Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman is back again, sharing inside details about Apple’s upcoming mixed reality headset. This time, Gurman shared new details in his weekly newsletter about the speaker’s controversial tethered battery pack design.
Previous reporting from Gurman, supply chain analyst Ming Chi-Kuo, and The Information revealed that after much internal debate, Apple decided to move forward with a headphone design that would work with an external battery pack attached to a wire.
This is because including the battery inside the headset would make it too bulky and heavy for some users. Apple employees have argued against this approach that it makes the speaker clunky to use, especially in public.
Now, for the first time, we have some details on exactly what this will look like. Gurman writes that the headset will have two ports: USB-C and a new proprietary power port. The USB-C port will be used for data only, while the port for “the charging cable that goes into the headset has a round tip that is magnetically inserted.”
The cable will be permanently attached to a battery pack that’s “about the size of an iPhone but thicker” and has a similar aesthetic to Apple’s official MagSafe battery for the iPhone. The bundle will also need to be charged, of course, and will use the USB-C connection to connect to a MacBook Pro-like wall charging brick.
A fully charged pack is said to provide about two hours of use, and Gorman speculates that Apple may try to sell users to buy multiple battery packs for longer sessions.
On the one hand, two hours seems to be enough considering most people don’t enjoy being in VR for particularly long periods of time — though the headset’s non-immersive AR features might be more comfortable for longer sessions. Additionally, the headset is said to resemble a ski mask in shape and size, making it much smaller (and possibly more comfortable) than most head-mounted monitors we’ve seen before.
The headset will offer a variety of features and apps, from games created by experienced Apple Arcade developers to immersive fitness software to the ability to use iPad apps like Books, FaceTime and Maps in virtual reality. Apple also plans to offer a way for users to view a nearby MacBook screen within virtual or augmented reality, indicating that it will be designed with long-term uses.
Given all that, it’s not surprising that Apple decided not to include a battery in the headset. To achieve all-day use, power users will have to purchase multiple battery packs and replace them every two hours.
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