Tim Cook Has Pushed Apple’s VR Glass Launch Despite Design Team Being Against It

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has reportedly pushed through the launch of its virtual reality (VR) headset despite its design team being against the idea. The new mixed reality headset is slated to be launching later this year and will be Apple’s first foray in a new product category since the launch of the Apple Watch in 2014.

Cook has indicated that this will be his last decade at Apple as he plans on retiring sometime later in the decade. The mixed reality headset could be Cook’s last new hardware launch as the Apple Car project still remains riddled with delays and could launch post 2025.

Many within the company including Cook and his right hand man, Apple COO, Jeff Williams believe that one day the Apple VR headset could rival the iPhone in terms of success.

The product has been in development for seven years which is twice as long as the original iPhone. There will be two variations of the headset one which will focus on virtual reality and the other being augmented reality which will likely be showcased at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June.

In fact, while Cook championed the launch of the Apple Watch, the baseline computing platform for it was also developed under the reign of Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs.

Cook has pushed Apple’s market capitalisation from $350 billion in 2011 to $2.4 trillion making it the richest company on the planet. Under Cook, new product lines like the Apple Watch and AirPods have been massive hits and its new services business is growing at an impressive clip. But under Cook, no new product like the iPhone or even the iPad for that matter has been comparable financially.

Jeff Williams has wanted to ship a ski-mask like first generation Apple headset which will allow users to watch 3D video, interactive workouts and chat with photo realistic avatars through a new version of Facetime. Apple has pressure to ship as the product has been delayed for years and in the meanwhile, Meta acquired Oculus and has started to capture the market.

Apple’s design team has been against this move as they wanted to launch a more evolved and lightweight AR headset, but that could delay the launch by another few years. This is also reflective of a shift internally at Apple under Cook's reign as CEO. 

Apple has become a more operations driven company whilst before it used to be driven by its legendary design team. In the last four years, Apple has lost its iconic Chief Designer Jonathan Ive who started his own company called LoveForm. Evan Hankey who was one of his chief lieutenants and was tasked with hardware design also left the company recently. Now, the design team reports to Jeff Williiams who is widely viewed as Cook's successor.