In early April, several rumors pointed to the Apple's interest in virtual reality company NextVR. More than a month later, Apple's interest in this company has been formalized, as stated by Bloomberg. Bloomberg claims that Apple has paid around $ 100 million. All content that was displayed on the NextVR website has disappeared.
Instead a message is displayed saying that the company is digesting to new direction. Apple has confirmed the purchase from Bloomberg with the same statement as always "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purposes or plans."
NextVR has stood out in recent years for combining sports, music and entertainment, offering virtual reality experiences for live events with virtual reality glasses from PlayStation, HTC, Oculus, Google, Microsoft and other manufacturers. Before being acquired by Apple, NextVR was collaborating with Wimbledon, Fox Sport and WWE mainly in addition to being holder of more than 40 patents that could be of interest to Apple.
Apple has been working on augmented, virtual and mixed reality glasses for several years. Just yesterday, Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that Apple's smart glasses will hit the market in 2022. But these virtual reality glasses would not be the only project related to this technology that Apple could be working on, since according to various rumors, it may also be working on a virtual reality headset that would have an 8k resolution screen for each eye being its source of information both a smartphone and a Mac.
The latest official Apple movement with this technology, we find it in the LIDAR sensor that is available in the new iPad Pro 2020, a sensor that according to more and more rumors, could also be available in the new iPhone range, at least in the highest range launched this year.
