list, you’ll find Windows processes, which manage the running of the operating system. Processes include things like the Desktop Window Manager and a bunch labeled Service Host (which load the libraries Windows needs to run), among others. Most of the time, you’re not going to have to interfere with these processes (with the possible exception of the registry, which you may occasionally delve into for specific fixes).
Helpfully, to the right of each program and process, the Task Manager displays the current demands it is making on the CPU, RAM, disk, and network connection. This can help you decide which apps you want to allow to start up with Windows and which you’d rather launch manually — even if a program is useful, you might decide you don’t want it to run automatically because of how many system resources it needs.
Task Manager shows you what’s currently running.
Don’t worry if you don’t recognize everything in the background processes list; they won’t all come with a software program (like Dropbox or Photoshop) attached to their name. A quick web search for the process name should be enough to tell you what it is and what its job is on your system. And here, you need to be a bit more careful because of how closely background processes are integrated with Windows. Be sure you know what a process is doing and what it’s associated with before you stop it.
Switch to the Performance tab on the left to see the demands currently being put on your Windows PC and the App history tab to see CPU time, network usage, and notifications for all of your programs over the past month.
Making changes
We’re halfway there — now that you know what you’re dealing with, you can begin to make some changes. The first place to start is with the applications themselves, and the approach you need to take will vary from app to app.
On some apps, you just have to right-click on the program icon in the system tray, and you’ll find the option to have the app start up or not start up with Windows.
NordVPN is one of the apps where you can control if it launches at boot-up by going into its Settings.
With other apps, you’ll need to dive deeper into the settings to find the option you need. For example, if you want to change how music app Spotify opens when you boot up:
In the Spotify app, click your profile icon (top right), then Settings.
Scroll down to Startup and window behavior and look for Open Spotify automatically after you log into the computer. Click on the drop-down menu next to it.
Choose Yes (Spotify starts with Windows), No (Spotify doesn’t start with Windows), or Minimized (Spotify starts with Windows, but out of sight).
Note that quite a few programs offer this “start minimized” option — NordVPN is another one that we’ve seen. It’s a good middle-ground option if you want to have a program always available (and it’s not too demanding on your system resources), but you don’t want to see it until you need it.
Using Task Manager to switch startup
If you can’t find the relevant option in the program itself, or if you want to change more than one program at a time, head to the Task Manager again.
Open the Startup apps pane.
Right-click on a program you don’t want to start with Windows and choose Disable.
To reinstate an app, right-click on it and choose Enable.
Incidentally, as long as you’re in the Startup apps page, you may want to check the column headed Boot-up impact, which tells you the amount of your computer’s resources the app uses. If your computer slows down or hits any similar issues, shutting down apps that have high impact might help.
You can also use the Task Manager to prevent apps from automatically starting with Windows.
This doesn’t affect the status of the program in terms of its Start menu or desktop shortcuts or anything else; it’s still available to launch as normal. (Of course, completely uninstalling a program is also an option for those applications you’re not making any use of at all, as it’ll free up disk space and reduce system clutter.)
When it comes to background processes, you should find that they close down when their parent application is disabled. If you’re still seeing mysterious processes that don’t appear to be linked to a program (in other words, its name doesn’t reference any known apps), you can run a search for them online. You can also right-click on them in the Startup apps list and choose Properties to see information such as where they’re located (which should then tell you what app they’ve been installed with).
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