Perhaps the Metaverse isn’t so dead after all.
Despite the fact that other major tech giants, like Meta, have already produced their own variations of VR headgear, Apple has yet to publicly dabble in the area of mixed reality and the metaverse.
Still, whispers have been circulating for months that something is in the works at Apple regarding the likelihood (or rather, inevitability) of its first entrance into the metaverse.
That question may now be answered. According to trademark filings, Apple appears to have registered for its first mixed-reality operating system, dubbed xrOS.
The trademark was discovered by a Twitter user who shared screenshots of the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office file.
“Oh my god! “Apple just last week trademarked (via a shell corporation) an “xrOS” word mark in SF Pro in New Zealand,” he said.
From the font to the capitalized “OS” letters at the conclusion, the image looks to follow the same format as Apple’s iOS operating system in the screenshot.
Bloomberg first reported in December that Apple was trademarking xrOS, citing “people with knowledge of the matter” and noting that the operating system will support both virtual and augmented reality. An Apple spokeswoman headquartered in Cupertino, California, declined to comment on the claim at the time.
Palmer Luckey, who co-founded Meta’s VR headset Oculus, claimed to have tested Apple’s VR headset and declared it “so good,” but neither Apple nor Meta has corroborated the testing.
