It’s pretty difficult to miss the excitement surrounding WWDC 2023 right now, with Apple’s big opening keynote on 5 June expected to signal Apple’s entry into a whole new product category. And that’s before we get into the talk of new Macs and software updates.
That new product category is the world of the AR/VR headset, with Apple’s entry thought to be called Reality Pro. All of the smart money right now seems to be on Apple unveiling the headset at its WWDC event and then giving developers a few months to get their apps ready before it goes on sale later this year. And with the Reality Pro headset now thought to be just days away, a new leak claims to have shared details about the displays that it will use. And if accurate, that leak makes for some very interesting reading indeed.
Retina-burning brightness
This new leak comes via display analyst Ross Young, someone who is normally well-connected in terms of Apple’s display supply chain. So when he says that the specs will be impressive, it’s worth paying attention.
And impressive, they are. In a post to Twitter Young says that the headset will use a pair of 1.41-inch displays each with a pixel density of 4,000 PPI. The 4K resolution will also be backed up by a peak brightness of around 5,000 nits which is, frankly, pretty insane.
To put that brightness into perspective, the Oculus Quest 2 only manages a 100-nit rating while the PlayStation VR2 comes in at around 250 nits.
In terms of pixel density, Apple’s headset also has the competition beat. 4,000 PPI destroys even the Meta Quest Pro with its 1,059 PPI rating. All of this is to say that there should be no complaints when it comes to the quality of image that the Reality Pro headset will throw into its wearer’s eyes. True HDR should be more than possible thanks to a peak brightness that compares well with even the best television displays out there.
There are of course caveats to be considered here. The Reality Pro headset is expected to cost upwards of $3,000 which isn’t cheap by anyone’s standards. With that in mind, it stands to reason that the specs would be impressive. Throw in talk of Mac-quality M-series chips and it’s easy to see where the money is going.
Also, as reliable as Ross Young has been in the past, we don’t know that these specifications are accurate. With WWDC now less than a week away though, we’ll know soon enough.
The WWDC event is also expected to see Apple announce a 15-inch MacBook Air as well as potentially more Macs, while software updates for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV will also be shown off.
